I (James) got going in the late morning a bit before Sam. I was excited that we would be seeing Tomer today for the first time since Amarillo. The terrain was a bit hilly but not too bad at the start. Unfortunately, I soon hit a stretch with a tiny shoulder, blind curves, and a ton of traffic. These were pretty miserable walking conditions, and I was relieved to stop at a Circle K about 4 miles shy of our destination. We would be staying with a couple in Payson that I had contacted on Warmshowers (an app that cyclists use to find a place to stay on long road trips). While in Circle K, I looked out the window and saw Sam marching by. The side view was a nice reminder of how ridiculous it looks to see someone walking along the road pushing a stroller full of stuff. I got going after an hour break and passed by Sam while he had stopped for a phone call. Soon after, I saw someone drive by that I realized was Tomer. He ended up meeting me at a Culver’s about a mile short of our hosts. Sam arrived shortly afterwards. We discussed the end of the trip, and Tomer revealed that he was flying out of the country on December 6th. He had picked this date based on our “end of November” prediction for when we would finish the walk. This was no longer realistic, but we figured we could still finish a few days into December if we had an efficient final few weeks (we needed Tomer to film the end of the walk). Having this time pressure was honestly kind of exciting, and it felt good to have a set deadline for the end of our walk. We walked the last mile and met Tomer at Devin and Laurel’s (our hosts) house. They had kindly prepared plenty of food for us, and I was able to have 5 helpings. During the conversation at dinner, we learned that Laurel grew up in Woodward (a tiny town in Pennsylvania that we walked through). After giving us a tour of the house, Devin and Laurel went to bed. We watched The Hunger Games in their home theater before heading to bed a little after 11pm.
11/7/22
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