On this page, I detail the most important moments, thoughts, and experiences I had on my walk across the country. All images used on this page were taken by me. I wanted to provide a valuable summary of the events that took place during this 4 month period of my life in an easy to read format. I am considering doing a short book and elaborating on different stories; however, this version can easily be read in under an hour. If you decide to read it, it means a lot to me, so thank you in advance!
A little emotional turmoil and you’d be surprised at the thoughts that go through your head. At the time, I felt like I needed to clear my head, gain a new perspective, see my world from the outside looking in. I thought of all the things I could do to achieve these goals, but nothing was satisfactory. I could go to the gym and run until I was out of breath, go to a trail and reconnect with nature, but nothing felt big enough for the feeling I had in my heart.
It was May of 2024 and I was spending the summer in Connecticut selling swimming pools, so I would be stuck there for the next couple of months. That’s how I earn most of my money for the year after all. But after that I could do something. Something big. Something to make me feel like I was enough. Not enough for others, but enough for myself. From a young age I always had a recurring thought in my head.
“I don’t want to be average.”
Simple? Definitely.
Broad? Of course.
Something a lot of people think? No doubt.
But I needed to prove that I wasn’t. Across my life to that point I had graduated high school. Normal. Graduated college. Normal. Written a novel. The world has no shortage of authors. Written a self help book. The world has many teachers of all kinds. I traveled to another country alone. Something every European and Australian does as a rite of passage. Learned a new language. Something nearly every non-American does. I started a business. Again, I couldn’t seem to escape the idea that every person had done the things I felt I could do too.
Then I was listening to a song, or remembering a time I did “Cooler Than Me” by Mike Posner for Karaoke, and thought about the time he walked across the United States. For a moment, I stopped and thought, “Well I can’t do that.” I listed the reasons in my head. The time. The money. The planning.
Immediately after that another thought followed it. “Well if he can do it, I can too.” I sometimes seem to forget that we are all human. The same hardware. From space we are all ants wandering this rock.
From an alien perspective, most are stuck in rigid loops. After a certain time, the sun has risen and many of the ants go to the same place at the same time each and every day. Curious behavior, an alien might think. But this one ant. This one ant has broken free of the loop and is heading in one direction across the rock. He has been doing so for many sunrises and sunsets. From space, the ant that travels in a single direction as opposed to a loop may seem to an alien, not average. Not the usual ant. The alien might wonder.
What is the reason? Why do all of the ants move in circles and why does this one move in a straight line? Of course there are no shortage to the reasons most ants move in circles. Humans have attachments, family, friends, a home, a job, and they need to do this to survive. And all those reasons are divine. Good. Right. Not in a bad way, but just in a way that is. I know it may not feel that way from my description. My point is not to raise one position above the other. I feel this truth in my soul now. But my point here is to ask, “What is the reason for the other ant?”
What is going through the man named Mike Posner when he decides to get up everyday and walk. So I watched an interview he had done on a podcast. The podcast was short and some questions about safety were answered, but nothing captured the essence of what he meant. I didn’t see it entirely then, but I would soon feel much of the same. I had a glimpse into this hopeless feeling of lacking the ability to communicate the awe felt during an experience. It leaves you feeling a bit lonely. People can’t relate. That’s not anything wrong with them, but it’s true. People ask you the same questions, but you never quite find the way the encapsulate the message and send it over to their brain in a few words that might impact them even a little the way that you were impacted.
Looking back now, I can see that’s what Mike probably felt. Eventually you accept and choose to live with the emotion that best communicates it. You try to treat everyone how you feel: good, peaceful, warm, content. Hopefully, over time they come to know you enough to understand that the calmness is from the experiences you had. So when they ask how was the journey, it can best be summed up as,
“It was one of the main experiences that caused me to be the way that I am.”
But in my brain I felt that this wasn’t something that I could genuinely do. Walking across the USA. What? Who does that? Well, I came up with an aspect of my identity when I was 25. It was when I was going through a falling out with a friend of mine. During that time, I recognized that I didn’t want to be someone that talked about things and said they were going to do a thing, but never did them. You run into it a lot.
“Oh yeah, I have to travel there.”
“I have to watch that movie, that TV show, read that book.”
It happens with everything and I didn’t want to be that person. If I said I was going to do something, I wanted to be someone that did it. I wanted to keep the promises I made to myself.
So the first thing I did was tell my dad. Now, I thought, since someone else knows, I would have to be held accountable to them as well. With my words leaving my mouth, I would now either be the son who one time said they were going to walk across the USA or the son who actually did. In that moment I began my actual plan.
For the next two weeks, I researched the route in between my appointments for work. I literally mapped every street, every town, and every day into a spreadsheet, labelling the days as either easy, medium, hard, or impossible. I wanted to complete this trip as fast as humanly possible.
From the beginning, I actually didn’t plan on walking the whole way if you can believe it. I planned on biking through New Mexico and Arizona because I wanted to be able to rest my head in a town instead of in the middle of nowhere. I actually felt the best way to start that would be in Oklahoma City.
I made that one compromise with myself when I was planning because I admitted I had no camping experience and I recognized that, for many. it took 6 months to cross the country. Even as crazy as I may seem, I didn’t want to spend 6 months of my life doing anything. Perhaps that’s one of my toxic traits.
Through my research, I found that I could walk until Oklahoma City and then the distances between towns became much larger. Some were 80 miles apart and rarely less than 50 miles. I knew that Google said the human body could withstand about 25 miles per day. I figured if I did that every day and mapped towns based on that upper limit as well as just went “town to town” on a bike in the west then I could complete the trip in 74 days.
Easy peasy.
