Woke up to breakfast that my aunt made for us. Her and my little cousin Emory got to see us off as we left their house. Domino was staying with them. We planned on coming back to stay there tonight. As we were walking through her neighborhood, some of the neighbors were cheering us on as we passed by. Great weather and a great start to the day.
We walked about a mile and then we met up with a woman who I met on my last walk and her parents. It was so crazy. She passed me when I was walking in the Rocky mountains in Colorado and stopped to talk to me. Her dad had done a long distance trek before. It was crazy that this walk went so close to where she lives and that I was able to see her again.
They all decided to walked with us for a while. We got stopped by a woman and a man. Neither knew each other, they just happened to pass us by at the same time. The woman was a total bi**h. The guy was extremely kind. I wanted to talk to him but everything was so chaotic with her directing everyone on how she needed things to be. There is no way she is married. No one in their right mind could put up with her on a daily basis. She was horrible. The kind man got offended and left sooner than he wanted to. He was still nice enough to donate to us before leaving. I got his email address and plan on sending him a message later apologizing for the rude woman.
We all laughed about her after she left and we continued to walk. We had some tricky interchanges but we made it safely. We actually got pulled over by the police. People were calling in saying that we were blocking the roads (which we weren’t) and all kinds of other stuff. The police officer was nice to us as we were to him and no harm was done.
We all talked about how rude people are in the Newark and surrounding areas. It’s ridiculous. Blunt is one thing, but these people don’t care about anyone but themselves. It’s bad.
Thankfully, as always, it wasn’t true for everyone there. We still met plenty of nice people along the way. The family that joined us left after walking at least 5 miles with us. I think it may have been more actually. They were so awesome. It was great having their company.
We walked through some neighborhoods that looked like they had a high crime rate. People were way nicer to us there actually. We had some awesome conversations with people as we passed by. One woman had attempted suicide via a drug overdose before and was very thankful for our compassion and understanding of her sufferings. We enjoyed all of the conversations we had as we walked into Newark.
We had to cross two big bridges to get into Jersey City. The first one was horrible. The pedestrian path was too tight for Stick’s cart to fit through it all the way. So we had to keep lifting it up to get over obstacles along the way. We made it though. The wind and traffic and dust was horrible. Definitely getting close to the concrete jungle. There was constant loudness and so many people moving too fast.
It was beautiful though. We could actually see the New York skyline. We freaking walked here from Key West. So crazy.
We walked through Jersey City where there was so much traffic that we were moving faster than the cars at times. We pushed on through and came to Liberty State Park. We were planning on walking to the other end of this park and ending here for the day. Then we had to figure out how in the world to get back to Westfield.
Well as we were entering the park, a guy in his truck saw our carts and saw us looking around like we were lost and he offered to help. There was a marina next to the park and he lives in the marina so he knew all about the area. We told him what we were doing and what obstacles we were facing and he offered to let us keep our carts at the Marina overnight so that we could move around a lot easier. He was saying that we probably couldn’t take the carts into the train. This helped so much. This guy was awesome. He saved New Jersey for everyone. Made up for all the Aholes.
We walked around the park for a little bit and took in the sights of the skyline and the statue of liberty. Then we decided to call it a day and left our carts with him and then made the crazy commute back to Westfield.
We had to uber to the subway station and then take the subway to the train station and then take the train to Westfield and then my aunt picked us up there.
She had dinner for us back at her house and then we were so done. A very hard day but awesome day too!
I have a question:
Do you walk, make forward progress, and then backtrack at times for housing? If so, do you get dropped off at the furthermost point you got to the day prior and start from there the next day?
Yes and yes. When we are done walking for the day, we mark our spot and go figure out lodging. When we start walking again, we go back to the exact same spot and continue. On John Azerolo’s Facebook page, he posts our daily progress via the MapMyWalk app.
Sounds like a rough day to me! You all be careful in the Big Apple!
It’s been said the people in the Northern Nj and New York area aren’t very kind. Maybe it’s due to so many people in such a congested area. there’s always going to be a bad apple out of the bushel. (No pun Intended ). LOL. I was wondering about Domino but my question was answered in this post. I Love the photos . Be safe guys.