After spending my first night in the tent last night, on the south side of Rice Hill, I toughed my way through forming blister on the bottom of my right foot, between the big toe and its neighbor. On today’s walk, I discovered that Oregon has a town named Oakland.
I hobbled into Sutherlin, a growing fire circle of a blister expanding in size almost every step. I tried to tough it out, and ignore the pain. This worked for a while– only later would I learn that ignoring the ignition of acute blister pain is like ignoring part of your house on fire.
Luckily, upon reaching town, a couple of friendly elder lumberjack gentleman hollered at me to come have a bit to eat (on them) in a local restaurant. They didn’t look much different from backwoods villains you may find in the movie Deliverance– something that, in the back of my mind, still sort of scared me. I’m glad they stopped me though– they really helped to dispel the Deliverance myth which had infected my soul.

This blister is really bad, and it will take some days before I can resume.

Not only is today my first day of walking alongside the interstate, today is also the first walking day that ends within the tent which I’ve been carrying for over a hundred miles.
In what I later would end up calling an enormous blessing and perhaps life-saver, my brother and aunt paid me a surprise visit just before I left Cottage Grove. They walked six miles with me, all the way up to the I-5 interchange.
Reaching Cottage Grove meant that the easily-to-follow, north-to-south, parallel-to-I-5 roads were no longer. My only option was to try walking some dirt logging roads within the mountains, to get from A to B. I had only a most basic cell phone at the time, and no GPS, and dirt logging roads through the mountains are notoriously confusing: they almost never have signage, and they’re rarely if ever intuitive. Even a local logger who was speaking to me just outside Cottage Grove was trying to figure out how I could make it through all connections via logging roads and more from Cottage Grove to Oakland, Oregon (yes, there is such a town). The logger couldn’t find any effective answer, so I was ready to take the situation into my own hands, and do whatever I needed to do to make it through.
I probably would have opted to walk the tracks, which hug I-5. What I didn’t know though, until Ryan, my younger brother, showed up just in time to explain it to me, was that walking next to a busy highway, you cannot hear the train coming. He explained how those who must work the tracks have spotters constantly watching for trains, as trains are difficult or impossible to hear, and can only be sighted to avoid in time. Not knowing this could have cost me my life. Through later miles, walking on busy roads near the tracks, I would learn just how true the existence of this locomotive acoustic shadow is. Many times, trains ended up sneaking by the roadside before I’d actually hear them.
Thanks, Ryan– you’re a lifesaver.

Of all of the alarmist “advice” that Matt, my older brother, was shoutcasting to me in the weeks leading up to the Walk, setting up my tent before first having to use it ended up being the one useful piece of advice with which I walked away. Suspecting that today would end outdoors, I set up my tent on my lunch break, perched atop a small hill above the interstate. To my surprise, it was less intuitive than I figured, and took me a while to figure out. Of course, had I been a seasoned outdoorsman, perhaps I could have figured it out in a snap. I’m new to this all though, so I’m happy to have followed the advice to set up the tent in advance, because where I ended up eventually selecting to camp for the night, hidden next to I-5, was not the place in which I would have wanted to figure out the tent.

All in all, the evening went by very well– first night in the tent: success!

About to depart from Cottage Grove, it’s simply amazing how wonderful and helpful people have been all along the way. Two weeks in, I’m plenty bruised and blistered, but would you believe that I have yet to even spend a single night in my small tent? Amazing! Now that I’m reaching the greater rural stretches of southern Oregon, I expect to soon be using it (perhaps tonight). Friends, family, knowns, and “unknowns” have all come to assist me as I take this Walk, and every day is a new, amazing basket of opportunities which awaits unpredictable pleasant surprises.
It’s true that the August injury to my left foot while training (I worried it was broken) sidelined almost all of the actual walking portion of the training until Day 1 of the Walk, which means that I’ve had to struggle to raise my daily average from 20km to 20 miles, but despite being bruised and blistered, and despite every step being somewhat painful at times, the smile on my face seems only to be increasing in strength and sincerity. People honk and wave throughout the day, and occasionally stop and chat as well.
Miraculously, I have yet to be rained on as I troop through Oregon on foot at the start of fall. The rains will be welcome whenever it does decide to arrive, yet you won’t find me hurrying its impending presence.
Couchsurfing seems to have been a Godsend– as new people I’ve met through the site have been wonderfully helpful in finding places for me to stay, giving me great food to eat, running occasional errands for me, and helping to guide me the best way on to my next destination. They are stepping in like heroes at every turn– and I approach the feeling of being optimistically overwhelmed by their great gestures.
I’ve grown considerably to reach the point I stand in today, yet I also believe that many tough days likely lie ahead of me– so it’s vital to keep the mind smilingly strong.
I’ll continue to post the updates (usually daily) to my homepage, and each and every positive word and thought directed this way helps!
May we rise up, brighten the internal lights we possess within, and seek to inspire ourselves and others to take those next positive, powerful steps forward!

