On the road again...

If you think it's been awhile since I updated the blog, you're absolutely right. However, during the time since the last post I rented a car in southern Virginia, drove to NJ to surprise the family before spending last Wednesday driving to visit my friend Josh and his family in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, where I spent four days, before driving back to VA. So I've been busy. On Monday I picked up the hiking at the Enterprise where I dropped off the car, and then spent the day doing planning and catching my breath before the last two days.
Which have been the longest two day stretch of the hike. 27 miles yesterday, 26 today. Highlights included crossing into North Carolina, getting a photo tonight with five lovely Hooters waitresses, and the resumption of the great US-29 feather mystery. Second only to my blondeness in terms of weird things I've seen, for the past 200 miles along US-29 I have been hiking past feathers on the road shoulder. I had noticed this back in Virginia, where it went on for days on end, but it resumed again today once I came back to US-29. I can't imagine why this is happening, particularly since many of the feathers are rather large and they seem to be from sea gulls. They're far too big and too white to be chicken feathers, and their size somehow precludes my one hypothesis- that a truck somehow carrying pillows sprung a leak. If you have an explanation, I'd love to hear it, but for now I'm flabbergasted.
I also just realized that I had finished the last post with a teaser. The cool thing I referred to then was an interview I did inside Monticello with a camera crew sent from Jeopardy to interview me as part of a series they're doing on following up the goings on of past contestants. I don't know when it will air, although it might not be for almost a year. However, they're also putting together a 2 minute briefing to send to news stations in cities through which I'll be passing.
Like Greensboro, NC, where rather than using what Jeopardy put together, a camera crew came out to interview me today by the side of the road. After dashing out of Hooters and rushing to my favorite motel chain, Hampton Inn (they're the cheapest chain that has complementary internet access for guests) I arrived just in time to watch myself. The anchorwoman referred to me as "a familiar face" which made me chuckle, and hopefully some people will log on and donate after seeing the clip. A link to the story is found among the links at the bottom of this page. Meanwhile, a gang of teenagers listened to tales of my journey at dinner- and then gave me $25 for Fisher House. Coupled with a $20 bill I found on the side of the road, it made for a profitable as well as a productive day.