Two months and 14 days is nothing in the grand scheme. And by the end of that two months, I would be able to tell myself I walked across the United States of America. I would finally be able to convince myself that I am not an average person through proof. With a search, I saw about 18 people do it a year. So if 1800 people were to do it across my lifetime, and I achieved other things hopefully I could be a one of one with the experiences I had.
At least, that was my mindset at the time.
After those two weeks I had it all planned out more or less. I would walk 30 miles a day. I would start as soon as possible because I didn’t want it to get cold.
I hate the cold.
Once I got to Oklahoma City I would switch to a bike and then I could move about 60-100 miles per day with my longest day being 118 miles out near the Colorado Desert. I would start in Folly Beach, SC because I wanted to move there after I was done. I would end in San Diego, CA because I believed that to be a place I wanted to visit more than any other city in the USA. I would leave after our family vacation to Ocean City, MD on a plane down to Charleston where my cousin lives, meet up with him, and leave the next day.
In my head, the first half would be the most challenging mentally because I had so much land to cover and it would seem insurmountable, but physically it wouldn’t be so bad. I would treat that as the uphill battle. Then, in my head, the second half would be easier mentally as I would know that I only have less than half the trip left, but physically it would be much harder due to the terrain, camping, and the vast distances between towns. Overall, I felt like I could do it.
As I write this, I understand how much more nuanced it was than that and again I find little words to describe how I actually feel about it. I’m not sure a word I know exists for the emotion.
I also understood that this endeavor was something a little rarer, and as a rare endeavor it might grab more attention than usual. Since, I had started a business within that last year selling Sensory Swings for children with special needs, I wanted to do something along the lines of that business. I felt that hopefully along the way I could raise money for a good cause and potentially bring new attention to my business which I thought was going to provide a good service to families that need it.
I felt it would be a win all around. I wanted to research where I would be raising money though because I had heard bad things about large charities that send the majority of their donated funds to administrative costs as opposed to the families they claim to help.
As a result, I researched something a bit smaller, so I could feel more comfortable sending the money there without the worry of it getting sucked up into the admin of running a charity. I found a local charity in Maryland, my home state, that provided tools and resources to parents of children with special needs. I felt it would be the perfect place to send money.
Additionally, I wanted to create a game to raise even more money, hoping that it would catch on across the nation. With that effort in mind I created the “light in the darkness” challenge. The rules were simple, I would sell these wristbands, funds of which would be partially directed to the charity and partially directed toward the prize of the game. It ended up being the case that it all went to the charity as the game never really caught on, but I thought it would be fun. Essentially, upon buying the “light in the darkness” wristband you would be greeted to the rules of the game which was a treasure hunt for the glow in the dark wristband that I would leave somewhere in my trail.
That lockbox is probably still sitting out there somewhere.
I chose this “light in the darkness” because I felt it symbolically meant that the charity was a light in the darkness for families, and I would be in the dark a lot on my trail. I also wanted my business to one day be a light for those same families.
As the weeks went by leading up to the walk people became more worried around me. My mom worried that I would get hurt. I would, partially. My dad figured I’d decide against it before actually going. I would, partially. My cousin thought it was because I had recently broken up with my girlfriend. It was, partially. Everyone, save maybe one person, thought I wouldn’t go through with it. To be honest, they were justified. It was crazy. But when asked why? Today I always say the reason I started with,
“To see if I could.”
Why does anyone do anything? Life has the meaning you assign to it. We have the freedom to choose any “Why?” None are inherently better than others. My why started out as “To see if I could.” It then grew to, “Because I want to be a man who does what he says he’s going to do.” As the plan became more multi-parted, it became, “To raise money for others.” When the trip began, if I’m being totally honest (and I understand this sounds terrible) but none of it was good enough. No reason I assigned to this trip justified the pain I put myself through. None of it even mattered when I felt the mental weight head on. When it was 95 degrees, humid, and summer-time in South Carolina and I was on day 3 of a four month journey in between two towns with 24 more miles behind me and 10 to go, exhausted and sweating buckets, nothing mattered.
I invented new reasons along the way. I invented the, “I want to be a completely unique person.” When I introduced myself to someone, I wanted to have an interesting life so I could relate to interesting people. I sometimes thought to myself, “Think of the dad lore.” When I hopefully become a father one day, I’d like for my children to see me as special even as they grow to become adults and learn more about my life. I came up with the, “I need to work through my emotions.” I wanted to use the brutality of the endeavor to help me recover from what I felt like I lost.
But here’s the only reason that ended up pushing me through.
“I don’t know how I will live with myself if I don’t do this.”
Thinking about my mental state at the time makes me sad. If I did it, at least my “potential” was still infinite in a way. Even something as grand as crossing the country wasn’t enough to stop me, but if I stopped, then what? What then? Seriously?
If I stopped in SC then I would be a complete failure. I’m not talking about in the minds of others, because others opinions of me matter a bit less than the opinion I have of myself. I would be a failure to me. If I stopped at any other point across the country, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or California, then those would be my measurement of personal value. The quote would ring my head over and over.
“You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.”
I felt that if I made it across, I could rest knowing that I did it. If I didn’t do it then I would spend the rest of my life knowing how far I made it. The exact step I took when I decided, I can no longer persevere. I would be the guy who tried to walk across the United States and failed. I couldn’t live like that. I knew I couldn’t live a day like that. So on the days where my body began to fail, I powered beyond what was safe. But I wouldn’t even know any of this until further into the trip. From the beginning, when I bought my plane ticket to South Carolina, laying on that couch in the beach place we had rented, I still thought “Am I really doing this?” To which I replied, “I guess I am.” And if, instinctively, my mind followed up with the valid question, “Why?” my answer would be.
“To see if I can.”
