Wen-Ling took me to a chiropractor friend of hers for a quick (free!) adjustment and back massage — what a great way to start the day! She then dropped me at the exact spot (thank you GPS!) at which David had picked me up yesterday and I was ready to begin.
But before recounting the entire day spent on Route 206, let me mention something that happened yesterday that I WISH I had been able to photograph — it just happened too fast. When David was driving me back to the manse after picking me up, we turned a corner and saw a man (who turned out to be the mayor of Frankford) driving slowly towards us with his left hand out the window holding the reigns of a horse that was walking beside the car. The explanation was simple — he owned the horse and it had gotten away and he was leading it home. But it certainly was a bizzare sight.
Here are a few scenes from today’s walk.
Has anyone ever visited any of the other towns in the Union named after the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824?
Pretty nice banks in Sussex Country:
More pumpkins waiting to be picked — just a small portion of this field:
First usage of my solar charger. I think it worked, but it got a little cloudy just after I deployed it:
I have a greater appreciation of the phrase “just ahead” now:
Passed lots of markets like this one:
YES! I reached Stokes State Forest! I’m stoked!
Near the end of the day I was walking past this shop:
when the man on the left of this picture (they are both Toms):
walked out the driveway onto the road and asked me if I was the guy who was walking to Toronto. I’m a celebrity! NOT. Last night David had arranged with Tom for me to stay in the parish house of his second church. Earlier in the day Tom had prepared it for me and was hanging out with his friend (the other) Tom, and proprietor of this lovely shop, when he spied me coming down the road. We had a nice chat and proprietor Tom let me have a free bottle of water. So many nice people!
It wasn’t long after that before I reached my destination:
I took a welcome shower, washed out some clothes and napped for a few minutes. Then I called greeter Tom and he and his wife Bonnie picked me up and took me to a fantastic Greek restaurant in Layton:
Tom has performed as a skater in Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice around the world and Bonnie is a show-dog trainer. What a great time of food and fellowship we had!
Tomorrow I hope to attend the church which is just a few buildings away, before setting out on my trek across the Delaware. I close with today’s enticing road picture:
Total for Day 4: 14.38 miles
Total so far: 61.70 miles
Total “in the bank”: 1.70 miles
Estimated remaining: 386 miles
Estimated date of arrival: 2013-11-07
What wonderful people you’re meeting and great pictures ! The story of the mayor leading home his horse while in his car sounds too funny but real down to earth. I can imagine this happening in an Andy Griffith Show 🙂
Hospitality can & does get better…
Continue to pray for you & all the people whom you will encounter…
Blessings,
Wen-Ling
Glad to hear you are doing well on your walk 🙂 so fun to follow along!
Love all of your pictures! Feel like I’m on the journey with you,
Allan this is the BEST blog ever. When you write your experience in a book it will be a best seller for sure. Keep sending the pics and how about some of our traverler? Love you
Hi Big Al,
Question: How are you measuring distance travelled? Are you inversing your coordinates at the end of the day or using some sort of a pedometer. If you are using the former method then you are walking further than you think.
I’m using an app on my iPhone called GPS Motion X (or something like that). I set it to compute a new track each day. As I’m walking it periodically (every 10 seconds? 1 second? I’m not sure) records my coordinates — longitude, latitude and elevation. That’s the raw data that gets made into the summaries on the DATA tab and that gets plotted on the MAP tab (thanks again, Matt!). The raw data itself is available as a download on the DATA tab. I think it’s pretty accurate so it’s probably telling the truth about how far I’m walking. It would be nice though if it were an underestimate!
The look on your face when I asked you if you were the guy walking to Toronto was priceless. What a pleasure to meet you, and hear your great story. Be safe in your journey God Bless Tom and Bonnie.
If someone were to drop a note to the Features editor of the Toronto Sun, they might actually write this up.
this is getting exciting! have a wonderful day in this beautiful weather! pictures are so clear!
Allan, when you say that miles in the baank you mean ahead of ypur expexted daily average.. Correct?
Yes, exactly Jim. I was hoping to average 15 miles per day.
The photos are really neat and certainly compliment the story of your journey nicely. Was that stuffed leaf of grapes on the plate? Looked appetizing for sure! – Too bad you missed the photo op where the driver was walking his horse! You would have had lots of entertaining quips from that photo!
Keep walking! Phil
Really fun finding & following this! Have a wonderful and safe trip!