The ADT Journey – Final Days

Posted on May 24, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

We hung around the Housatonic Valley Association’s office long enough to greet the staff when they came into work.  They gave us each a new HVA cap, prompted to do so by the condition of my current HVA cap from wearing it for thousands of miles across the country.  A group photo was taken and we headed out for quite literally the home stretch, hiking a scenic alternative to what was once my daily commute.  After just a mile we stopped in at Beard’s General Store for tradition’s sake.

Throughout our marriage, Cindy and I chose not to maximize our earning potential from the three undergraduate degrees, three graduate degrees and two professional certifications earned between us.  We instead prioritized the raising of our family.  We chose to remain in the home and rural town where I was raised, having settled there at the start of our marriage to take care of my Mom.  I would not know then that my married life would both begin and end with caring for a loved one afflicted with dementia.

We also decided that one of us should always be home and available to our kids, though there were a handful of times when our only option was to bring them to work with one of us.  As a visiting nurse Cindy could not take them; they instead came with me to HVA, a watershed organization for the Housatonic River, where I worked rather unhindered as their GIS Manager.  My cure for three bored kids was a trip to Beard’s for deli sandwiches.

Ever the traditionalist in our family, Charissa insisted on getting sandwiches at Beard’s, claiming that was the reason she joined us for the last four days, also pointing out the 22 miles we made her hike the day before warranted some type of compensation.  We arrived to find the general store under new ownership, but the current proprietor had been alerted to our coming.  Only the staff at HVA or Ky would have known our intention and schedule for dropping in, whomever the culprit also “anonymously” paid for our sandwiches.

We followed the course of the Housatonic River for the entire day.  Most of our journey involved following rivers, with the notable exception of the Great Basin desert.  How fitting that the last river should be the one for which I used a spatial database to make maps and address environmental concerns, the same river I followed on my daily commute.

We ended the day by getting back onto the Appalachian Trail to spend the last night of our journey at Belter’s campsite, just a stone’s throw away from Belter’s View, overlooking the Housatonic River valley we just followed.  The three of us shared the shelter of Charissa’s tarp, enabling us to continue chatting after the sunset.  At one point a porcupine came towards us but I growled and he acquired second thoughts.

We listened to rain fall on our protective covering for one last time, one of the most pleasing sounds of long distance hiking.  I thought about the connection of this final night with other nights of our journey, all the other times when our portable home kept us comfortable no matter what the weather was doing.  I also thought about the two times our tent failed to provide such comfort, during the dust storm in Kansas and the untimely deluge while setting up camp in Ohio.

Mostly though, while laying awake listening to the rain, I thought about transitions.  Many long distance hikers confess that they have trouble transitioning back to “normal” life.  Honestly, that was never me.  I easily transitioned into long distance hiking; I easily transitioned back.  Yet the future was never as uncertain as what awaited us at the end of this journey.  Even if Cindy was healing, she likely would not be a nurse again, nor would I reboot a career as either an academic or a GIS specialist.  We also faced the possibility that the gains Cindy made with her brain health on this journey were only temporary.

__________

We became like Pied Pipers on the final day of our journey.  Our youngest daughter Serena met us at the Mountain Side Cafe to hike the thirteen miles up over Canaan Mountain and into Norfolk with us.  On top of Canaan Mountain we took a long lunch break by Wangum Reservoir, where our son Noah joined us for the last four plus miles.  One of our hosts from the second week of the journey, Roger Monty, also joined us at the reservoir, having flown out from California just for the occasion.  With him was Bill Perry, the mutual friend who connected us with Roger to be our host, having flown in from Vancouver, Canada.

Together the six of us came down off Canaan Mountain, then took another long break at Ky’s house, which was very near our route.  A few more people joined us there for the final mile into town, including Ky.  She walked with us while her daughter drove the van and camper she used as our support vehicle.

At the ballfield road, just around the corner from the official end, Little Leaguers stopped their game to come over and cheer us on.  Next to them was the Yale Summer School of Music Campus, where music students cheered and waved us on.  This final post about our journey coincides with the premiere of my American Discovery Symphony that will be held on that same campus tonight.  Seating is still available.

American Discovery Symphony Registration

My brothers Bob and Ernie met us at the ballfield road and joined us as we finished the journey at our UCC chapel, with a huge banner and about forty people there waiting for us.  Two of those people were Bill and Marcia Hastings, whom we first met briefly as tourists visiting the canyonlands of Utah.  They continued to follow my blog afterwards and drove down from upper New York to celebrate our finish.  Also at our finish were high school classmates and long distance hiking buddies.

I marveled at the contrast between our Cape Henlopen and hometown finishes. Only a handful of people joined us at Cape Henlopen, though half of them were reporters as media outlets made us front page news the next day.  There were no reporters at our hometown finish, yet the outpouring of hometown support was by far the more special of the two finishes.

We moved the celebration into the chapel, where we experienced our last potluck supper of the journey.  Our church choir sang a couple of songs for the occasion, including “Seasons of Love,” which I designated as our theme song after hearing it sung at a variety show in New Albany, Indiana.  Unlike the choirs I dropped in on across the country they did not need to offer any incentives for me to stay, they were one of the things I missed most during our leave.

After stuffing ourselves one last time with all the delicious homemade dishes I gave my final talk, which consisted of three stories that particularly moved me during the journey: the story behind the “confuse who is giving and who is receiving” quote from Leadville, Colorado; the story of a ten year old boy from Lamar, Indiana who cried about and then helped the homeless; and the story of the Methodist Church in Sinking Springs, Ohio that expanded their membership tenfold after dedicating their mission to kindness.  So many other stories were just as worthy of being told: stories of kindness to us, such as our Trail Angel Day; stories of individuals helping others, such as Debbie Syano raising the money for a library in Kenya; stories of communities helping their own, such as all the localized community programs networking together to help the less fortunate in Marion, Illinois.

I learned from a neighbor a few days later that our blog changed his outlook of people from cynical to hopeful, that even people with different political views were humane when national issues and animosities were put aside to focus on local needs and kindness.  More people have since echoed this opinion.  I considered our public mission a success, whether by changing some attitudes towards humanity or by giving local groups new ideas on how to structure a community meals program.  Unfortunately, that message is needed now, ten years later, more than ever.

Also successful is the mission of those who maintain and publicize the American Discovery Trail.  We truly discovered the broad mosaic of America as we walked 5,000 miles across the country.  We discovered a wide variety of natural and cultural landscapes, as well as many sources for beauty, joy and kindness across the country.  So much so that I composed the symphony to tell the story of this rich American Discovery, which I subtitle “an orchestrated travelog and love story.”

