This blog began with our walk across the country from 2011-2012, revisiting that journey again last year. In between I reported on our hike of the PCT and how Cindy and I have done our best to live well despite the adversity we face. Lately I claimed there remains little for me to report on in terms of a caregiver in the face of Cindy’s slow, incremental decline, nor can I report on current journeys that reinforce the creed of “Love kindness. Build community. Believe in Humanity.”
Caregiver assistance comes and goes in cycles. From the spring until now I had very little coverage, making it very hard for me to get any new projects up and running. That appears to be changing soon as I found a new PCA who wants plenty of hours and can be flexible with when they occur. With the promise of more free time I find that, come to think of it, there are still things to share about my final journey with Cindy.
I can detail further the four stages of decline I described in this blog four years ago. Someone is now using these four stages as a framework for filming a documentary about us. Going into depth about those stages on this blog provides useful information to readers while also helping the documentary. I plan also to review some tips for caregivers, and provide a caregiver’s perspective on some other things as well.
While I still cannot go traipsing off on journeys, I can dream, turn those dreams into plans, turn those plans into logistics and report on those logistics. In fact, perhaps I can do this interactively, inviting readers to help with those plans, particularly if they live close to the routes I may take hiking or biking. Readers could help shape the route and provide suggestions for “kindness” stops along the way, where I might provide a service for others.
I would like to see this website become a platform for what I call “You Hikes,” or “You Bikes.” Borrowed from the concept of thru-hikes, where a designated trail is hiked from end to end, a You Hike is one that uses designated trails as a backbone for long distance journeys, with added roads and/or trails that satisfies the particular needs of the sojourners. An example is when we hiked the American Discovery Trail from west to east, then added a few hundred miles north to arrive at our home in Norfolk.
So stay tuned! More is to come, more frequently, at least if the current rosy outlook for caregiver assistance holds.
A year ago I began a review of our walk across the country, from May 2011-May 2012. I retold our story by being open about Cindy’s cognitive decline at the time, a decline that reversed during the hike but resumed afterwards. Here is an update of how our life stands as of June 2022.
We are entering the fourth year of my hospice care for Cindy here at home. Since the beginning of hospice care our situation and routine changes very little, one reason why I reviewed our hike across the country instead of posting infrequent updates. After the passing of months even a situation as stable as ours features a few changes.
While changing Cindy a few months ago, her foot apparently caught on the mattress and I ended up tearing a ligament in her knee. While this did not cause much pain, bruising occurred and her left calf became floppy, hanging in whatever direction gravity dictated. That injury has healed, obviously with plenty of rest among other treatments, but a permanent change to our routine resulted.
I used to stand Cindy up for a slow “dance” three or four times a day, in essence holding her up in my arms and swaying to the music, while her left leg provided some support. Half the reason for our “dances” was to maintain a modicum of Cindy’s physical strength and integrity, but without that leg providing some support holding her up required too much endurance on my part. I hold her in my lap three or four times a day instead.
Just today I noticed her left leg finally providing the proper resistance to her range of motion exercises, but we cannot go back to our old routine. At least holding her in my lap still gets her torso upright and out of bed throughout the day. The intimacy of her being on my lap is no less than our “slow dance,” in fact better, as I no longer struggle with keeping her upright when she goes slack in my arms. By the way she nuzzles and buries her face into my chest I suspect she prefers this permanent change to our routine.
Partly because of her injury I position Cindy and her pillows in ways that sometimes lead to red spots alternating between her lower back and right heel. I check for this in the morning and applying ointment always eliminates the spots by the end of the day. Skin sores leading to infections are one of the causes of death for those with advanced Alzheimer’s, but they have never threatened Cindy.
The same cannot be said for Cindy’s spreading gum disease. I dutifully administer prescribed mouthwash with cotton swabs to her gums, but the necrosis where gums meet teeth still spreads. Cindy seems to actually enjoy the swabbing of her gums, but I cringe with the knowledge that there is a higher coincidence between gum disease and dementia than there is with the beta-amyloid plaques that cause Alzheimer’s.