My journey started in Folly Beach, SC. I rented a hotel by the beach for about $150 that night. I felt like it would be a special ceremonious splurge on the room. My cousin and his fiancé took me out for a drink to toast the beginning of the coming journey. They drove me to the beach and dropped me off at my room after our drink.
In that moment, I recognized that his was something real. It was now something I had to finish. I was alone and I would be for the foreseeable future. I wasn’t sure if all my theories about how far I could walk or how fast I could travel would be correct. The only feeling was a weight of the coming journey. It was something I knew would likely be harder than anything I had done to that point. I went to bed that night with the mindset of waking before sunrise to get the earliest start on the day possible and do my ceremonious walk out to the Atlantic Ocean.
I awoke on my first morning and packed everything into my trailer which I could strap around my waist allowing me to walk without the need of my hands to carry anything. I walked a short distance to the beach, pulled out my phone to record the moment, and travelled to the ocean to get my feet wet. I then dried off and began my journey.
I had printed out a 13 page spreadsheet that labelled every street I would need to travel on. I soon realized the inconvenience of this. I soon realized the inconvenience of a lot of things. I had these aspirations to document, livestream, navigate each road, but the reality was much different. I actually did end up just using maps on my phone to navigate in the general direction west.
I periodically took out my phone to show my route, knowing that at the end of each day, I would narrate a recap to post on social media. The first day, I ended up walking about 20 miles more or less arriving somewhere around North Charleston. The biggest danger was really the cars. I even got clipped by one. I was using roads and shoulders are something that are much, much less present than you would imagine. Sidewalks only really exist in cities and suburbs and the majority of my time was spent outside of populated areas.
My first two days passed pretty easily. I was able to adjust quickly to my routine. I would wake up at or before sunrise and try to get to my next city as fast as possible so I could have more time to rest. Shower, clean my feet, throw my clothes into the laundry trash bag, narrate, upload video, find somewhere to eat and lay down to a movie in the motel room before doing it again.
Looking back there are a few days that tested me much more than others. The first of those was actually only the third day. I was walking from Summerville, SC to St. George, SC. Using the route I went, it ended up being about 34 miles from bed to bed. It was over 90 degrees most of the day, little shade, and I was going through copious amounts of water.
Even waking up at sunrise, I didn’t arrive at St. George until sunset. The only positive to this day was knowing my upper limit and knowing it so early on. It gave me the guidance to never attempt a hike longer than 34 miles due to lack of day light. It taught me that no matter the pain of blisters on my feet, I can still walk if I dissociate. It taught me that anything over 88 degrees is where danger enters the conversation with direct sunlight. It taught me that I would need to take breaks after big days because my muscles would be entirely wiped and my feet would need at least 24 hours to recover.
With this experience and information now in my head, I already began to adjust my timeline.
“Okay maybe I couldn’t do it in 74 days.”
“Okay maybe I wouldn’t be able to make that golf trip in November with my friends.”
Suddenly, I realized why it takes people 6 months to cross the country. It was odd. On that rest day, I was talking with my parents about everything and the things I was concerned about were almost certainly just projections of my own personal standards.
I felt the people online might criticize me for taking a day off. I was concerned that my trip would not be legit unless I walked the entire way, so I officially switched my mindset and said I would walk the whole way. I figured I could camp and walk 20-30 miles per day doing a camp-on day then a motel day. I had a budget of about $60-$80 a day and figured if I could put the expenses on my credit card and service the monthly payments. I could just figure out my giant debt situation after I got back from the trip. My dreamer self even thought, “Maybe this will really take off and I won’t have to worry about the money.”
I soon realized after posting my first rest day that no one cared that I took a rest day. In fact, people were so supportive. The texts I got, the comments on the videos, they truly helped me get through my mental state in those moments. Because after that first day I was thinking, “What did I get myself into?” The level of pain in my feet and legs really didn’t help my motivation for the months ahead. I figured if I could get through this by January 1st this would be a win. If I could be through it at all, I would have won.
Mentally I separated this walk into everything I could to keep me moving along. Most important were the states and the “legs” as I called them. These were marked by major cities such as Columbia, Augusta, Atlanta, Birmingham and so on.
By the time I arrived in Columbia, SC I could say I finished my first leg. It took about a week. I took a rest day to walk around the campus of University of South Carolina. A college I attended Freshman year before transferring to University of Maryland.
From South Carolina to Augusta, GA I experienced so much kindness from the people as they drove by me. People would stop me once or twice a day to give me water or snacks. I wondered at the time if it was just southern hospitality or if people would be this kind through their actions across the country. I can save you the wonder and tell you that the citizens of Georgia and South Carolina are definitely noticeably kinder than the majority of the country.
“Sorry y’all.”
During this leg of the trip, I ran into my first horrible motel, I went through some rougher areas, but hadn’t hit my number #1 worst of either yet. Those were still yet to come. Whether it seemed like it when I was posting online or not, these early stages were when I was going through the majority of my emotional turmoil. So much so that I would cry.
I was working through a few things on a personal level, but it was also paired with the physical pain of my body adjusting to the beating I was putting it through each and every day. It was also paired with the still insurmountable distance between San Diego and I. I couldn’t even break it down in my head. I wasn’t even halfway there. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way there and I felt terrible.
After a couple of breakdowns behind closed doors, I had to focus on working through all of this. I had to pay attention to the journey I was on. The once in a lifetime adventure that I was privileged enough to take. I needed to practice gratitude for the beauty that surrounds us. And so I did.
In the endless quiet and solitude, separated only by the periodic passing of cars, I paid attention to the trees, I cherished the moments I could stop at a gas station and sit on a curb. I noticed the patterns of nature and the patterns of people. It all appeared to me as one big beautiful game we are all playing together. I appreciated the suburbs outside of Atlanta, the community in Piedmont Park, and stopped for a breather to go have a day by myself in Six Flags.