If I were to ignore hindsight I would also say we were successful in regards to our most important mission, to reboot our lives and heal Cindy.  She went from a withdrawn person who could not keep a journal on her own, nor assist me with setting up camp, to being able to do both.  She grew more confident and hopeful for herself with each passing week of the journey.

I bottled up the moment Cindy put the tent up by herself as a permanent memory of what hope feels like; I still flash back to those moments when Cindy proclaimed:  “I feel myself getting better!”  Unfortunately, such hope was short-lived.  The day after our finish I brought Cindy in to see a physician, where she was diagnosed as having Lyme disease, acquired from that New Jersey tick.  There happens to be a high correlation between the spirochetes responsible for Lyme and gum disease with dementia, an even higher correlation than with the amyloid plaques that mark Alzheimer’s.

We had just finished what would be the most amazing of all our journeys together, but my caregiver journey was really just beginning.

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The ADT Journey – Week 52

Posted on May 20, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

Week 52 will be my second to last post reliving our walk across the country from ten years ago.  The final two days will be posted shortly after May 24, the tenth anniversary of when we finished the hike and the date my symphony about the hike will premiere.  The following link is for those in the neighborhood who want to register and attend.

American Discovery Symphony Registration

We left the Community Presbyterian Church in Chester for the last time, with Ky dropping us off just miles away from the New York border.  By the end of the day we would be inside New York and on the Appalachian Trail, which we would follow for most of the way home.  We packed for nine days, the remainder of the journey, with the intent of camping mostly on the AT.  I got the sense that Ky would have liked to continue supporting us until the end, but the opportunity to meet her would be few and far in between while we followed the AT.

We tell people asking how we met that thru-hiking the AT was our fifth date.  Ending our ADT journey this way, on the same trail where our overall journey began, added an exclamation point of nostalgia for us as we passed familiar places like Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain State Park and the crossing of the Hudson River.  We hiked on familiar rocky trail through familiar deciduous forests, as comfortable to us as the local park.

Interjected into this comfortable nostalgia was a heartwarming sign of new hope.  On our second night of camping on the AT, I was in the midst of cooking our traditional trail supper of mac and cheese with tuna when Cindy told me she wanted to put the tent up by herself.  I watched her slowly but surely lay out the ground cloth, tent and rain fly; stake down the tent and properly attach the fly; then put sleeping pads and bags into the tent. She looked at me with that cute smile of hers when she was done, a subdued expression of joy I suspected held back soaring spirits underneath.  Certainly my spirits were soaring.

On our third night along the AT we camped on the grounds of the Graymoor Monastery.  When I first thru-hiked the AT in 1975 I stopped at the Monastery, as almost all thru-hikers did, for the free all-you-can-eat meals they provided, in keeping with their mission of accommodating wayward travelers.  AT traffic back then could be measured in the hundreds total, now the traffic measures in the thousands yearly. Predictably, the Monastery no longer offered all-you-can-eats, but instead constructed a pavilion on their property for AT hikers, along with a fire ring and even a shower. Once again this is an example of how the nature of kindness must change, or even disappear, once volumes of people come to expect kindness from targeted sources.

While a graduate student in the late eighties I entered a national essay contest in my field of Natural Resources.  My paper on “UHiking” was awarded second place.  My thesis was that as long distance hiking traffic increased, established trails would suffer both environmental and cultural abuse.  I offered “UHiking” (I should have called it You Hiking) as an alternative.  Rather than follow a fixed, established trail end-to-end, I suggested sojourners incorporate just sections of established trails into a journey tailored specifically for “you,” with meaningful start and end points that do not necessarily correspond to the established trail, thus spreading out the traffic and mitigating the abuses.

If I wrote that essay today I also would encourage sojourners to be spreaders of kindness, not just recipients. Perhaps there are things you know how to build or repair; Habitat for Humanity’s Bike and Build programs follow this model.  Perhaps you are in the health care or culinary fields.  Perhaps you can perform music or other means of entertainment.  Perhaps your kindness to folks along the way can be giving talks about kindness or community.  Your mission of kindness would be tailored to you, just like the route you choose.

Shortly after the Graymoor Monastery we shortened our route by getting off the trail and onto roads for that day.  I knew from several times hiking that section that we missed with our detour.  As an AT thru-hiker this would be an appalling detour worthy of scorn for “yellow blazing” (the Appalachian Trail is marked with white blazes).  As an ADT “You Hiker” I become the only judge of my routes.

Through this extra mixture of rural roads we met a variety of hikers, bicyclists, motorists and people out in their front yards, over fifty people in five days.  Some were earlybird AT thru-hikers, having hiked over 1200 miles already.  We delighted in meeting thru-hikers because of our own experiences; now I wonder how I might have felt if, after hiking over a thousand miles on my own journey, rightfully satisfied in doing so, I suddenly met a couple who had just hiked four thousand more.

On our alternate route we camped at Fahnestock State Park, where we became celebrities to the neighboring campsites.  One young couple shared their supper and had their picture taken with us.  A group of young adults invited us to join in their birthday celebration at another site.  Some of the birthday gatherers were involved in a social experiment leaving T-shirts in bathrooms for strangers to pick up, hoping that these shirts would end up being spotted around the world.  They gave us one of their T-shirts to leave in a bathroom farther up the trail.

Our daughter Charissa came out to join us for the last four days of our journey. Being our daughter she of course had prior hiking experience.  We once went out to Mt. Rainier to hike the 100 mile Wonderland Trail as a family, but Charissa literally went the extra mile.  As a high school student she worked at a McDonald’s in the neighboring town of North Canaan, eight miles away.  She occasionally would bike to work and even walked there once.  Charissa left no doubt she was the daughter of the woman who once told me “mind over matter” for handling the pain and discomfort involved in long distance hiking.

The evening we met Charissa we hiked a short distance to the next AT lean-to.  We encountered several hikers already set up there and had a good time chatting with them.  The next day featured heavy rains and we hiked only eight miles to the next lean-to, which we shared with Craig and his 12 year old son Hunter, both thru-hikers.  I asked Craig what kindness he experienced on their travels and his first reply was the kindness of his son taking care of him during the hike.

The eight mile day meant hiking 22 miles the next with Charissa, who of course was not yet broken in.  The weather continued to be rainy, but you would not know from the women in our group.  Though Cindy’s spirits were lifted when she put up the tent by herself, that was nothing compared to her obvious joy from hiking with her oldest daughter.  Despite the long miles and rainy weather, Charissa infused the days with good cheer.

