I started out in the rain today, wearing rain pants and a poncho, but I soon ditched them for a t-shirt since the rain was so light and I was so hot. But the forecast is 70% probability for rain today and tomorrow so I elected to spend my second night in a hotel. I know what you’re thinking — he should be roughing it — what an opportunity in northern NJ of meeting a few bears — hotel? bah!

Well, I’m not trying to be a mountain man; I just want to get to Toronto walking. I’ll camp when I have to. So, gentle reader, if you know someone that lives near my route and would be up for an overnight guest, let me know! Tomorrow evening I will be staying with a friend of Chris’s. Anytime you want to know my route just google walking directions from where I am to Toronto, say, and you can see what I see when I start out the next day.

There was more upping and downing today than yesterday. I was gradually moving from urban NJ to rural NJ, and as I get further north
the trees showed more signs of trying to bust out their colorful inner beauty:

That confusion even carried over to some signals:

Here’s a shot of the enticing road at one point during today’s walk:

Tonight I’m one of about five guests at the Ledgewood Quality Inn near where 46 meets I-80. I have no idea why the other four are staying at this remote, obscure location. But I’m glad for the rest. As I expected, getting started is hard for this nearly 60-year old pair of legs. Hopefully a little moleskin on two developing blisters will ease the pain tomorrow.

ADDENDUM

A big shout-out to Diane who works at the Acme in Randolph, NJ. She was the first one so far who asked me what in the world I was doing. I’ve had lots of odd looks, double takes, etc., but when Diane saw me resting on the bench outside the Acme she came outside to find out about this person with a pile of strange gear. It was fun to explain it all to her.

At the opposite end of the curiosity scale was the hotel reception guy here at the Quality Inn — not even a whiff of interest in what must have been one of his stranger customers; or maybe not …

On another note, my son Matthew (to whose house I’m walking!) has added some new features to the website. On the front page you will see “MAP” and “DATA”. You can see on a map the exact roads I’ve been taking with the first link and you can see daily summaries with the second. He will shortly add links to the raw GPS data files, in case anyone would like to experiment with them. YOU ARE THE BOMB, MATTHEW!!

Total distance for Day 2: 15.02 miles.

Well, the journey has begun. What a terrific first day. I left at noon, after packing more than I should have into my plastic tucker tote. Here I am with my daughter Diana, seconds before leaving:

After two hours I reached my generous friends Simon and Miriam in Summit, and shared a cup of tea with them.

They are the ones who supplied me with the stroller I’m pushing. It’s an Urban Mountain Buggy, made in New Zealand and was discovered by Simon in the Summit dump. It appears in the astonishing list of Summit cast-offs Simon has recovered over the years.

Another three hours of walking brought me to my first overnight stay with Chris, another former colleague (and my former boss!) from AT&T Labs Research. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and a dozen more AT&T friends poured out of his house, including Simon and Miriam! We had a wonderful evening together — just a terrific send-off for my journey. Thank you so much Chris and Christine!

Total distance for Day 1: 14.96 miles.