I thought and I thought. I can’t string together a paragraph long enough to represent the amount of time I had to think. I can’t place enough words in a sentence to describe how detailed I saw the simple beauties of the world. Bugs, rain, mountains, a wave to a stranger, a river flowing, a train passing by. I became much more sensitive to the synchronicities that the universe places before us. It became so common that I began to wonder how anyone believed in meaningless coincidence.
It was laughable. I mean literally.
Things would happen so often that statistically made no sense over and over and over that I would laugh and know in my soul the universe was playing with me. It was playing with me just to show me it was there as my reflection. It knew me. It knew my sense of humor and it proved its attention to detail.
I thought about the personalities of people, how different we all are. How the traits of a human can be categorized into groups analogous to the elements: earth, wind, water, and fire. I thought about the moments that shaped my personality and allowed me to master the three of the four elements. I felt I may have been born with the water aspect.
“Coincidentally” I am a Pisces for whatever that means. I have never struggled with patience or going with the flow. People who know me well, may say I have a bit too much of that mentality. I disagree. I feel I learned earth at the age of eight when I lost my aunt to cancer. It was then that I realized the men in the families were the rock. The shoulder for others to cry on. I internalized that. Professionally, I learned air through sales, and the uplifting ways you can allow others and yourself to soar emotionally. But fire eluded me. I never understood it. It makes sense because my birth trait, water, puts it out. But in order to have a perfectly well rounded personality I knew I needed to master all four.
For fire, a wise man told me that I must act as a campfire. Like a father around a fire, telling exciting stories of the past. Perhaps entertaining a group of children. The campfire keeps the group safe from the cold and provides everyone for a warm place to gather and share stories. Every now and then there may be a crack in the fire, causing excitement amongst the young ones. Perhaps, the crack would even time up perfectly with the climax of the story being told. But no one is in danger. The campfire is longer-lasting. It is enough to sustain through the night, and though it might crack every now and then to keep a spark alive, it is harmless. For me that imagery of the father around that campfire, embodies the personality trait perfectly.
There are toxic alternatives of course. A bonfire is nice, bright, and lively but it consumes too much fuel to last long. It will be hot, but ultimately fizzle out, exhausted. Even worse, you may also have an explosion which is a violent personality type. These toxic aspects should be honed and controlled to emulate the campfire, the healthiest expression of passion and raw fierce emotion.
I had thought about all of these things, especially along my trip from Atlanta to Birmingham. The solitude gave me no other choice. I thought about God and the nature of reality, but that’s an explanation that can be found on another page on this site. Ultimately, I was certain of its existence simply through countless examples of proof.
The equivalent to coming out of this experience and not believing in God, would be having three separate people coming up to you at separate times throughout the day, every day telling you that you are pretty or handsome for months and still thinking that you are ugly. You would have to be blind to not see it.
I thought during this time about how special people are and how beautiful life is. How ego and tribalism is the root of all of our problems. I saw how silly conflict is. All of these were realizations that I could never unknow. I walked through Tupelo recognizing the impact that one man can have on the world. How one person can bring a whole generation together through music and even impact hearts and be the mechanism for communicating love even decades after his passing.
From Tupelo to Memphis, I learned that your mind is unbounded, but your body is not. The hardest day of my trip ended up being a 34 mile day in 95 degree heat. I had direct sunlight the entire time and my walk time ended up being about 13 and half hours. I preemptively recorded my summary of the day knowing that I might not be able to when I got to my destination. The blisters on my feet would have qualified as the worst pain in my life by day to day normal standards, but during this walk they were essentially my baseline pain. I had started wrapping my feet in bandages every day so my heels would stop bleeding. The main issue on this day was not my will power. In fact, my will power would’ve been the thing that ended me if I didn’t stop to recover.
With just 3 miles left and sweating faster than I could drink, I called my parents to help them get me through my last hour and a half of the day. To my surprise, my mom cut me off and informed me that I was heavily slurring my speech. This was news to me, though my vision was a bit wonky in that moment.
Additionally, something without voice was signaling to my brain that my body was not alright. I can’t explain how I knew, but it was as if my body was just telling me right then and there. My dad immediately called me, I told both of them that I only had 3 more miles and, other than the highway exit I was walking to for the night, I was in the middle of nowhere. Under their guidance, I sat under a tree to recover, drink water for about an hour, and listen to a podcast before continuing to my destination. The delirium and slurred speech subsided and I was able to make it to my destination with a mountain of pain.
If at all possible, I appreciated life more. It sounds dramatic, but I truly think life should be treated with the proper consistent awe that I had on that trip. I headed to Memphis, and you know what? Everyone says the place is so dangerous. I didn’t see it. I honestly felt less safe in some small rural towns or west Atlanta. Memphis to me was a nice walk, a stop by the river, and the most enjoyable Blues concert I will likely ever attend. I met kind-hearted people, had a delicious cup of coffee, and headed further west toward Arkansas.
The first thing I noticed about going into Arkansas was the immediate change in terrain once you cross the Mississippi River. On the East side of the river you have a lot of beautiful homes, but on the West side it is immediately different. Walking through East Arkansas was, up to that point, the most empty place I had travelled. The size of the farms out there are just so much larger than anything I saw in the Southeast USA. All that really stood between me and Little Rock were a few small towns and truck stops.
During this time something quite profound happened. When I crossed the Mississippi River a weight lifted off of me. By that point, I had pushed my body to its highest limit, felt I understood reality, understood emotions, understood myself, enjoyed the little things, met wonderful people, and had crossed five states.
The Mississippi River felt like such a symbolic landmark for me, as most everywhere I had travelled in my life had been “East of the Mississippi.” I had travelled to the mountains in California once for snowboarding with a friend who lived there, and went to Dallas for work once, but other than that this was new ground.