Host Adam Tull joined me for today’s 10+ miles into Cottage Grove. His legs were very sore at the end of the day. I know how it feels, Adam!!
Adam, his wife, and their young children form a most-inviting family, a family my brother and aunt had the chance to meet when they caught up to me for a visit. This worked out perfectly– as more family members got a glimpse of all the great people who’ve been hosting me.

I did NOT awaken at the crack of dawn today. Maikey, last night’s host, had invited me to sleep in, and I quickly took him up on his warm invitation to do just that.
My body was sore, and hungry for the extra rest. The long miles had been taking their toll, especially as I had to wait till Day 1 of the Walk to get my body back in physical shape again, after that hobbling foot injury in late August. My initial goal had been to make it to Cottage Grove today, well over 20 miles away from where I had awoken (sore) in Eugene. Couchsurfing host Adam Tull and family were awaiting my arrival. Today was fascinating on a number of counts: Adam Tull gave me a call before I left in the morning, and since he was in the area on his dental office service business, he volunteered to drop by to pick up my backpack for me. How could I resist this better-than-sliced-bread offer?!? I met Adam, a very nice guy, at the beginning of my day, as he happily pulled all the weight off my shoulders.

Just as I was ready to leave Maikey’s house, I received a phone call from Skip Potts, who would be arriving to Eugene in about an hour. Skip had just finished his Boston-Santa Monica walk across America, for educational equality, a few months earlier. I’d found him on the internet, and called to ask him a variety of questions about what it’s like to walk across America, and what to expect. He gave countless valuable answers to an hour’s worth of detailed questions from me. He’d told me that he was in the process of filming a documentary about people who do long, interstate walks, and now that I was walking across America too, he was catching up to me today, to film my story. I told Skip what my route would be for the day, and he told me he’d find me amid my miles. Skip caught up with me outside a private school, and he invited me to simply go over and film there. We started filming, and then were promptly cited by school security. After explaining himself to the administrative staff, Skip and Bryan, a friend who was filming with him, received permission to film in a part of the school where there would be no risk of kids being caught on camera. We enjoyed a great interview session, and not only was I sharing with Skip the tremendous impression of how wonderfully helpful people familiar and new, including total strangers, can be, I also told him that only two weeks into the Walk, I was already feeling like it was going faster than I might wish– that I was already finding that I’d like the idea of spending more time with the people I was meeting, in their home environments. “Don’t get caught up with dates and deadlines,” Skip advised me, explaining that the true beauty of walking across America came with the many wonderful experiences I could allow myself time for on my way across the country. Though I was pretty molded into my mindset of crossing America in nine months, I did hear his words, and across the miles to come, I was to find these words to be sweet seeds scattered across my more-fertile-by-the-mile mind. Skip also offered me the wheeled cart he’d used to walk across America. I wasn’t ready to switch to a cart just yet though. I liked the flexibility the backpack gave me. Deep down, I think a big part of me also felt more “masculine” in a backpack too, regardless of whether or not I was ready to admit it. The cart seemed to bring something of a sissy image to my mind. (It would take quite some time and distance to break that cement slab of stubbornness.) He & Bryan gave me a hug and bid me farewell, as I proceeded forward on foot, and they quickly passed me with their Volvo wagon, stickers spelling “ADVENTURE NERD” prominently displayed across the rear windshield.