Liv

Not everything was rosy.  For my part I had a slight intestinal disorder which worried me as to whether I could do justice to the potluck dinner awaiting us at the end of the hike.  Those concerns were alleviated when we reached the Housatonic Valley Association office at the end of the 22 mile day.  We arrived too late to spend time with my former officemates, but they left behind a feast for us while we camped on the office floors.

I also worried for Cindy, as during this stretch I noticed a red bullseye on her. I knew this came from our guerilla camp near the zoo in New Jersey, when our tent was invaded by ticks that night.  Having had Lyme disease twice before myself, I made a doctor’s appointment for Cindy the day after our journey would end.

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The ADT Journey – Week 51

Posted on May 13, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

With the finish line in sight, our pace picked up through New Jersey.  As this was not part of any official route we chose whatever local and state roads provided the most direct route.  We encountered a diversity of people and places, but did not linger anywhere for long.

We walked by large estates and humble homes, home proprietors and shopping malls, gardens and skyscrapers, Hindu temples and carriage horse racing.  We stopped only briefly to chat with a postman, pregnant Mom, Paraguayan family and various ages and ethnicities.  We transitioned between cultural landscapes similarly to how long distance hikers transition through natural landscapes.

Much of the appeal for us long distance hikers lies in this grand scale transitioning.  I realized this as we strolled through a garden.  Many people like to view different museum exhibits or the flowers in a garden over a small portion of a day.  I love viewing various landscapes over an entire day, particularly mountain landscapes that change after every pass or bend in the river.

The American Discovery Trail provided us with changing landscapes at a meta scale.  Natural landscapes changed between ocean shores, plains, mountains, canyons, deserts and different forest ecosystems.  Cultural landscapes included cityscapes, urban neighborhoods, suburbia, rail trails, farmland, ranches, villages and ghost towns.  The American Discovery Trail lived up to its name and I highly recommend it to any landscape junky.

The grand diversity of our journey extended to the various church floors upon which we slept.  With the references of our home UCC church, the nature of our blog and access to a cell phone we knew we would be staying on those church floors across America.  With Ky serving as our support person, making advanced contact on our behalf, we also stayed on Baptist, Methodist, Assembly of God, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and community church floors as well.  Ky arranged for our three church stays in New Jersey.

Ky also served as a great kindness ambassador.  All my interviews, podcasts and blog posts limited my socializing with many of our hosts across the country.  When Cindy was known as “Gabby Galvin” her warm, conversational style would have engaged anyone.  Though she grew more garrulous as we headed east, she remained the quietest among the three of us.  Fortunately, Ky filled in for our shortcomings quite well.

Ky arranged for our three church stays in New Jersey, which proved to be a challenge because of insurance issues at many of the churches she tried.  This was yet another example of how the quest for security, or to “be safe,” conflicts with a quest for kindness.  Still, Ky managed to find us places to stay when and where we needed.

Our first church stay was at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Medford.  Father Don Muller and his wife Lynn took us out to dinner at the Mexican Food Factory.  Afterwards, we went back to stay at the church, and to learn about “Ugly Quilts.”  Ugly quilts are made from scrap fabric and neckties by the 10-12th graders.  They go to the inner city, where their “ugly” status minimizes the possibility they will be stolen from the homeless.

After a free stay at the Timberland Lake Campground, once again arranged by Ky, we then stayed at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton.  Ky arrived at the church in time for one of the three community meals they offer each week.  They prepared extra meals to give to Cindy and me when we arrived.

We save the best for last, the last church we stayed at in New Jersey, the last church we stayed at for the entire journey.  Ky first picked us up in Bridgewater and brought us to the Community Presbyterian Church (CPC) in Chester, where we stayed a few nights.  Unlike the insurance conscious churches of New Jersey, this Presbyterian church went out of their way to welcome us into their fold.

We arrived while they were rehearsing for their Mother’s Day service, which we then attended the next day.  Presbyterian and Congregational churches (my home church) have a common lineage, which perhaps explain why everything from the church structure to the service seemed comfortably familiar to us.  The vibrant coffee hour after the service particularly reminded us of home.

Over the few days spent at CPC, while Ky slackpacked us northward, we spent time with a variety of parishioners.  We chatted with families at the coffee hour.  Andy and Martha Smith invited us into their home for dinner and showers.  We kibitzed with volunteers Tabby and Bonnie as the Midday Friendship Center prepared dinners for Meals on Wheels.  We talked to handyman Richard and son Dan, who repaired things for the church and for whom the church helped find a home.

The single factor that made us feel most at home at CPC was Pastor Chris Scriven, who reminded us greatly of our own Pastor Erick Olsen.  On our last morning Chris brought us some bread freshly baked by his wife Michelle and chatted for a while.  Our visitation near the close of our journey reminded him of Presbyterian Kenyans they hosted near the end of their visit to this country.  He shared a dream he had about us, conjuring an image of us walking for kindness juxtaposed with a night rain.

We talked of ways to connect our two churches together and in a final gesture he gave us the key to their church, attached to a lanyard.  Anytime we were in the neighborhood, walking for kindness or any other reason, we could just use the key to make ourselves at home.  What an extraordinary gesture at our last church encounter, in a state where many churches were worried about their insurance.  The best saved for last!

Handyman Richard would become Ky’s boyfriend; in years hence they traveled back and forth between New Jersey and Connecticut to be with each other.  Richard could be seen on many occasions at our church services in Norfolk.  I had every intention of returning to the CPC, of using our key to the church someday, but have yet to do so.  The arc of how Cindy’s dementia and my caregiver duties progressed after the journey was over still prevents me from doing so.

On May 24 the symphony I composed to tell the story about our walk across the country will be premiered at the Music Shed in Norfolk, CT. You can register for the event here.

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The ADT Journey – Week 50

Posted on May 7, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

What I remember most about the day we finished the ADT portion of our journey was working out the lyrics for the song I composed in my head back in Ohio, the song about kindness.  I came up with lyrics about the kindness found in children, a village and overall humanity, based on all the kind experiences we witnessed on the journey.  A photo captures my memory of precisely where I finished those lyrics; Cindy was looking at the dead end to a sidewalk, which consequently came right before the first film crew came to meet us.