It felt like a place people had walked to 200 years ago and simply settled. It felt like I had bridged into a new chapter of the story. I felt like I had conquered so much, that the rest seemed lighter somehow. The next day I crossed my 1000th mile. Two songs flashed through my head at that time, A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton and I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) by The Proclaimers.
In the video I posted online I used the Vanessa Carlton one, but in my head I really wanted to share that 1000th miles with someone to The Proclaimers song. My friend’s birthday was coming up, “coincidentally,” so I picked some flowers at my 1000th mile, wove them into a tiara and mailed them to her for her birthday. At the time, paired with a heartfelt letter, I felt it was the most meaningful gift I could give.
By the time I reached Little Rock, AR, I wasn’t prepared to be surprised once more. I felt such peace after the 1000th mile. I felt I was closing a chapter emotionally. The things I had been working through dissipated relative to how they were. I even joke now that, if you want to solve all of your personal problems, all you have to do is walk 1000 miles. I understand how silly that sounds, but it’s kind of true. I felt everything after 1000 miles was kind of extra.
Would it be cool to reach the other side for social media? Yes.
Would it be awesome to raise more money for the families through the charity? Yes.
But whatever I was going through was solved by the time I got to Little Rock. This was the city that surprised me most. I took a day off to explore it. The parks near the Arkansas River, the cold brew at Italian Coffee Corner was the best in the nation, and the energy there was so calming.
For the remainder of the state, I felt the same energy. I even found a place to invest in real estate once I had a little money saved. Walking across the western portion of Arkansas relative to the East was like two different states. The lush beauty of the mountains, the wine country, it all brought me so much joy. It was certainly the most beautiful area of the country I had seen to that point. I have pictures on my phone that showcase a bit of its beauty but nothing really captures the essence.
After some more headaches with the mechanics of my cart, I reached Fort Smith where I had grown so accustomed to the routine of walking 20 miles a day that I felt comfortable getting a drink and going out to listen to some live music before heading to Oklahoma across the bridge.
Once I entered Oklahoma, my cart was failing me again. My tires were wearing much faster than normal. I had made it a few days into the town of Gore, OK which was home to 2 restaurants, a cafe, and a motel. As I came up to the motel, the axel on my cart broke and I didn’t have the time or funds to waste on a fix. My last tire replacement cost over $400 in shipping and I really did not have endless money to spend.
“Coincidentally,” my mom had planned to come out and visit me for a week while I was on the road so that I could walk without my trailer. She had bought her plane tickets a month prior, and it just so happened that the town she was supposed to meet me at was Oklahoma City. I was still a couple hours by car away from that city, but it was close enough that she could make the drive to me, and I just had to wait a few days.
During that time I was a bit bored. I would get coffee in the morning across the street, read, watch TV, eat, and not much else. The day mom arrived, I was confronted by the fact that my mom had travelled hours by plane, then hours by car, I had not seen her in two months, and we had arrived in a small town to meet each other, a town I had reached by foot. It was only a short run to the next town and I knew how long it would take to get there, so I showed her the coffee shop I had been hanging out at for the past three days and introduced her to the owner.
From there she took my trailer and I began my run. Though the road during the day was still lonely, it felt nice to have a safety net after two months. It felt nice to be able to run or walk without the 50 lbs. of luggage behind me. It felt nice to know that after my torturous day on the road, I would be able to go out to dinner with my mom and have a good conversation. That next week of running was interesting in its own way.
Without the weight of the luggage, I could run much farther than I could walk. At the same time, I realized that this was easily the most secluded area of the country I had been so far. The cows seemed to outnumber the people. The reservation land was full of entirely dirt roads and empty fields. I saw Bison for the first time. I also visited the town where Carrie Underwood grew up. My mom and I were able to hangout in the evenings, and the most surprising thing to me was the comment she made about my routine everyday.
She said she couldn’t believe it.
Everyday for two months, I had woken up, walked, got back showered, ate, then basically went to bed to do it all again. It was normal to me, but by no stretch was it a normal life to live. I had grown so accustomed to it that it didn’t seem strange at all. It is interesting the lengths a human brain will go to adapt to its environment.
One of the things that I learned in that moment was a counter point to a previously held belief I had. For awhile, I believed that novelty was the thing that helped enrich a life. I believed that new things, new experiences, would allow the mind to believe that it had lived more life when it looked back. What I wasn’t prepared for was my brain’s ability to make novel things routine. Every day for two months, I saw a new town, new earth, new people, roads, cars, restaurants, everything. Even though everything was different all of the time, my brain had an interesting way of making it all the same.
My novelty became routine.
Another thing I realized that absolutely crushes me sometimes when I look back is the lack of someone to share it all with. The first two months of my trip alone were a lost time in my life in the sense that no one was there to see it with me. Whenever you hang out with friends you tend to reminisce on good times you shared together, as well as make new memories. When I returned, I realized that those two months were a point in my life where I could never go back and say, “Remember that time…” and someone would say “Yeah, oh my gosh that was crazy when that happened.”
All of it lived eternally in my head.
The time I walked alone was an experience I will cherish, but it also made me recognize the importance of community, the importance of sharing your life with others, and the levels of joy that can’t fully be accessed if something is only experienced in solitude. When my mom arrived, it helps me remember that love is the most important thing in the world. At the root, it is all we have. In solitude, you can learn to love yourself and the universe around you, but only with others can you learn the importance of loving others.
I decided that the rest of the trip would be about that. I had the weight off of my shoulders after the 1000th mile. I had learned everything I needed to know about myself and the world around me. Now, it was time to share that experience with others.
When we arrived in Oklahoma City, something bad was happening with my body. I couldn’t walk like I could be before. Perhaps it was the running, or the slight sloping angle on the asphalt messing with my hips. The pain I was experiencing was unlike anything I had experienced so far.
