We woke up around 8:00am at the church on the outskirts of Casey, IL. After packing up our tents, we enjoyed a nice morning beer as we watched the sun climb higher in the sky. We walked about 15 minutes into the town of Casey and had a long stop at a local cafe after passing the world’s largest rocking chair. Casey is home to 12 of the worlds largest things. We also saw the world’s largest mailbox, which we were able to climb up. We also went inside the world’s largest bird cage. We then walked another 10 miles to the town of Greenup. Along the way, a man named Gene pulled over onto the shoulder while I was sitting on a rock eating SpaghettiOs. He asked what I was doing and handed me $20 when I told him about our journey. In Greenup, we stopped at a Subway and waited for my dad, who would be walking with us for the rest of the way.
Here is his account of the experience:
I (James’ dad) joined James and Sam on August 10 to walk with them on the “second leg” of the day – from Greenup, IL to Montrose, IL, a 13-mile trek on their 2,800 mile walk across America, after having walked about 12 miles in the morning. At this point they had covered some 865 miles, having started at Coney Island, Brooklyn on June 17. They were the nearest to our home in Chicago that they would ever be on this trip, so I made a 3½ hour trip by car to meet up with them. We spent about an hour and a half at the Subway sandwich shop where they had parked themselves before continuing their walk. My two objectives in joining James and Sam were to lend them moral support and to gain some appreciation of how a typical day and night goes as they walk across the country.
I am immensely impressed by their taking on the challenge of walking across America. My friend Phil perfectly sums up the significance of what they are seeking to accomplish: “Youth is not wasted on James and Sam.” I learned several things during my 19 hours with them – including their tenacious grit and my own physical limits. They leaven their day with a constant stream of good humor. Through trial and error, they have developed an effective strategy that regularly gets them about 25 miles a day further toward the Pacific Ocean, broken up by strategic chunks of rest, some of which are motivated by kind invitations of individuals they meet along the way who want to spend time with them and learn more about their walk and their mission of making people aware of the homelessness problem in our country. They even appeared on a local TV station that interviewed them about their project.
This was the first hike I have done since hiking up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire with a friend from work the month before James was born. Twenty three years later, I have rarely been so tired as I was during the final four miles to Montrose. But I made it – and did so I believe without holding them up, which had been my greatest fear! During the walk on historic Route 40, we explored a restored covered bridge, saw a fair ground with a horse race track, and were periodically confronted by angry dogs guarding their owners’ house. I also saw a meteor shower, an experience virtually impossible at home in Chicago. We found a spot to sleep in a park in front of St. Rose Catholic Church in Montrose at about 11:30 pm.
The major challenge at this point was trying to get some sleep. James pitched my tent, which I had bought the day before from REI. We were close to US highway 70 and a truck stop. The semis roared by constantly throughout the night. I may have slept an hour at most. About halfway through our walk the night before I had abandoned my ambitious plan of walking the 13 miles back to Greenup to my car in the morning. After he got up, James called for a taxi to come from Effingham, a further 13 miles up the road (and their next stop), but the dispatcher for the sole taxi service in the surrounding area said, “We’re busy, call back in a couple of hours!” He successfully engaged the hotel manager of a nearby motel to drive me back to my car.
8/10/22
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