Day 67
Walk Gently
June 1st, 2010
I'm walking across America.
That's the idea, at least. I'm walking westward from New York City for nine months or so. If everything goes according to plan, I'll be in Oregon when the clock runs out. If nothing goes according to plan, maybe I'll end up in Peru or Mongolia or Pennsylvania. You can read all about the details of my trip if you're so inclined.
Email me at matt@imjustwalkin.com
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Here's my progress so far:
If you need another sign for your cart, you may have found it.
Principle, eh? I love me some solecisms.
Did you know that the state flower of MN is an orchid. Many of them grow along the roadside (deep in the rubbish, beer cans, litter, etc.) If the road is to be widened and bulldozed, people who try to rescue orchids still cannot dig them. Sometimes all the thinking is left on the signs….
Hello to Mom from me!
Your trek was forwarded to me by a friend and I have spent the last few hours pouring through all of it. You have made me laugh and cry. I needed this great feel good story this evening. Good luck and I hope the new shoes work well for you. I’ll check in on your progress daily!
Keep Up the Outstanding Work.Deep down in everyone’s mind we all wish we could walk across the USA.
Your an inspiration to us all.Love the photos and documentation along the way.Hope your using the Garmin Forerunner to keep track of miles walked.
Keep On Walking and please update us all.
Hello from Russia, nice man!
I’ve just spent the last few hours of my “Internet time” devouring your adventure. It’s incredible and I only wish I was in the position to walk across the USA (my husband is a Soldier and I live in Germany right now). You’re discovering all of these pockets of quirkiness and hospitality. It really makes me homesick (well, that and the inability to find edible Mexican food). You’re seeing the real America, my friend! Enjoy it!
Russian readers with you, man!
Sorry for bad english :)
LOL You are stranger in this area
The state flower of MN is actually the Pink and White Lady Slipper.
Matt, Your website has kindled fond memories from our past. Forty years ago this month, my husband and I quit our jobs and, with our baby son, took to the road in search of a dream. We wanted to see if my husband could make a living selling watercolor paintings. Now at the age of 71, he is still painting every day and we never had to get a “real” job. We have NEVER regretted that decision. Our motto has always been “‘Life is an adventure – make each day count” – and that’s exactly what you are doing! We wish you well, Matt, on your adventure. You are doing it right!!
Matt- Hope the visit w/your mom goes well. Is she gonna walk w/you like Dad?? hmm we will have to check in and see. Hay has anyone set up a facebook fan page on Matt’w walk yet? Just wondering. I don’t facebook but I am sure many of you do. Nice to see all the entries from outside the USofA. You would like to think we are all Brothers and Sisters in some way…..and this adventure of Matt’s kind of solidifies it for me. The goodness of the human race realy shines through These blog’s and photo’s. And to see the USA that you can’t see from the plane
Thanks again Matt. May today bring you peace.
Lesa,
The White Lady Slipper is an orchid…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_slipper
Just read Yahoo News’s take on your walk from a few days ago. Like the idea of just walking! And this is what you remind me of, an opening scene in The House of the Four Winds by John Buchan
The milestones in his journey had been the wines. Each was associated with some vision of sun-drenched landscape. [Jaikie] had been a month on the tramp, but he seemed to have walked through continents….through vineyards grey at the fringes with dust, through baking beet-fields and drowsy cornlands and solemn forests; up into wooded hills and flowery meadows, and once or twice almost into the jaws of the great mountains; through every kind of human settlement, from hamlets which were only larger farms to brisk burghs clustered round opulent town-houses or castles as old as Charlemagne; by every kind of stream—unfordable great rivers, and milky mountain-torrents, and reedy lowland waters, and clear brooks slipping through mint and water-cress. He had walked and walked, seeking to travel and not to arrive, and making no plans except that his face was always to the sunrise…
But he had walked himself into contentment. At the start he had been restless and lonely. … There was a time at the start when Jaikie’s mind had been filled with exasperating little cares, so that he turned a blank face to the world he was traversing. His future— what was he to do now that he was done with Cambridge? …
But youth and the sun and wide spaces played their old healing part. He began to rise whistling from his bed in a pinewood or in a cheap country inn, with a sense that the earth was very spacious and curious. The strong aromatic sunlight drugged him into cheerfulness. The humours of the road were spread before him. He had learned to talk French fairly well, but his German was scanty; nevertheless, he had the British soldier’s gift of establishing friendship on a meagre linguistic basis, and he slipped inside the life of sundry little communities. His passion for new landscapes made every day’s march a romance, and, having a love of the human comedy, he found each night’s lodging an entertainment. He understood that he was looking at things in a new perspective. What had seemed a dull track between high walls was now expanding into open country…
He was in a calmer mood, too, about himself. .. He had his own way to make with no man’s aid, and he was only waiting to discover the proper starting-point. But a pleasing lethargy possessed him. This delectable summer world was not the place for making plans. So far he was content with what he had done.
You’re starting to walk in my home turf of southern part of the Twin Cities! Have fun! West central MN is really beautiful too! I took many a bike ride on the trails there. Hope you enjoy some good Midwestern hospitality!
Hey Matt- Really enjoying your journey. When you get a chance, please let us know how many nights you have slept along the roadside (“in the wild”), vs. on someone’s property vs. in a bed. It would be interesting to know how many nights you have “roughed it.” Also, have you encountered any wild animals in the middle of the night?
Safe travels. Keep on walkin’, brother.
http://www.servernotservant.com/
I have become obessed with your travels I tell everyone that will listen about you, like were are friends or secret pals. When I was a young girl I read a book about a girl that hopped a freight train with a back pack and would stop in small towns make friends and some cash and then move on it always sounded so thrilling to just sort of drop out. I am a 50 year old mother of 2 and still have these wandering dreams. Maybe some day!!!
It looks like a scientist wrote the sign. The has to be the longest way to say, “STAY OFF THE GRASS!”
Walk Gently.