Before then, I had the worst blister day outside of Covington, GA. Before then, I had dealt with all sorts of leg and foot pain. Muscle pain and skin wounds were no trouble to me no matter how sharp they were. The pain I felt in Oklahoma was deeper. The pain in my left hip radiated through my entire body. The pain in my right foot did the same. It radiated through my tendons, through my bones, and seemed to impact my brain. My thoughts started to change from this pain. I couldn’t help but feel like I needed to give up. I was sad, depressed, whatever negative emotions you could feel felt like they were being transmitted into my brain.
I realized I couldn’t go on like this. It wasn’t a matter of pushing through any more, I knew in my heart this was a pain that would only get worse, I still had over a thousand miles in front of me, and it was already unbearable. I couldn’t nurse these wounds like I could with my blisters, or wait for my muscles to be built back stronger. I had to make a change. With that in mind I made the decision to switch to a bike for a few weeks. I purchased a bike in Oklahoma City.
“Coincidentally,” this was the place I originally planned on switching to a bike when I first made the plan to walk across the country. Somehow my body gave out at the exact time.
Though I would have to bike with a trailer when my mom left, while she was with me I could ride trailer free. I was averaging 12 mph. It was the most freeing feeling. Once I got out of Oklahoma City, I felt civilization fall away. The fields were emptier than I had ever seen. The silence was quieter. I would ride up and down the biggest rolling hills only to be met with another when I reached the next peak. The open space never seemed to end. During these days, I felt grateful for my decision. This part of the country was meant to be biked, not walked.
The reason I believe everything west of Oklahoma City is meant to be biked until about California is because of the space between meaningful landmarks. Everywhere east of that point had at least one or two things you could notice throughout the day to make it interesting, to make it somewhat enjoyable.
In the west I felt like I might have to walk two or three days just to see anything more than nothing. But at a biking pace, I could feel the air across my face and glide swiftly through the vastness. I could stand on my pedals and look around the countryside. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.
When my mom was about to leave we had made it to Amarillo, TX. Unfortunately for the citizens there, I have to say this may have been my least favorite city of the trip. Something about the energy there made me profoundly sad. I received my trailer and was ready to go on the road again completely alone. My mom and I took a quick trip down to the Palo Duro Canyon which is the second biggest canyon in the United States.
Before she left, I saw how much she appreciated the time we spent together, as did I. I realized when she told me that, had I not done this trip, it’s possible she would have never seen this part of the country. She encouraged me to have my dad visit at some point in the future before my finishing point.
My first day solo again was south to Canyon, TX. The big stretch here was from Amarillo to Albuquerque. At this point, I still can’t believe how fast the weather changed. When I was in route to Oklahoma City the sun was hot. It must have been 80 degrees outside. I remember how much I was sweating during the day. It seemed that once I left Amarillo, all of that changed. The wind was nothing like I had seen before. It’s not that I haven’t experienced high winds in the past, but the sheer consistency of it.
As I headed farther and farther from civilization toward Clovis, NM the wind would become nonstop in my face. The temperature dropped so much that, by the time I arrived in Clovis, NM, I got snowed in for a couple days. The towns were legitimately 60 miles apart. Even the towns I arrived at were still small with one main road. I do remember Clovis having a nice coffee shop on the north end though.
My next day on the road after being snowed in was probably one of my hardest. If I remember correctly it was about 60 miles, but the issue was that the wind was consistently in my face at about 30 miles per hour. It was so strong that it would knock me off of my bike. I actually caught video footage of the tumble weeds rolling down the road just like you might see in an old cartoon.
The next day was one of my favorite rides. Fort Sumner to Santa Rosa. One straight shot. Panoramic views and the first real glimpses at the mesas in the west. The country was finally changing from the flat land I had been used to for the last few weeks. By this point, I was preparing for each day by layering up with my clothes, but I was able to shed my layers as the temperature climbed through the 50’s.
This ride had one of those moments you can’t really describe. It wasn’t about the things that happened in that moment, it was about the lack of things. I had reached the top of a hill. The ride down must have been a few miles. I could just coast at about 18 miles per hour and I could oversee the gorgeous landscape. I’d love to take someone out there to see that spot.
Santa Rosa is a town built around a Route 66 themed truck stop, nothing really changed until I reached Moriarty, the town at the base of the mountains surrounding Albuquerque. When I woke up that morning I couldn’t help but smile at how much had changed. I looked toward the snow capped mountains to my west as the gatekeepers to the most beautiful part of our country and my intuitions were right. I would do this ride again and again if I had the time. Yes, it is uphill for awhile, but by the time you get to Tijeras just east of Albuquerque you simply coast for miles and miles into the city.
There were points where my speedometer didn’t dip below 20 miles per hour. While I coasted I got to look around at the mountainside houses the rocky hill sides, trying to discern which were the biggest and most impressive.
I arrived in Albuquerque where I was to meet up with a friend getting her PhD in the area. She was kind enough to show me around the good parts of the city. I had the opportunity to meet with some of her friends as well. Though this was the first time we had met, by the time I left Albuquerque I was grateful to have been able to hang out with such a brilliant and interesting soul.
The day out of the city was one of my least favorites as the hill that climbs from the city is likely the longest continuous upslope in the country. When you reach the top, you are met with a spectacular view of the mountains and city, if you spare the moment to turn your head. Beyond that the distances between actual cities begins to climb, the landscape becomes more extreme, and you begin to realize why a lot of the pioneers of this country simply said,
“I think we will just settle down here instead.”