Cindy’s gum disease resulted from her unfocused chewing, causing food to pile up and saturate her gums. Unfocused sipping as well sometimes requires the use of tablespoons or syringes to feed her liquids. Her healthy appetite remains as we still eat the same meals, but the time to do so slowly increased over the past few months.
Meanwhile, unfocused swallowing contributes to the frequency and subsequent concern for Cindy’s rasping and coughing. Piling up at the back of her throat could be mucus, drool, liquids or a combination. Of the three most common causes of death for those with dementia—infections, starvation or pneumonia—I am most wary of the latter, but the hospice nurse has yet to find any problems with oxygen levels or congestion in her lungs.
Almost a year ago now Cindy’s coughing alarmed the hospice volunteer that sat with her one evening a week. She stopped coming, afraid that Cindy might pass away during her watch. Others have stopped coming over the past year as well, with all four of the PCAs I once hired through a Medicaid program no longer coming.
The lack of coverage for special occasions poses the most difficult challenge I face. Months ago I lined up both coverage and back ups for my recent 50th class reunion, taking advantage of both Medicare and Medicaid programs. With a couple weeks left I went through five cancellations, the last one being the morning of the reunion. Fortunately, I found coverage that same afternoon, in time to attend the evening reunion.
The difficulty with special occasional coverage, plus my regular coverage shrinking to less than ten hours a week, revives again my hope to find residential caregiver assistance. I figure if the coverage actually lives here they cannot get away (that’s a joke, sort of). Anyone who has a suggestion for who would be interested in this, please leave me a comment.
Over the past few months a couple visitors claimed they witnessed a smile from Cindy, but I think that may be wishful thinking. I have not seen a “Cindy smile” for a long while. I see her become more alert when she hears our children’s voices in the room, also looks of what seems to be pleased recognition of me, but no smiles.
This would be another reason for a residential caregiver, to have more smiles return to the house. I often can make others smile through playfulness or compliments, and I trust I still make Cindy smile inside, but more tangible expressions would do much to keep my own spirits up. Now in our fourth year of hospice care here at home, I assume my routine must be that of a permanent gig.
We hung around the Housatonic Valley Association’s office long enough to greet the staff when they came into work. They gave us each a new HVA cap, prompted to do so by the condition of my current HVA cap from wearing it for thousands of miles across the country. A group photo was taken and we headed out for quite literally the home stretch, hiking a scenic alternative to what was once my daily commute. After just a mile we stopped in at Beard’s General Store for tradition’s sake.
Throughout our marriage, Cindy and I chose not to maximize our earning potential from the three undergraduate degrees, three graduate degrees and two professional certifications earned between us. We instead prioritized the raising of our family. We chose to remain in the home and rural town where I was raised, having settled there at the start of our marriage to take care of my Mom. I would not know then that my married life would both begin and end with caring for a loved one afflicted with dementia.
We also decided that one of us should always be home and available to our kids, though there were a handful of times when our only option was to bring them to work with one of us. As a visiting nurse Cindy could not take them; they instead came with me to HVA, a watershed organization for the Housatonic River, where I worked rather unhindered as their GIS Manager. My cure for three bored kids was a trip to Beard’s for deli sandwiches.
Ever the traditionalist in our family, Charissa insisted on getting sandwiches at Beard’s, claiming that was the reason she joined us for the last four days, also pointing out the 22 miles we made her hike the day before warranted some type of compensation. We arrived to find the general store under new ownership, but the current proprietor had been alerted to our coming. Only the staff at HVA or Ky would have known our intention and schedule for dropping in, whomever the culprit also “anonymously” paid for our sandwiches.
We followed the course of the Housatonic River for the entire day. Most of our journey involved following rivers, with the notable exception of the Great Basin desert. How fitting that the last river should be the one for which I used a spatial database to make maps and address environmental concerns, the same river I followed on my daily commute.
We ended the day by getting back onto the Appalachian Trail to spend the last night of our journey at Belter’s campsite, just a stone’s throw away from Belter’s View, overlooking the Housatonic River valley we just followed. The three of us shared the shelter of Charissa’s tarp, enabling us to continue chatting after the sunset. At one point a porcupine came towards us but I growled and he acquired second thoughts.