NEXT UP: HOLT INTERNATIONAL

Kourtni Rader, whom I’d met the previous day upon my arrival to Eugene, had invited me to visit and learn about Holt International Children’s Services. I was welcomed to meet a number of Holt staffers and be taught about the origins of the company, from Harry & Bertha Holt, who’d adopted eight Korean War orphans. For decades, Holt had been working to match children-in-need from Korea to ready-to-adopt parents here in the United States. Unbeknownst to me, friends of mine from back in elementary school, Paul & Tamara, had actually been adopted to the US via Holt. Impressively, Kourtni would later go on to begin her own organization for adoptees and unwed mothers in Korea. I look forward to catching up with her again in person, at some point after finishing the epic Walk.

Both arriving to and leaving Holt, I was walking a wonderful, creekside hike & bike trail which carved its way across Eugene. Though Adam Tull had carried my backpack forward, I kept my traffic safety vest and WALKING ACROSS AMERICA signs. Several locals asked me about the Walk as I made my way across town. I was even given a fresh veggie sandwich by a middle-aged man as I was approaching the Ducks football stadium, before turning the wrong way and losing about an hour, misguided (in these days before I had a smartphone .

By the end of the day, as night fell, I had walked my way across miles of city streets, hills, the University of Oregon and Lane Community College campuses to the north side of Goshen. I was ready to walk many more miles, when Adam called me and told me that for safety, he’d like to pick me up now, at the gas station I told him I was close to. He vowed to return me to the freeway-side Shell station the following morning, and even wanted to walk some of my miles with me the next day. Despite initially wanting to clock more miles for the day, I took him up on his offer, and the day ended at the gas station. Shortly before Adam arrived, a nice gentleman in an unusual wool hat saw my signs, asked me if I’d heard of Peace Pilgrim, who obviously seemed a very inspiration figure to him. Having spoken about Peace Pilgrim and her enormously enduring inspiration, before exchanging names, this nice man invited me home to spend the night with his family. I thanked him kindly as Adam was showing up. I really enjoyed meeting Adam and his sweet family for the first of multiple nights at the Tull House…

Leaving the Vandenberghe residence in the middle of the morning, on I charged to Eugene. I’d written previously to Dwight Coon, the mayor of Junction City, which I’d be passing on my way to Eugene. He told me he’d like to stop and walk a few miles with me once he left work, and just after shortly after I made it past Junction City’s mile-long business strip, he found me on the side of the highway, and we walked a mile together. I love seeing and learning about the human side of all of our public figures. Dwight talked to me about everyday life, work, family, etc– nothing for the cameras, just one-person-to-another, in-depth conversation.

I was still getting used to the heavy backpack, the hard way–it felt like carrying a bag of bricks around. Just over a mile out from the first retail outpost of greater Eugene, a city of about 100,000, a pretty woman pulled off the side of the highway and waved at me from across some lanes of traffic. I stepped over to say hello to this sweet young lady, and Mrs. Kourtni Rader & I have since become friends! Like the Vandenberghe Family, Kourtni had also read of my story in the local Corvallis newspaper. She offered to treat me to dinner, which I quickly accepted. She pointed to a sub sandwich shop, just over a mile down the road, and we met there. As was the case with the Vandenberghe’s the day before, I quickly trusted her enough to leave my heavy-as-bricks backpack with her. We sat down and chatted for a while across a table at the sandwich shop. At the time, Kourtni worked for a local adoption agency which specialized in adopting children from Korea. Kourtni herself was one of these children, having come to America from Korea at an early age. Fascinating to hear that she now worked for Holt, the very agency which administered her adoption. She was adamant about me visiting and being given a tour of Holt the following day. We exchanged phone numbers, and after spending a night at Maikey’s, I was looking forward to visiting Kourtni & Holt the following day.

Later in the evening, I finished hobbling my way across a busy, narrow highway bridge into Eugene. Maikey, the Couchsurfing.org host who told me on line that he’d like to host me, wasn’t calling me, and it was getting late. I wasn’t sure where I might be staying for the night, and fortunately, it appeared I would have a potential backup option with other CSers if I didn’t hear from Maikey. Luckily, Maikey did call at the last minute, and since he lived much closer to my current location, I proceeded straight to his mile-away home. An immigrant from Venezuela, Maikey works in the medical field, and spends his spare time running marathons, climbing mountains, and biking across frozen Siberian lakes, etc. He has many fascinating stories to share. Before parting for bed for the night, he gave me a roll of medical/surgical tape for my blisters, to replace the duct tape that I’d been using. His gift ended up being SUPER useful to me across the many miles ahead! More great places, more great people, and on to another good night’s rest…