Amish Country Bumpkin

What a difference a week makes- from the ghetto of North Philadelphia to bucolic Lancaster County. But there's been one constant- funny experiences and outstanding hospitality. Well, so that's two constants, but I never said math was my strong suit.
When I was thinking of heading off the trail up in Maine, Amish country was one of the places I imagined hiking through that I otherwise would not see. Although I've been here many times before, it's always good clean fun to see the Amish. And for once, eschewing horse and buggy for that even older method of transportation, the human foot, I even had the odd sensation of feeling more righteous than the Amish. They may think they're so holy doing without zippers and cars and Court TV, but ha! I don't even bother with wheels!
Wait, wait, yes I do all the time when doing my very odd version of commuting, which I've been able to do out here in Lancaster County where I've been staying with our good family friends, Bruce and Lynda Limpert. I had already met up with their sons, Mark and Brad, who are good friends of mine, while passing through New York and Philadelphia respectively. And all four Limperts have gone out of their way to provide me with the finest in Pennsylvania hospitality, meeting me at odd hours, shuttling me around to random roadsides, and in the case of Lynda and Bruce, giving me a home base for four days. I should be quick to add that Jackie Banks, a friend of my good friend Nick Spike, was also an all-star for letting me base my Philadelphia operations out of her apartment for four nights last week. Kudos to all!
A few other funny happenstances: after taking a ride on the gloriously wholesome Strasburg Railway (I'm a closet train afficianado) and waving to Amish buggy after buggy, I finally put on my Ipod and up popped a George Carlin routine on fun and creative methods of capital punishment... "Here's an idea, take a high speed catapult and hurl the sucker into a brick wall!" So much for wholesomeness. Another funny moment happened when I was taking pictures of the sign "Welcome to Intercourse" for the funny signs album. I duly waited for all the cars to pass by so I wouldn't be viewed as having the fourth-grade sense of humor I do, but I think a number of Amish might have seen me. I wonder if they get the joke, or even if they're allowed to laugh. It might violate a tenet of Leviticus. Finally, I've invented a new sport, which could be seen as a variant of lacrosse. There is a sort of fruit lying all over the ground here which looks like a tennis ball with a bad case of acne. I stab these things with my poles and try and fling them at trees or street signs. It's a fun way to pass the time and remind myself how crazy I am. Or brilliant. You be the judge.

Killerdelphia?

About three hours ago I exited Philadelphia, and to the best of my knowledge, I'm still alive. Among with eating the requisite cheesesteak, seeing the Liberty Bell, and posing as Rocky on the steps of the art museum, I saw a bit of the rougher side of Philly. Still, everyone I met was friendly, even if they thought I was nuts. Much more so than the Bronx, Harlem, Paterson, East Hartford, or any other neck of the woods I've traversed, there were parts of Philly I went through that were not exactly places I'd like to raise my children. Which is a darn shame.
(pause while I mount soapbox...)
There is simply an appalling amount of poverty and violence in Philadelphia these days. While the downtown area is vibrant and full of great museums and historical sites, and while my hike today along the Schuylkill River was beautiful, much of Philadelphia is sheer urban blight. When I was living in Europe I was always amazed by the lack of such poverty- even in places like Poland which, if you'd listen to the economists (always a dangerous idea), have a much lower standard of living than we do.
I find it absolutely disgusting that many Americans would rather conveniently forget about Philadelphia (not to mention our nation's capital and a whole slew of other cities) than support the laws and, yes, taxes needed to put an end to this mess. Obviously I'm not so naive to think that throwing $ at the problem is going to make it go away. But more tax $ means better salaries for inner city teachers, better health care for children who lack insurance, and more cops on the streets. Meanwhile, the homicide rate in Philadelphia continues to go up while politicians kowtow to the gun lobby. In response, I guess many of us would simply plead that we are not our brother's keepers to those Americans who live in the ghettos in the city of brotherly love.
Off to see the Amish...