I incorporated that song into my American Discovery Symphony, an orchestrated travelogue and love story.  The Yale School of Music will premiere my symphony on May 24, the tenth anniversary of when we finished our walk across the country.  You can register for free admission to the concert here:

American Discovery Symphony Registration

The route went by the high school where our host Serinda Conner taught and she had her class out there cheering us on as we walked by.  She also baked us a thoughtful cake (having known we were coming) with ADT references, that she brought to our finish on the beach.  Lion Karl Gude, on behalf of the Lord Baltimore Lions Club, came out to hike the last half mile with us.  He also treated us to lunch the day before our finish, and escorted us as guests of honor for his Lions Club meeting the evening of our finish.  Poetically, the Lions Club contact that started our journey’s mission for kindness and community became the last.

As for the finish on the beach, we started the ADT journey at the Pacific Ocean on a raw day in June and finished at the Atlantic Ocean on a raw day in May.  Aside from the subdued atmosphere of the ocean mists, we were not really finishing the end of our journey.  We would hang a left and continue hiking up the Atlantic Coast until we reached our home in Connecticut.  Before leaving the shore I picked up two smoothed pebbles that I would later use for guitar picks whenever I play the final movement of my American Discovery symphony.

Reaching Cape Henlopen was preclimatic for us, but not for the media.  In addition to the crew from WBCC 16 to meet us on our way to the finish, a crew from WMDT 47 met us at the shore, and we followed up with an in-studio interview with WMDT 47 the next morning.  A reporter from the Cape Gazette also covered us at Cape Henlopen and we were their front page news the next day.

We spent a couple of rest days with Serinda and her family, and joining the Conners one pleasant evening on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk.  We also went on a tour of Dogfish Brewery.  We did not need the rest days so much as we were stalling for time.  Before we resumed our hike up the coast we rented a car to attend our oldest daughter Charissa’s graduation from the Honors program in Nutritional Science, making the trip up and back in one day.  We resumed hiking after making that field trip.

I also used the rest days to catch up on my blog posts and wax philosophical about a couple of issues our journey highlighted.  One was the pervasiveness of virtually everyone wishing us to “be safe.”  If we wanted to be safe we would not have hiked 5,000 miles across the country.  I prefer instead to “be well,” or to “live well,” to strive for a high quality of life rather than all my actions geared towards safety.  For that matter, all those people wishing us to “be safe,” while bestowing an act of kindness upon us, failed to practice their own advice.  Being kind to strangers involves risk, easily avoided if one wants primarily to “be safe.”

Perhaps I am making too much out of the fact that “be safe” is universal in this country, while “be well” is seldom heard as a parting greeting, but I can’t help but link how pervasive “be safe” is with how fear-mongering has made our nation increasingly apprehensive.  The fear-mongering goes beyond the NRA and their corporate benefactors using the tactic for gun sales.  During our recent pandemic, fear-mongering was the currency for both anti-vaxxers and pro-vaxxers.  Adherents to different political parties have gone beyond vilifying each other’s platforms to vilifying each other.  I fear the ever-increasing fear in America.

In a switch from the usual, Ky waited for us back in Delaware.  Upon our return Cindy and I took the ferry over to Cape May in New Jersey, while Ky drove to meet us.  While avoiding major highways, we often hiked along residential streets, going into and out of towns, meeting people in their yards on a frequent basis.  One commented on my blog afterwards; a couple of people offered us their place to stay the night; one cute little girl wanted her picture taken with Cindy.

We could not accept many offers of kindness because we were now near the end of our journey.  In December we could take impromptu days off for weather or hospitality; we knew we could make up the mileage before our targeted finish date of May 24, one leap year after we began our journey.  With under three weeks to go any major diversion from our intended daily mileage would make our target finish increasingly difficult to achieve.

We became more like passing motorists as we walked through the pine barrens, or past a zoo right along the route.  One night Ky brought us to a campground that comped us our stay; the other night we camped with permission in a homeowner’s woodsy yard.  We discovered the next morning that the woodsy yard we stayed in nearly bordered the zoo we passed.  That might explain what I discovered later as the worst thing to happen along our entire journey.

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The ADT Journey – Week 49

Posted on May 3, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

Throughout our ADT journey we encountered a variety of sleeping arrangements.  Most often we slept outdoors, due mainly to the western, wilderness portion of the route.  Sleeping on church floors was not far behind, due to the wintry, heartland.  Much less often, but still significant, were stays at motels or inns paid for by hosts of my talks, trail angels or the motels themselves.  With some regularity people hosted us in their homes.  This included trail angels just met, old hiking buddies of ours and people connected to the ADT.  In the week leading up to finishing the ADT portion of our journey, we benefited from every single one of these prior sleeping arrangements.

First up was the Community Church of Greenbelt, headed by Pastor Dan Hamlin. The town of Greenbelt originated in 1937 as a planned community, with a focus on affordable housing and diversity.  Residents for the community were selected to reflect proportions on the 1920 census.  The theme of community continued to be infused throughout the town to the present day, such as the credit union and cooperative supermarket where we resupplied.

No surprise then regarding the vibrancy of the Community Church.  For one thing they were among the churches outside the DC area taking turns housing the homeless with a rotation.  They also renovate a low income house for someone every year, and often lead all UCC churches in raising money from CROP walks.  We caught Pastor Dan just before he was to transition from the Community Church pastor for 28 years to working for Church World Service and CROP walks.

Greenbelt’s reputation extended beyond town boundaries.  At Greenbelt Lake we met Kent and Julie McCullough, organizers of a NASA-Goddard Flight Center 10K run.  They endorsed Greenbelt’s care for the elderly.

Next up as our evening hosts were Kyler Kamp and husband Craig, who lived in Annapolis.  Kyler was the twin sister of Torria (TJ), who hosted us on the Eve of Easter after seeing us on the road as a motorist.  Both sisters became art teachers.  Apparently with advanced warning from TJ in regards to our appetites, Kyler prepared lasagna, chicken pot pie and a vegetarian pizza for supper.

Our third evening host was a Best Western on the east side of Chesapeake Bay.  We spent the day hiking through the charming city of Annapolis, with its preserved historical buildings and tours, innovative community initiatives and the Naval Academy.  At the far end spanned the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which bans pedestrians and forces ADT travelers to find an alternative means of getting across.  Fortunately, we had Ky to drive us over the bridge.  After dropping us off on the east side she went on to Grasonville, where she persuaded a Best Western to comp us a room, the third Best Western on our journey to do so.

The next evening we camped outdoors at Tuckahoe State Park, staying at the only lean-to along the southern route of the ADT.  Much of the day before and morning after our stay at the lean-to we traveled by farms, as well as people who actually knew about the ADT, not all that common across the country.  Then we hiked into the town of Ridgeley around 11:00 pm, right when the United Methodist Church service began.  We attended the service and went out with Pastor Joe Smith and wife Dolly afterwards.