By this point in the trip, I couldn’t stop being fascinated with my surroundings, appreciating the beauty of all the nature was never something I never took for granted during this section of the trip. It was just too hard not to stare at the mountains, the mesas, the ground formations, literally everything. Again the feeling of wanting to share it all with someone came back around.
“Coincidentally,” at that time was when my dad was flying into Phoenix, AZ.
The location I was staying was a bit farther of a drive than the one my mom needed to take when she visited, but we would also be travelling a bit farther while he was visiting me. When I saw my dad for the first time in a couple months, the first thing I brought up was the mountains. Everything is so much bigger out west. You can’t get anything like it on the east coast. He was in immediate agreement, and I saw the look on his face when we talked about it all.
Since I was able to start riding again without my trailer, my pace and my daily distance went back up. As a side effect, so did my enjoyment. The world kept getting more and more quiet. My dad would drive to the next town, and sometimes visit me midday with a snack. We would both just be in constant awe of our surroundings. We would both point out the same mountains or similar formations over and over, just saying. “Wow look at that one.”
Every night we would arrive in a new town and my thought would be some variation of “How do people live out here?” On the east coast you become so accustomed to everything being relatively close. In Maryland, we have Baltimore and D.C within a 30 minute drive, and 20 more smaller cities and towns in that same radius. If you want a meal, need to see someone in the next town over, or want to do some specific activity, you’d rarely need to drive more than 20 minutes. Out there, if you live in Gallup, NM and you need to see someone in the next town over, you’d likely have to drive about 90 miles.
The only place I didn’t feel that way was Flagstaff, AZ where the energy held true to the name. The level of infrastructure they have in that one location relative to the surrounding 150 miles is night and day. There were plenty of places to eat, stay, and hang out. The mountains in that area were some of the prettiest I would see. My days biking relative to my days walking a month prior were rather easy looking back. As I mentioned before, I truly felt as light as a feather, emotionally. I just wanted to share that energy and that experience with the people that I loved.
My pace was so quick that we even had time to shoot up to the Grand Canyon for a momentary look. For me, I felt that was the moment in the trip where I was really able to recognize how special this trip was. Not for what happened in that moment, but also everything leading up to that moment. I had learned about myself, learned about the world, shared a special moment with my mom at the second largest canyon in the country, and now I was going to spend a special moment with my dad at the largest canyon in the country. Neither of us had ever seen the Grand Canyon before, and I was aware that if I had never done this trip then my dad may have never seen it either.
When we stepped out beyond the trees to the lookout, the first thing I did wasn’t looking at the canyon. I had seen so many special things, and had so many unique moments across my journey. The first thing I did was look at my dad’s face. The only word I can use to describe what I saw on his face was awe. Few times in our life can we get that. You only see things that are both new and incredible for the first time, a few times. Whether it’s your first time seeing a stadium full of people as a kid, your first time seeing the ocean, your first time experiencing the silence after a new snowfall, your first time seeing the Rocky Mountains.
In this case, it was a big hole in the ground. But it was a hole made from millions of years of the earth’s evolution. The walls were a time machine. The layers of dirt were a portal to the surface layers of that time. The empty air of the canyon was filled with a silence that spoke the story of its grandeur. Only upon close inspection could you see the people hiking at the bottom.
Again, I was reminded that we are ants on a rock, each moving in a direction, each moving for a different reason.
We both spent a little time there taking it all in. Both trying, but failing, to communicate the scale of things in front of our eyes. When it is put in your face like that, you are forced to remember that this world is beyond words, beyond the language we manufactured. Anything we try to say to another in a language of human creation dilutes the essence in which nature speaks.
After a quick trip, it was time to return to the road and remember the task at hand.
To reach the other side of this country.
I enjoyed the time I got to spend with my dad very much. The conversations we had over dinner. The new experiences we shared together. Through Kingman, AZ where I found the second best coffee shop in the country, Mudd on 66. Through Lake Havasu, AZ where my dad and I both pondered the oddity of its existence. The Lake, the drivable “beach,” the random island, all located in the middle of nowhere. Through Parker, AZ where you truly feel as though you are standing at the edge of civilization.
I know I’ve said it before, but between Parker, AZ and Twentynine Palms, CA civilization drops away completely.
There is nothing.
Think of the earth before humans. Think of Mars. The land beyond Parker, AZ for a stretch of over 100 miles is foreign. The only word I can find is surreal. But not surreal in the overused way of everyday life. I mean surreal in its true essence. I didn’t feel like I was on Earth in any familiar sense. Because of this, I would mark this as my favorite riding day.
My pace was faster than any other day. It must have been the wind or the shape of the road. I even had time to stop and leave my mark on the barely touched land. During this day I could see for miles in every direction. I wouldn’t mind showing someone this ride, as that is how special I believe it to be.
When I stepped off my bike for a quick clip, I recognized what true silence was. Everyday of our life in this modern age there is noise. Cars, planes, trains, people talking, animals, bugs. When I stepped off my bike, the only sign of life was the crunch of dirt under my feet. In that moment, there was no wind, no jet in the sky, no car in sight, no bugs buzzing, no birds chirping, just the silence of the Earth’s atmosphere.
On that day, I rode the longest, most enjoyable continuous downslope of my trip. Based on my pace and the time it took me to descend, it must have been several miles. Somewhere near Joshua Tree on the way to Twentynine Palms, I was able to just sit on my butt or stand, and coast down this hill observing the sandy desert that surrounded me.
As I write this, a memory flashed into my brain of how minuscule the road I was riding on seemed while I looked ahead from afar. It looked to be a dirt path, something I would never be able to traverse, but as I approached I recognized it to be a full scale road. As I coasted down this hill, my dad passed me by in the opposite direction. We met at the bottom. He made it a point that he didn’t want to interrupt that cruise. He delivered a snack to fuel for the rest of the day. Somehow I had already travelled 71 miles and it was only a little past noon, maybe one o’clock.