Hiking down memory lane

In Princeton, home of scholarship, a police force with too many cops and too little to do, and a psychotic Chinese restaurant owner who probably wishes I were dead. Thankfully, all the other restaurant owners from my days running the campus food delivery service love me and throw free food at me whenever I walk in the door. Thanks go out to Olives, Sakura Express, and Kalluri Corner for keeping me fed and happy. Of course, at Kalluri Corner I foolishly ordered the garlic naan, which turned out to be a little too pungent, even by my standards. This prompted the entertaining sight of me having to slip the extra pieces of naan into my jacket pocket, since either leaving it on the table or daring to actually eat it would either have been rude to the owners or to everyone within a half-mile of my breath...
I've had perhaps a harder time winning respect for my undertaking here in Princeton though, because if I say I've hiked from New Brunswick, everyone assumes that I just sauntered 16 miles down the road from the city of the same name. But still, like everywhere else I've been, people in Princeton have been interested in my trip and want to stop and chat, which is fine. What's not so fine, is when people see my beloved trekking poles and ask me for the six millionth time where my skis are. Maybe I should start carrying a pair just to make everyone happy.
Other interesting happenings this week included stopping by the Montclair Hawk Watch, having Mapquest fail me any number of times, hiking by Madden's Nursery and Garden Center yesterday, and hiking on the beautiful Delaware and Raritan Canal yesterday. Now off to Trenton...

The Quicksand of Ridgewood

Warning: hiking through your hometown/region may be hazardous to making progress on your hike. Since my last post, I've covered all of, uh, twenty miles. So, not the greatest week in terms of making headway southward. In fact, having hiked out to Ridgewood from New York City, I've actually gone a little bit north. Nevermind, though, the whole spirit of the hike is to have a great time and spread the word about Fisher House, and on those scores, the week has been a banner success.
Or more like a poster success. I've finally started to distribute my fliers that are attached via adhesive to a small poster that states "The USA Hiker Was Here." This way, people can take a flier and read about my hike even long after I've passed through a certain neck of the woods, er, suburbs. We'll see how successful this approach is, but I'm counting on it to help raise a good amount from here on south.
Other things I've been up to over the past few days include hiking across Bergen County, visiting my schools and past teachers, seeing friends from Sweden, Ridgewood High School, and New York, and getting stressed out about the Yankees.
Maybe the coolest happenstance, however, has been getting some welcome media attention from The Record. There's an article in today's (Oct. 5) paper on me- but don't worry about that. Instead, see; http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MjAzNjMx
I know that's a mess of a website, but cut and paste it in, and check it out. There's a whole multimedia slideshow of me hiking the George Washington Bridge on it, complete with audio commentary!
By the time I next post, I'll probably be in the Princeton area. Actually, make that damn well better be in the Princeton area. Onward!

On the Town

In my last post, I mentioned how hiking the Appalachian Trail is, on the whole, a more challenging endeavor than hiking on roadsides from town to town. But in one big way the trail is in fact easier- it's literally a beaten path, where thousands of hiker feet tread each year. Consequently, there are loads of books detailing how to plan an Appalachian Trail hike, where to sleep and find facilities along the way, as well as numerous first-hand accounts of people's hikes.
Now I'm probably not the first (though off-hand I don't know of anyone else) to hike the length of the USA in the way I'm doing, but suffice it to say, I've never come across anyone's account of their "roadhike." So naturally there's a good amount of logistical planning that I have to figure out on my own. One such hurdle occurred to me when I was plotting my way into New York City. Originally I had hoped to hike across the Hudson River at Bear Mountain, about 30 miles north of the city, down through Harriman State Park and Bergen County, and then into NYC. From there I would go the length of Manhattan, into Brooklyn, across the Narrows Bridge into Staten Island and on into Central Jersey.
It sounded good, but unfortunately, when I checked on the availability of pedestrian walkways on bridges, I found out that walking across the Narrows Bridge was not an option. So that meant that if I wanted to hike around NYC without backtracking, I would have to come down through Westchester County and the Bronx (!), into and around Manhattan, and then out the George Washington Bridge into Jersey.
Which is what I am doing. Currently, I've made it as far as 96th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan- where I left off yesterday around midnight. Today and tomorrow are off days in NJ, spent seeing friends, family, and searching for teaching jobs next year. But the last three days, I hiked through the Bronx, all over Manhattan, and even briefly set foot in Brooklyn.
Aside from seeing the sights, highlights in New York include the incredulous stares I received hiking around the city, showing three German navy officer cadets around the Lower East Side, stopping off at Yankee Stadium, posing for pictures with Slovenian tourists, making a pilgrimage to Ground Zero, and taking time for a game of Scrabble with the locals in Washington Square Park (I won easily, after playing the word "recoils" for 79 points). But most of all, I've most appreciated the continued generosity of all those I meet along the way, including a Guyanan immigrant who bought me an iced tea in the Bronx, three immigrants from Honduras who gave me $35 in cash on the spot on the Grand Concourse to donate to Fisher House, and a couple of women from upstate New York who also gave me an impromptu unsolicited donation. You all keep me going and give meaning to my hike on a daily basis, and I thank you tremendously for doing so!