The next two evenings were our first in Delaware, the final state along the ADT.  We stayed with Jean Hinckley, the Mom of our good hiking buddy Mike.  We dropped in on Mike while driving out to California; we stayed with him a few days while in Denver; now he came out to his Mom’s to be with us again.  While the five of us were having dinner together the first evening there Jean commented on how jovial us old thru-hikers were.  The bond created by people hiking long distances together, along with the memories shared, results in such jovial reunions.

Knowing about our kindness mission, Jean brought us on a field trip to meet her friends Ken and Lori Ockel’s, and specifically daughter Emily.  Emily collected “gently used” shoes, over 10,000 of them at the time I interviewed her.  The “Waterstep” program funnels shoes to new owners in developing countries via an exporter, the funds exchanged in the process then applied to clean water projects in developing countries.  At the time Emily was their leading “shoe-getter,” and eventually was awarded a national humanitarian award for her efforts.

When Mike joined us hiking, for much of the time I hiked ahead a few paces while Mike and Cindy hiked together.  Paired with such a good friend from our hiking days, Cindy nearly became the “Gabby Galvin” of old.  Maybe, just maybe, this journey healed Cindy.

While they chatted I reminisced about our journey, with plenty of visual aids along the way.  The whole state of Delaware called up the flat farmlands of Kansas, as well as the border between Illinois and Indiana.  Earthworms on the road after a rainy night reminded me of our last morning in Ohio.  Caterpillars crawling across the road reminded me of California, also a reminder that we started and were finishing the ADT in spring.  The hot conditions on the second day in Delaware reminded me of the Utah desert in summer.

To round out the nostalgia tour of sleeping arrangements we stayed with a friend of the ADT on our next night.  Serinda Connor, like a few of the other friends of the ADT, kept us on her radar far in advance of our arrival into Delaware.  She welcomed us into her home on the final night before we would hike to the Cape Henlopen beach and the end of the trail, though not of our journey. More about Serinda and the finish next time.

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The ADT Journey – Week 48

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

Amidst the otherwise busy C&0 Canal east of Hancock we experienced one slow day, meeting only two other people on the trail.  Perhaps the one gray, overcast day interrupting the spectacular blossoming of spring discouraged some recreationalists.  Perhaps the location about halfway in between Harpers Ferry and Georgetown allowed for mainly long distance travelers on that stretch.  If so, we were fortunate to encounter the one person out there for his daily walk.

Bahram is an Iranian taxi driver who walks regularly to address a sciatic nerve problem.  Upon our meeting he referred to us as inspirations and phoned his Costa Rican wife just to tell her about meeting us.  He then handed the phone to Cindy, not me, and Cindy gladly took the phone and chatted with a woman she never met.  An unremarkable thing, unless you consider that a woman once in cognitive decline was growing more confident each week.

Bahram turned around to walk with us back to the parking lot where he started.  He brought us to a nearby store, where we ordered a couple of pizza slices, then returned us to the rail trail.  We later met Scott Matheson, also a hiker fitted with his rain gear for the day, who was hiking the towpath to Cumberland, then following the Allegheny Trail towards Pittsburgh.  No one besides us stayed at the Chisel Branch campsite that night, perhaps because of Dulles International Airport being a mere ten miles away.

Our destination the next night was Swains Lock, where we met none other than Irving Swain, whose grandfather was the last locktender there.  Locktenders were on 24/7 call to open the locks for passing boats and were given canal quarters to live in near the locks.  The canal ceased operations in 1924 but some locktenders remained for a while afterwards.  Irving’s cousin remained at the Swains quarters until just a few years ago.

 At age 75 himself, Irving asked if I was 70.  The farther east we hiked I went from an old man with a young blonde, to a father with a daughter, to looking thirteen years older than my real age.  The trail is a humbling experience for all, but this was a new twist to that humility.

We camped next to five young urban professionals near Swains Lock, four whose work involved transportation, two who worked for the Department of Transportation.  Ironically, none of them owned cars and had cycled to the campsite from the city.  Cindy did well at helping me set up the tent, then spent some time writing in her journal, not once asking me about what happened that day.

More confirmation that Cindy was on the cognitive mend came the next day.  As we neared Georgetown the traffic on the C&O Canal increased, with most people walking.  Cindy Stewart walked with us for a little while, engaging mainly Cindy in conversation while I walked behind and listened.  The other Cindy led an impressive life as a photographer, journalist and an exotic trip leader for a nonprofit.  Cindy in turn shared a little about her own impressive life.

We met a woman walking two dogs, which irresistibly drew Cindy towards her.  Cindy recalled the names of other pets we met along the way, starting with Buster and moving on to dogs that slipped my mind.  In general now Cindy no longer deferred to me answering questions if she enjoyed the topic, which was a good thing since some things she remembered that I did not.

The C&O Canal ended and we continued on an urban walkway into Georgetown and onto the Thompson Boat House.  Ky met us there to bring us to the home of Cindy’s close friend Jean Fregeau, well off the ADT route in Ellicott City, Maryland.  Technically we were all friends, all had hiked long distances together, but this was a case of Cindy and Jean being friends and college roommates first, leading to them hiking together.  The only thru-hike Cindy did without me was the Long Trail in Vermont with Jean.

The past few days revealed Cindy was quite up to the task of engaging our hostess herself.  I did my usual thing of creating blog posts and podcasts, while Ky visited her relatives in the DC area.  The three of us did a few things together, after all Jean was a hiking friend of mine as well, and Jean’s daughter joined our company occasionally, but otherwise Cindy often spent time with Jean on her own..

While staying with Jean we took a trip into DC for an interview with Krista Lenzmeier, the Executive Director at the time for the American Discovery Trail Society.  We met with Krista at the Wilderness Society where she debriefed us in regards to our American Discovery Trail experiences and then took us out to lunch.  We had a wonderful, chatty time together.  

Ky dropped us back at the Thompson Boat House where we played the role of tourists hiking across DC.  We stopped at the Capitol along our way for the long anticipated talk with our Congress representative about kindness and community across the country.  Unfortunately, our representative seemed to think we mainly wanted a photo opportunity, definitely a false impression, and dropped in briefly only for that purpose.  We instead talked to his interns about the problem of declining community involvement and the inspiring solutions we encountered during our journey.

