We again set our alarms at 6am, and lounged around in the tents until a little after 7. We left around 7:45, and I went ahead while Sam used the bathroom at the nearby Candy Store to take care of some digestive problems. We were harassed incessantly by dogs today as we walked along the road. Several times they even started following us on the road. I was definitely a bit worried about getting bitten. The cows, on the other hand, were much more respectful. They would turn their heads towards us to say hello but mostly minded their own business. Sam and I both stopped at Price Cutter 5 miles in at different times, and Sam secured a $20 donation there. The next stop was 14 miles away at Post Game Pizza. The heat was tough and I was looking forward to my break when I got there around 2:30. The people working there offered to buy me a pizza (which I declined), and then an employee told me he believes in karma and bought me a 2L bottle of soda. Sam arrived about 40 minutes later. I left around 4:15, and I had been walking about 30 minutes when a man named Joe drove by and asked if I was doing okay. He also mentioned that his friend was running across America. I shouted back that I was also going across the country, and he pulled over ahead so we could talk. He set out a foldable chair for me in the shade behind the car and gave me a cold cup of water and some cinnamon rolls. I started telling him about our journey and he told me about his friend Wong Chun Kiu, who has already ran across Japan and I believe some other countries as well. He is raising money for an organization in Hong Kong that helps deaf and blind people. A short while later the runner arrived! We talked for a bit, and it became clear that he had planned his trip a lot more than we had planned ours. He is taking Route 66 all the way from New York to Los Angeles and started July 10th (so he caught up to us despite taking a route with far more detours). He plans to finish the journey in mid-November and runs around 40 miles per day with one rest day per week. It was a very cool and freakish coincidence to meet them along the road today. Sam arrived a bit later and got to meet Joe, as Wong Chun Kiu had already started running again. If you’d like to learn more about him, below are his Instagram and Facebook pages.
Instagram: wongchunkiu_
Facebook: Wong Chun Kiu
We walked another 5 miles and set up camp on a hill next to the road, reaching 24 miles on the day.
7/27/22
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