The road ahead is anything but predictable.

Later today, I’m hoping to speak to another elementary school– this time K-5, where Darcie goes to school in Vail.
Darcie is the nine-year-old daughter of James & Kimberly, the thoughtful thirtysomething couple who invited me to spend some time with their family as they saw me making my way out of town, WALKING ACROSS AMERICA signs attached. Kim told me she’d been aware of the story from around the time I’d first begun the Walk. While it’s not uncommon for someone to see a news story in some given city and later stop to chat when they see me walking the road, it is very rare for someone without just a couple of degrees of separation to have already been familiar with the story weeks or months before I ever approached their city. Nonetheless, this is the case here.

After the lovely massage they hosted me to, and the follow-up invite to the Saturday sweet 16 birthday party of a dear family friend of theirs, Sunday morning I met Kimberly’s pleasant parents, Clyde and Linda. Later came a couple of hours of super-fun, intense bicycling with Kim, slaloming through a very prickly desert cactus obstacle course near a local Air Force base, barreling down bone-breaking bluffs at many points. James had lent his sturdy mountain bike to me, and though a loss of balance on any one of countless cactus-clad corners would have easily translated into an ER visit, those trails were sooo much fun!! Bicycles seem so fast to me, that I’m entertaining the option of actually riding one home from the White House. (No quick decisions on that one, however!)

Sunday evening James, Kimberly, and their three children, Darcie, Calvin and Ellie hosted me to the local Sweet Tomatoes Buffet. I arrived with quite the appetite; however, I really don’t remember ever experiencing so much post-buffet stomach pain upon departing. I felt about ready to pop! A nap was in order once we made it back home…

I truly hope that speaking to some classes at Darcie’s school comes to pass later today, as speaking to schools has suddenly become far more attractive an idea to me– one I plan to spend ample time organizing for this fall, during my summer recess. Whether today’s school appearance happens or not, I’m about back on the road east, ready to walk a series of main roads, side roads, dirt roads, and desert floor to reach to and through New Mexico. Daytime temperatures are rising again (Monday 88; Tuesday 89!), and though the heat may retreat for a reprieve here and there through the miles, it’s far more likely to just keeping rising as I keep pushing east.

I can predict that I will be making it further east on foot this week, walking across a variety of surfaces, and meeting many new souls. I cannot yet predict how far I’ll make it by week’s end, or how great the challenges I face may become. I simply know that I’m loving this chapter through the Southwest, and as the saguaro sunsets slowly recede as I step into the hills and higher elevations ahead, I’m determined to take the best attitude into any given situation– for better or worse, once again this week, I will surely enjoy the walk!!

I wrote a blog earlier in the day talking about how I didn’t know if I’d receive any invitation into any home over the coming weeks, as I walk 250+ miles into Las Cruces, New Mexico. I was aiming to camp at Colossal Cave Mountain Park– a 16+ mile walk for the day. However, I didn’t even make it halfway. Within just a couple of hours of leaving the house, I was receiving multiple invitations. I’m spending tonight with the Ragland family, who found me walking down Houghton Road. After stopping and giving me a bottle of water, they offered me a foot massage at a top-notch facility further down the road.
How could I not take them up on such an offer..??
The foot massage turned into a FULL body tune-up massage, an hour long, and left me feeling fantastic– both physically and mentally recharged. Kim Ragland then invited me to the sixteenth birthday of Mariah, the daughter of her great friend. By the time we were coming home from the party, it felt like we’d known each other for at least weeks, after only five hours had passed from talking to them on the side of the road. When talking to them, I enjoy occasionally referring to myself as: “the guy you picked up today off the side of the road.”
I spend tonight in the Ragland house. James & Kim are parents to three lovely children, all of whom are under age ten. Darcie, 9 years old, was so cute when she shyly approached me with a pad full of handwritten questions.
They’re trying to get a speaking appearance lined up for me at Darcie’s school– I surely hope it works out!!

Invitations may be in the works for Benson and Bowie as well, both of which await me within the next hundred miles or so…

I continue forward, prepared for the hardships and simultaneously accepting of the delights, as they come…

I leave today from the eastern edge of Tucson (Bonanza Road, to be exact). From here, I head back toward Interstate 10, aiming for Las Cruces, which is some 270 miles away. I figure at best, I’ll be arriving there in the second week of May. I may not have a roof over my head till then– we’ll see what develops across the miles.

Two weeks of slowly moving across the widely spread Tucson metro area has been a rewarding experience– one that will someday bring me back to experience more of the enormous amount of local treasures offered the traveler.

My mind and body have been calling for greater challenges recently, and so umbrellas of excitement greatly overshadow strings of nervousness within regarding the unknown and unpredictable adventures to come of these next warming weeks.

As was the case when I walked through eastern California and western Arizona, I will probably be spending at least a small amount of time walking along the freeway. I’ll certainly be spending more time walking all available frontage roads, side roads, dirt roads under power lines, and sometimes even the flat floor of the desert, when possible. My eyes will be wide open for the many species of rattlesnake which are well out of hibernation mode and slithering all across the landscape. I’ve already heard the shakity-shake of their rattles, assuring me that they really don’t wish to be any closer to me than I do to them.