A Good Week for Fisher House

Ha! Right now I'm channel surfing and came across Forrest Gump running across America. A kindred spirit :)
One of the many reasons for going off the Appalachian Trail in Maine was the possibility to make my hike a fundraiser. Not surprisingly, many of the towns through which the trail passes tend to see a fair share of people doing long-distance hikes for charity. In other parts of the country, we are a much rarer breed, and therefore generate more interest. Even more important, there are obviously a lot more people in urban areas, and hence, more potential donors. And on top of all that, hiking on roadsides goes much quicker than the trail and gives me more time and access to places where I can use the internet to do planning for my fundraising.
This having been said, though, it has still taken awhile for my fundraising efforts to really amount to anything. But this week, with my blog and donation site finally up and running, I've been able to raise well over $1000. Granted, there's a long way to my goal of $50,000, but it's a great start, since this was the first week that I really started spreading the word. I'm very grateful to everyone who has donated, but special thanks are due to two former Jeopardy champions for their help- Ken Jennings and Bob Harris. Both not only contributed generously of themselves, but they both also spread the word on their blogs (www.ken-jennings.com and www.bobharris.com) and Bob had the great idea to post a link to my site on the Jeopardy message boards at jeopardy.com. This has been a huge help and I'm really thankful you both decided to do this.
My future efforts at fundraising will consist of talking to groups (e.g. Rotary Clubs, VFW posts, etc.), handing out fliers to people I meet with links to my internet sites and a description of what I am doing, and posting such fliers in places that I pass through (coffee shops, libraries, etc.) on a small poster that mentions I stopped off at said location on my way to Key West. Obviously, these efforts will continue to evolve, but let me know if you have any ideas- all are clearly welcome!
My next post will detail some of my experiences in New York City- stay tuned!

So what do I do all day...?

Other than hike, of course. I've been a big fan of multitasking for years, and hiking gives me an opportunity to indulge at length. For the past few weeks, I've spent hours most days listening to CDs I've ordered from The Teaching Company. I first saw these advertised a few years ago in Foreign Affairs and The Economist, and was intrigued, though never to the point of ordering their courses. But then again, I didn't have oodles of hours of time on my hands. Or feet.
So in order to provide intellectual stimulation to accompany the physical, I've recently completed the first two of what will be many college lecture courses. The two I've done so far were on the American Civil War and Great Ideas of Philosophy, although at times the second bordered on the oxymoronic. Seriously, can't we just put ontology and epistomology to rest and be done with it? Where did any of that get anyone? I wish the course had dwelt more on religious philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics, but on the whole, it was still a good intro to the subject. Meanwhile, the Civil War course was good, although it was difficult to follow at times without benefit of maps, especially during descriptions of the battles.
Now I'm on to Bach and the High Baroque, with many more to follow. Other preoccupations, by the way, include listening to the radio, my Ipod, making sure I don't get run over by cars, picking up litter, doing pushups and situps by the roadside, stopping off at libraries for internet breaks, talking on my cell phone (201 661 3524, hint hint), thinking about my future rise to power, taking pictures of funny road signs, and making friends with the locals. In short, boredom is foiled on a daily basis, as I press ever southward and on to greater glory. Three days to New York City! -DM