Krista had been attempting to find us a place to stay within DC for the end of this day, but one barrier we faced was a DC law preventing churches from allowing the homeless to stay overnight on their premises.  The law was passed in response to growing numbers of homeless, which is a bit ironic.  However, we did see signs in the vicinity of the Supreme Court, displayed by both the United Methodist Church and Unitarian Universalist Church, demonstrating support for immigrants.

Without any churches or other prospects available in DC we continued hiking towards Greenbelt, with Ky picking us up at the end of the day to stay at the Community Church there.

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American Discovery Symphony, May 24, 8:00 pm

Posted on April 25, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

On Tuesday evening, May 24, 8:00 pm, the American Discovery Symphony will premiere with a full orchestra at the Music Shed, on the Yale Summer School of Music campus in Norfolk, Connecticut. The symphony synchronizes five movements of music with photos, interviews and sound effects from our 5,000 mile walk across the country along the American Discovery Trail. In the telling of this story the symphony presents both a travelogue and a love story to the audience. Free General Admission tickets have been limited to about half capacity and are available here:

American Discovery Symphony Tickets

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The ADT Journey – Week 47

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

The C&O Canal started in the mid-nineteenth century as a towpath along the Potomac River, using a series of 74 locks to shepherd boats over difficult stretches.  Now a trail shepherds hikers and bicyclists over the same route, through a National Historical Park that features the locks and other historical structures.  Civil War signage at a few spots educates the recreationist along the way.

Frequent campsites with toilets and water made camping as easy as the gentle grade of the trail.  The height of spring greeted us along this particular stretch, with frequent photo opportunities for birds, flowers and butterflies.  As an added treat we hiked through the longest of all tunnels along the ADT, the 3,118 foot long Paw Paw Tunnel.

My blog posts from ten years ago revealed we took a rest day in the trail town of Hancock, but I have no photos taken of that day.  I know we stayed at the United Methodist Church, where I caught up with the Internet and chatted with the staff, but I neither gave a talk nor interviewed anyone.  Ky returning to us again after her longest time away was the one thing memorable about Hancock.

After Hancock the traffic along the C&O canal picked up.  Most were bicyclists, which made us stand out as targets for conversation.  Kathy stopped to give us snacks.  Tom & Dave delighted in telling us about their fishing trip.  We discussed humanitarian issues with Morey and his dog, though the dog was not interested.  We got tips from the two brothers and lawyers, Eric and Jack, about our upcoming meeting in Washington, DC with our Congress representative.

I set up the meeting in Washington after my talk to the Lions Club in Dodge City, Kansas.  In response to my information about declining community involvement, some of the members declared:  “You need to tell them fellas in Washington.”  As that meeting drew near I spent many a mile thinking over what information needed to be conveyed.

A six mile detour took us away from the bike trail and by the house of Sam and Dana Wright.  Sam hailed us to chat as we were walking by, subsequently inviting us inside for water, snacks and meeting the family.  Dana was a judge who through the court system witnessed the problems of housing and hunger our mission advocated addressing through community involvement.  I took mental notes to work this into the conversation with my Congress representative.

Ky picked us up for a speaking engagement at the Christian Community Church of St. Paul’s, seven miles south of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, at the request of Pastor Roland England.  Four former denominations merged together to form the UCC:  Reformed, Evangelical, Christian and Congregational.  Pastor Roland’s church joined the UCC as a grassroots, community church.  They purchased a defunct Lutheran Church for one dollar, while start up money from the UCC enabled them to build from there.

Every Sunday morning at 8:30 am Roland, his wife Nancy and parishioner Shawn gather to cook pancakes, bacon, eggs, home fries and scrabble.  A handful of parishioners come every Sunday morning at 9:30 to eat and a handful more join in for the service at 10:00.

The church service was the most informal I encountered, with everybody including the pastor dressed in jeans and flannels.  I believe technically I gave a lay sermon, but felt more like a talk I would give at a school or Lions Club.  As was often the case, questions I received were more about hiking than kindness and community.  I was asked the two most common questions, one being about how many shoes were worn out, the other being about bears.

I gave my standard answer about bears, they are nothing to worry about in the wilderness if you know what you are doing.  I even had the recent bear encounter in Dolly Sods to use as an example.  One parishioner asked if I carried a gun.  I reiterated that no, instead I knew what I was doing.  He somewhat dismissed my answer and claimed that we ought to be carrying guns to protect us from bears and other dangers, pitting his handful of wilderness miles against my 20,000+ miles.

I agree wholeheartedly with the NRA slogan that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”  Unfortunately, prior to the seventies people cited hunting as their number one reason for owning guns, now they cite protection.  This shift occurred even as crime rates went down; occurred because the NRA and their sponsored politicians scared the bejeebers out of the public for the sake of gun sales.  Unfortunately, an apprehensive and at times angry person near a trigger is more dangerous than a calm person.  Our journey across the country, from Green Mountain Falls, CO to Harpers Ferry, WV, provided testimony as to the growing apprehensions of gun owners, fueled by NRA rhetoric prioritizing gun corporations over members … or lives.

Harpers Ferry lies at the crossroads of the ADT and Appalachian Trail, with the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy located there.  As a former AT thru-hiker I stopped in at headquarters to see how they were getting along without the famous Jean Cashen, former ATC secretary and friend to hundreds of AT hikers.  The new folks, Dave and Wendell, greeted me with the same enthusiasm.  Prior to this year they kept a photo album of long distance hikers that contained only AT hikers.  This year we became the second pair of ADT hikers added to that photo album, “Boston” and “Cubby” having been the first.

 While at ATC Headquarters we met Cassie Meador and Matt Mahaney, who were hiking 500 miles along the AT and collecting 500 stories about community, energy and dance.  Cassie’s background in dance led to a friendship with Heather Doyle, also a dancer who happens to be the daughter of Warren Doyle, arguably the most recognized name among AT hikers and the person who organized the Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 1980 that brought Cindy and me together.  With similar missions in mind, Cassie and I interviewed each other about our different community experiences.

We continued to encounter steady traffic on the C&O Canal after Harpers Ferry.  We met thru-hiker Renaud, heading in our direction where the American Discovery and Appalachian Trails overlapped, who told us about the kindness he experienced as a cyclist from Belgium to Jerusalem.  Then we met cyclist Tom, who told us about the kindness received in every book about thru-hikers he read.  While we chatted with Tom, Phil stopped by while on bike patrol, relating to us that he was involved in the wounded warrior project and alleviating southern poverty.