Wrong turns in fir-tree carpeted regions of the Pacific NW meant that I had to walk all the way back. Now, however, I simply cut across the open desert floor if it appears easier– just watching to make sure I don’t step on rattlers.

When I don’t camp in an official campground, I typically just find a place that is far enough from the road to be seen by no one– which is much more easily done after this winter’s heavy rains still has all the plant life in bloom.

Some wild animals could potentially be a threat in some places. Probably not, but nonetheless, I’ve followed the advice of the most experienced outdoorsmen, and I’ve picked up a small boater’s push-button air horn, which will squawk so loudly that any large animal will quickly run for its life upon hearing it. Bright lights are also said to do the trick– and I have plenty of those too– plus mace!

I’m overpacked again, so I’ll likely be shipping away some thermals, warm socks, and other small items as soon as I get the chance. I hang on to them for the moment, as Tucson recently had some very chilly evening weather, and from here I’m walking into elevations of 5,000 feet and above…

The great power of growing enthusiasm fills me at this point, as I’m more excited through each passing second of what’s to come as I step outside the doorway this afternoon of the some of the most wonderful hosts in the world here in Tucson: Kathy, Brenda, Trevor, Ashley, Harriet and Delissa…

My apologies for no updates to this page in six weeks!

Too much has been happening away from the computer to update this as regularly and as well as I’d otherwise wish.

From the day we left the Coachella Valley and started our way out of California via Box Canyon, the desert experience has on many fronts proved both very challenging and very rewarding.

By the time I’d made it to Phoenix, I understood why following intuition had me beginning a walk across America over a thousand miles before I’d officially need to. A much shorter walk across America could have been started from Santa Monica or San Diego, from where it would be only about 2,500 miles to Jacksonville, Florida’s Atlantic shoreline. Having entered the Walk as anything but an outdoorsman, however, those first thousand+ miles from Vancouver built within me the toughness and determination that would be necessary to brave the challenges of the desert adventure, in addition to the many challenges which continue to await me west of the Mississippi.

I love meeting and staying with new people constantly, but at the same time, camping in the open desert seems never to come up short of being a truly soulful experience.

Pulling away my initial, pre-walk nine-month time frame for reaching Washington, D.C., was probably the best decision I’ve made so far. I’ve also decided to take a summer recess, in which I’ll likely return home, volunteer, meditate, harvest lavender, strategize the next chapters of the Walk, and probably throw in a summertime Vancouver-to-Vancouver walk (BC-WA) as well. The initial nine-month time frame will easily be doubled. That’s okay though– as I’ve created the space in my life at this time to allow for this. This fall, I’ll pick up from the exact street corner I decide to leave off at in June…

In Phoenix, I caught up with many great friends who once lived in Clark County. Brooke & Mike Shamhart and their seven-year-old daughter Olivia live in Peoria; I stayed with them for nine days. Brooke is a fifth grade teacher, and her class has been enthusiastically following me for months. They wrote to a great local shoe store and organized a gift certificate for top-notch new shoes for me. I met with them on Tuesday, March 30th, and spent the day with the class. This was perhaps the most rewarding day of the entire Walk. I’m now inspired to speak to more kids at more schools throughout the miles to come. Most of these talks will probably begin this fall, once the new school year gets underway.

I also stayed two nights with Brooke Santos & Hussam Moussa, and their cute little ball-of-wild-energy daughter Maryam. Before departing the area, Ben & Shae Cecka invited me in to spend three nights with them and their wonderful sons Jonathan and Joshua. Each of these excellent experiences definitely deserves its own blog, and I look fwd to taking the time to write them, down the road .

What makes me most happy upon leaving Phoenix, is that all three wives and all four kids met each other on the First Friday Art Walk, in central Phoenix. The wives hit it off well, the kids had lots of fun playing together, and I thorougly enjoyed the opportunity to be there with all three families at such a fantastic Phoenix art event. (Shae added enough delicious, home-made sandwiches to feed an army!) The wives are now friends with one another, and will likely meet up for this and more events. The truly tickling tie-in is that all three met each other as a result of their kind willingness to reach out and be of helpful assistance to someone else (me). Further proof that great rewards come to those who choose to volunteer time and energy to help others, expecting nothing in return…

I’m now slowly making my way through Tucson. Upon reaching Marana, on the outskirts of Tucson, I was to stay overnight with the Church family. Upon arriving, however, the fact that they’d just spent five years living fifteen minutes from me in Clark County made me feel so at home, and it was very easy to take them up on the offer to spend the rest of the weekend, three nights total, there. The “Church People” were great!!

Pulling out the Clark County piece, the same is true for the house I’m leaving this afternoon: I’ve spent three days with the Goldsmiths. Brenda is a Couchsurfing.org ambassador, the first I’ve met and stayed with. She and family are ultra-hospitable, and it became all-too-easy to stay extra nights here as well. Last night, the grandparents joined the fun and I made my burritos for them all!

Tucson has truly been a treat, and I haven’t even reached downtown yet.

Tonight and tomorrow I’ll stay with a twentysomething named Trevor, and I may stay with a trio of additional hosts before fully making my way out of Tucson as well. What a place– what an experience…

More great memories await…!!