That night would be my dad’s last of the trip, and the most memorable. We camped out in the middle of the Colorado Desert where there was no light pollution. I had never seen stars like that. A sky filled with so many trinkles that my iPhone could capture everything. Even later, I discovered I was observing the Andromeda Galaxy. I informed my dad that I wanted to conquer the last of my fears. Solitude in the darkness. So for two hours he left me out in the desert by myself where I was able to realize it wasn’t so bad. That night we spent hours talking and stargazing. The next day my dad had a flight to catch.
(THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY IS CIRCLED IN RED, TAKEN WITH AN IPHONE)
For the last week of my journey, from Palm Springs to San Diego, CA it was time to walk again. I wanted to finish the trip how I had started it, and the towns ahead of me were all separated by more reasonable 20 mile distances. I spent a day off in Palm Springs and spent way too much on the shipping of my bike and trailer back home to Maryland.
I was left with only a backpack, no more trailer. Looking back I remember the San Jacinto Peak that rises up from Palm Springs as being the most picturesque mountain I had seen. That still remains true, but it was even more so when I walked into the town of Hemet on the other side.
Once I reached Hemet, I began to see why California is so expensive. The beauty there is unmatched. The home prices in Hemet are actually lower than expected and for a moment I considered moving there. The next town over was Temecula. I believe it to be my favorite non-beach town in the United States. I really loved the energy there. The mountains there were rocky but lush. When I described the panhandle of Texas as endless rolling hills of nothing, I can contrast that with this area of the country where it is simply rolling hills of beauty.
After a week of walking, the day had finally come that I would be walking into the Pacific Ocean. After four months, more memories than I can count, a new perspective of reality, myself, and others, it was time. I walked across the bridge into Oceanside, CA on Thanksgiving Day. I headed to the main street and, at last, I got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I walked out onto the beach, set up my camera, and jogged into the water, thereby completing my trip of a lifetime.
In that moment, the weight was entirely lifted. The weight of life. The weight of,
“I don’t know what I am going to do if I don’t finish this.”
For the rest of my life, I would be able to say to myself, “You did that.” By then I already knew it didn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme. I don’t mean this in a negative way. Because when I stood there in that water I knew that this only mattered if it mattered to me.
And it did.
That’s how life is though. We do things for different reasons. We are ants on a rock, moving in different directions. You can get a degree. Hike Everest. Become a lawyer or a doctor. Become a parent. Travel the world. Whatever your achievement it is, you get to decide the size of it and how much it matters. It’s important, if it’s important to you. This is a part of what makes us unique. I spent my life trying to do things I thought would make me more than average, that would make me unique. But we are all unique, if you don’t believe that then you aren’t looking hard enough.
In the modern age, we have endless comparison to the lives of others in the palm of our hands. That comparison truly is the thief of joy because that comparison lacks any depth. That comparison may give some anxiety about living a “normal” or “average” life.
But every life is unique.
Do a lot of people get married and have a family? Yes, but no one is going to have YOUR spouse, no one is going to have YOUR kids.
Do a lot of people go to the suburbs and have an office job? Yes, but no one is going to have YOUR neighbors and YOUR coworkers.
With these relationships, with these stories, we build what matters to us To get the most out of it, all you have to do is love.
Love yourself.
Love your neighbor.
Love your family.
Because love is all we are, all that matters, and it is enough.
I don’t know why it took me so long to realize what people truly meant when they said, “It’s about the little things.” I’m sure we can take that to mean a lot of things, but I take it to mean that all you have to do to find something special is to pay attention to the details. Because no one is going to have a story, a life, exactly like mine and no one is going to have a life exactly like yours and that’s beautiful.
I spent the next week on a high, hanging out in the best city in the United States. I know this is the best city because I’ve been to most in this country, and I haven’t seen anything like it. I hung out in Oceanside, CA and loved it. The people were amazing, the weather was perfect, and the energy made me feel perfectly in sync.
When I left there to go to Carlsbad, I knew Oceanside was the best place I had been. It was only topped when I arrived in Carlsbad. Then Carlsbad was only topped when I got to Encinitas. From Encinitas I went to Ocean Beach which I can only describe as the most California place I could imagine. It was as if every movie about Southern California had come to life.
There were people skateboarding, families watching the sunset, surfers out in the water, a guy playing Even Flow by Pearl Jam, a man in ratty clothes and a beanie spinning around in circles staring at the sky with his arms spread out. Energy wise, I felt at peace.
During my time there, I went to the city, I met some cool locals, and went out with them. I had to ask them if the place was truly paradise or if I was just on a high from my journey. They told me that it’s about as good as it gets. The weather is nice year round, everyone has a relaxed demeanor, the food is delicious. I could go on about how much I loved it. I also could go on about how welcoming everyone was. I was so grateful to have met more genuine souls. If I were to choose any place to live in this country with money as no object it would be Encinitas, CA.
After about three days in Ocean Beach, CA, I headed to Pacific Beach, CA where I stayed at a surf hostel. I knew this would be the last place I was staying. I wanted to make sure I had hit every town along that coast before leaving. From the Sunset Cliffs to Oceanside, I wanted to experience it all. This was the only place I had missed.
When I moved into the shared room, I learned I would be bunking with one other man. He was an older gentleman. Super friendly. We spoke about our lives and our travels. Through our conversation, I discovered he had done everything I had done and more. The Appalachian Trail, The Pacific Crest Trail, hiked the highest mountains, travelled the world. It was the most poetic thing to have him be the last person I met on my trip. It puts it into perspective. I had just done this thing that I felt no one else had done, then on my last couple days I met another man who has done ten times as much. At the end of the trip, all I can say is…
“What a coincidence.”