We met Phil Wilkes at a campground the same day we visited ATC Headquarters.  We mentioned to Dave and Wendell that we were the first ADT thru-hikers to continuously hike from west to east.  Dave added:  “that people know about.”  I protested that, unlike the AT, very few people hiked the ADT and easily fell in the radar of folks like Sharon Weekly, Marcia Powers and Dick Bratton.  Then meeting Phil caused me to rethink that boast.

Phil had recently lost his job and was down to no resources and no prospects, prompting him to hike the ADT until he either figured out what to do with his life or there was no more trail to hike.  He was only vaguely aware of the ADT resources out there and I knew for a fact that, as of the day we met, none of the usual ADT “scouts” knew about him.  He could have, in theory, hiked the entire ADT without anyone knowing … or he could have figured out what to do with his life, which is often a result of long distance hiking.

By the way, the answer to the shoe question was 8 pairs for me, only 3 pairs for Cindy.  I pronate, while Cindy has one of the most beautiful, efficient strides I have ever seen.

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The ADT Journey – Week 46

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

Before parting from Gwen we treated her to breakfast at the Breakfast Nook, a special restaurant that helps young adults with previous dependency troubles become independent through work and mentoring.  We chatted with mentors Keith Bishop and Tammy Robbins about the success of their approach and Gwen left intending to establish a connection between them and her college, Fairmont State.

After breakfast we hiked through the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge and up into the Dolly Sods wilderness.  Unfortunately, the higher elevation meant leaving blossoming spring behind, experiencing mainly late winter vegetation with a few spring buds.  At least we hiked on well graded and easy to follow trail, unlike some of our wilderness experiences west of the Rockies.

We encountered no other people in Dolly Sods, only a few bears that charged off once they spotted us.  Bears in the wilderness avoid hikers, unless you are carrying food that is easy to smell.  We package our food well, with our long distance, sweat soaked packs providing an extra deterrent.

Another potential problem with bears is getting between them and their cubs.  I once spotted a black bear up ahead on the trail and stopped to take pictures.  While I clicked away the bear got off the trail and headed in my direction.  Once parallel with me on the trail, about 12 feet away, I noticed the two cubs up in a tree behind her.  At that point the bear moved directly towards me and I responded by raising my arms and yelling at her.  She stopped, apparently mulling over whether she should bother with a crazy person, and I headed on up the trail.

A touch of nostalgia hit as we knew Dolly Sods would be our last immersion into wilderness along the ADT.  We stopped several times just to soak in the panoramic splendor.  I fancied that Dolly Sods would be a fitting end to such a long journey, similar to finishing the Appalachian Trail on top of Mt. Katahdin.  Yet I knew by now that fulfillment lies in the journey, not the destination.  As the ADT continued beyond Dolly Sods, now mostly downhill to the Atlantic, so would the fulfillment of our journey.

Had our journey ended at Dolly Sods, we would have missed the next day of kindness coming out of that wilderness.  Pastor Mike Humphrey spotted us walking by his home and invited us in for refreshments.  He had hosted Jerry and Karen two years prior, ADT hikers whose names popped up repeatedly during our journey.  He lamented not being able to host us (though I am not sure we would have ended our day that early), as his family was packing for a vacation even as they offered us snacks.

Mike called two of his parishioners who lived farther along our route to host us that evening.  Thus towards the end of that day we found Leonard and Jeannie Carr doing yard work while keeping an eye out for us to arrive.  We tented in their yard but went inside to join our hosts with supper, breakfast and, most importantly, kitchen table type conversation.

We followed surprisingly scenic Knobley Road north towards Maryland, at times along scenic streams, at times with landscape panoramas, always with the blossoming of spring in evidence.  Small churches, quaint cemeteries, imaginative mailboxes, rustic barns and rural farmland once again dotted our route, as they did in Ohio.  Ranches out west and agribusinesses across the heartland tend to be large, the rural parts of the east contrast starkly with decentralized and diverse agricultural endeavors, such as the Amish.

We occasionally met and chatted with people along Knobley Road, discovering from a chat with Don and Adam that impending school centralization threatened the rural local charm of the area.  This was a phenomenon I studied in graduate school, based mainly on the research of Jonathan Scherr.  Scherr found that the centralization of schools often increased education costs, contrary to what advocates have turned into conventional research.  My own subsequent research uncovered that since school centralization first took off in the fifties and sixties the per student cost of education rose significantly over the ensuing decades.

The concern of Don and Adam was about community rather than costs.  The local school is a hub of local activity bringing people in the community together.  Taking away these local hubs, whether they are schools or post offices, reduces the amount of community interaction.

Another interesting conversation occurred with Roger and his son.  They believed that humans were not nice, even as they went out of their way to chat with us, give us snacks and fill up our water bottles.  This seemed to be a regional problem.  People in the heartland prided themselves on community and kindness, even objecting slightly at the suggestion that another state may be just as kind.  The farther east we traveled the more cynical people became of human nature, even while exhibiting their innate kindness.

Our last day in West Virginia occurred on Easter and much happened to make the day memorable.  The evening before we wondered where to guerilla camp when a car with TJ Quesenberry and friends pulled over to ask what we were doing.  TJ suggested we stay at her place, which was right along our route and just outside of Fort Ashby.  Upon our arrival TJ and boyfriend Josh prepared some huge burgers with all the fixings for us.  She also prepared us Easter breakfast the next morning.  As if that was not enough she called her sister in Annapolis and arranged for us to stay with her as well when we got there.

We arrived early for the Easter service at the church.  I once again got the opportunity to sing with the choir and once again choir members jokingly offered me a job if I stayed and continued singing with them.  When I once again passed up the offer they gave us unsolicited donations.

As we neared the border we passed a family celebrating Easter with a picnic and egg hunt.  We called out Happy Easter to them.  Moments later two kids chased after us to give us some of their Easter candy.  Once again this simple act of spontaneous kindness moved us more than the grander gestures experienced throughout the journey.

Gwen came out to meet us one last time at the border, before we left her state.  She brought us gear we had stowed at her place while Ky was away.  I first met Gwen as one of my Resident Assistants at a college dormitory where I was the Hall Director.  She always remained one of the easiest persons for me to talk to, but I noticed now how at ease Cindy felt around her as well.  Looking back now I am saddened to realize that was the last time Cindy spent with Gwen.

Once we crossed into Maryland we hiked east on the C&O towpath, now turned into a biking/hiking trail.  For the first two days we encountered only three people; apparently trail users from the populated eastern portion of Maryland seldom come this far out west.  We expected not to encounter people in Dolly Sods, but not encountering them on a bike trail in the height of spring gave the feel of a ghost town, or ghost trail if you will.  The solitude of a wilderness area?  Heavenly.  The same solitude on a bike trail?  Spooky.  Thankfully, that changed once we reached Hancock.

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The ADT Journey – Week 45

Posted on April 11, 2022 by Humanity Hiker

From Grafton we went to stay with Gwen Jones, a close friend from our long distance hiking days, and her husband Ted McMahon.  Though she lived in Connecticut when we met and hiked with Gwen, she had since moved to West Virginia where her family roots lie.  They lived in Morgantown while Gwen was a professor at Fairmont State University in Fairmont.

Gwen laments the days of her grandfather in West Virginia when coal miners knew “which side they were on,” unlike today when interest groups, corporate news and political parties persuade the West Virginia public into supporting policies not in their best interest.  One particular “news” culprit is the same one we encountered in the heartland riling up viewers about the campaign donations of organized labor, though minuscule in size to the donations of corporations to both campaigns and lobbyists.

Our experiences in Ohio and West Virginia suggest fracking to be the new coal.  Extracting resources does not have to lead to a bust economy if enough diverse opportunities for employment exist independently of the extraction industry.  Some coal towns have achieved such diversity.  Yet in an age where corporate funding of interest groups and media ignores the downside of “get rich quick” industries, I suspect busts from fracking are inevitable.

While we stayed with Gwen we also met Gary Auerbach, who found out about us from the TV coverage we received in Clarksburg station WBOY 12.  He lived near the North Bend Rail Trail and contacted us to stay with him, but we had finished hiking on the NBRT by the time we received his email.  We invited him instead to come meet us while we stayed with Gwen.

Since Gwen was a professor at Fairmont State University, we arranged to meet Gary at McAteers, her favorite lunch spot in Fairmont.  Gary incorporated his skills as a juggler, dancer and world frisbee champion to become a “playcologist” that traveled to schools around the country encouraging kids to get outside and play more.  Gwen brought along her coworker Matt to the lunch, seeking tips from Gary for the ultimate frisbee program at FSU the two of them led.

After our lunch meeting I gave a talk to Fairmont’s outdoor adventure program that Matt directed.  Later I gave a talk to an honors leadership class that was finishing a film on Machiavelli when I arrived.  By this time I felt so comfortable with my kindness and community material that I could incorporate the material on the fly into a discussion about Machiavelli.  These would be my last college presentations of the journey, which precisely mirrored the first ones I gave at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction.

Gary arranged for us to speak as well, at Watson Elementary School, where his wife Wendy worked as a school counselor.  At the time the school was doing a unit on kindness and as we entered the school corridor, KINDNESS was posted in big letters on the wall.  I had no trouble adapting my material for this audience.

While staying with Gwen we made a trip into downtown Morgantown, where third graders from St. Francis Elementary School were leading a “Lend a Leg” protest, raising awareness about the children maimed and killed all over the world due to landmines and cluster munitions.  The children paraded with “Lend a Leg” signs on one block of the street and had a station where passersby got a picture of their leg taken in exchange for their donation.

As we left Gwen to resume hiking on the trail, Ky left to go back home to keep her dog company in his final days with cancer.  This would be the fifth time Ky parted from us for a few days, but this parting differed from the rest.  All the other times Ky needed a break from the journey, this time you could tell she hated leaving us.  We were sad to lose her for a while as well.

Yet as with every time we hiked without support, kindness tracked us down.  On our way from Grafton to Parsons, WV, motorists stopped to chat with us, then sent us to the Tygart Lake Public Golf Course near our route.  We stopped and asked to use their restrooms.  The managers gave us Cokes and two golf caps to take with us.

The day before Parsons we were nearing the campground where we would stay that night when a young man with guitar slung around his shoulder game out to greet us from his porch.  His mother Anita, father Mike and neighborhood friend Kendall then came out to join Tim in chatting with us.  Tim and Anita had life threatening experiences that made them grateful to be alive and inclined to be kind to strangers.  When we reached the campground later, Mike came by with hot dogs, bread and bottled water for us.

We arrived at Parsons on Palm Sunday, just in time to attend the St. Johns United Methodist Church service, along with attending their pizza lunch and Easter egg hunt afterwards.  I asked Pastor Phil Dent if we could stay in the building that evening.  After he said yes we went out to get more supplies for the next stretch.  By the time we came back he arranged for us to stay at the Parsons Country Inn, Ken Bott proprietor, with supper and breakfast included.  I donated some of the food I just bought to the church and packed the rest. Before transferring the the Parsons Country Inn I sang in the choir for the evening Palm Sunday service and we attended

Ken had a ministry of using his business to help the homeless; I guess we qualified.  I interviewed Ken about his ministry and had a discussion with both Ken and Phil about community involvement.  I long had known that a problem for denominational churches with engaging youth is how set they are with certain behaviors and traditions.  Ken and Phil provided examples of how this problem applies to communities as well, also explaining why volunteerism has gone up as societal problems plague us, but community involvement has gone down.  Young adults want to bring their own new solutions to problems, rather than be plugged into existing solutions.

The next two days out of Parsons featured spectacular beauty.  A new bike trail from near Parsons to Thomas had been created along the Blackwater River.  We hiked on this bike path rather than the official ADT route,along roads,  as we had every confidence this would soon become the official route.  We spent almost the entire first day out of Parsons hiking along a roaring river, boisterous cascades and thundering waterfalls, witnessing the blossoming of spring through the flowers and trees.  That evening we camped near a small but loud waterfall that provided better soothing respite than a grand chorus of spring peepers.

The next day we reached the end of the bike trail and beyond the maps I carried.  Fortunately, we soon came upon a road construction crew that provided us directions to Blackwater Falls State Park.  Since the construction turned out to be in the direction our initial guide, Ed, radioed ahead to his colleagues, who waved, cheered and gave us further directions, whether needed or not.

Once in the State Park we took a side trail for the obligatory viewing of Blackwater Falls, then hiked on trails, once again on the official ADT route, towards our destination for the night, Canaan Valley State Park Lodge.  Gwen booked us a room for all three of us to spend the night;  she met us on the trail and hiked the last few miles towards the Lodge.

The three of us watched the UConn women’s basketball team lose to rival Notre Dame that evening.  Yet not even our favorite team losing in a tournament dampened the warmth of one last night spent with our Gwen.  Making new close friends all across the country was one of the best parts about the trip, but still bittersweet when there is no guarantee to ever meet again.  There was no such bitterness to the sweetness of spending time with our long term hiking buddy who we likely would see again.

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