We listened to rain fall on our protective covering for one last time, one of the most pleasing sounds of long distance hiking. I thought about the connection of this final night with other nights of our journey, all the other times when our portable home kept us comfortable no matter what the weather was doing. I also thought about the two times our tent failed to provide such comfort, during the dust storm in Kansas and the untimely deluge while setting up camp in Ohio.
Mostly though, while laying awake listening to the rain, I thought about transitions. Many long distance hikers confess that they have trouble transitioning back to “normal” life. Honestly, that was never me. I easily transitioned into long distance hiking; I easily transitioned back. Yet the future was never as uncertain as what awaited us at the end of this journey. Even if Cindy was healing, she likely would not be a nurse again, nor would I reboot a career as either an academic or a GIS specialist. We also faced the possibility that the gains Cindy made with her brain health on this journey were only temporary.
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We became like Pied Pipers on the final day of our journey. Our youngest daughter Serena met us at the Mountain Side Cafe to hike the thirteen miles up over Canaan Mountain and into Norfolk with us. On top of Canaan Mountain we took a long lunch break by Wangum Reservoir, where our son Noah joined us for the last four plus miles. One of our hosts from the second week of the journey, Roger Monty, also joined us at the reservoir, having flown out from California just for the occasion. With him was Bill Perry, the mutual friend who connected us with Roger to be our host, having flown in from Vancouver, Canada.
Together the six of us came down off Canaan Mountain, then took another long break at Ky’s house, which was very near our route. A few more people joined us there for the final mile into town, including Ky. She walked with us while her daughter drove the van and camper she used as our support vehicle.
At the ballfield road, just around the corner from the official end, Little Leaguers stopped their game to come over and cheer us on. Next to them was the Yale Summer School of Music Campus, where music students cheered and waved us on. This final post about our journey coincides with the premiere of my American Discovery Symphony that will be held on that same campus tonight. Seating is still available.
My brothers Bob and Ernie met us at the ballfield road and joined us as we finished the journey at our UCC chapel, with a huge banner and about forty people there waiting for us. Two of those people were Bill and Marcia Hastings, whom we first met briefly as tourists visiting the canyonlands of Utah. They continued to follow my blog afterwards and drove down from upper New York to celebrate our finish. Also at our finish were high school classmates and long distance hiking buddies.
I marveled at the contrast between our Cape Henlopen and hometown finishes. Only a handful of people joined us at Cape Henlopen, though half of them were reporters as media outlets made us front page news the next day. There were no reporters at our hometown finish, yet the outpouring of hometown support was by far the more special of the two finishes.
We moved the celebration into the chapel, where we experienced our last potluck supper of the journey. Our church choir sang a couple of songs for the occasion, including “Seasons of Love,” which I designated as our theme song after hearing it sung at a variety show in New Albany, Indiana. Unlike the choirs I dropped in on across the country they did not need to offer any incentives for me to stay, they were one of the things I missed most during our leave.
After stuffing ourselves one last time with all the delicious homemade dishes I gave my final talk, which consisted of three stories that particularly moved me during the journey: the story behind the “confuse who is giving and who is receiving” quote from Leadville, Colorado; the story of a ten year old boy from Lamar, Indiana who cried about and then helped the homeless; and the story of the Methodist Church in Sinking Springs, Ohio that expanded their membership tenfold after dedicating their mission to kindness. So many other stories were just as worthy of being told: stories of kindness to us, such as our Trail Angel Day; stories of individuals helping others, such as Debbie Syano raising the money for a library in Kenya; stories of communities helping their own, such as all the localized community programs networking together to help the less fortunate in Marion, Illinois.
I learned from a neighbor a few days later that our blog changed his outlook of people from cynical to hopeful, that even people with different political views were humane when national issues and animosities were put aside to focus on local needs and kindness. More people have since echoed this opinion. I considered our public mission a success, whether by changing some attitudes towards humanity or by giving local groups new ideas on how to structure a community meals program. Unfortunately, that message is needed now, ten years later, more than ever.
Also successful is the mission of those who maintain and publicize the American Discovery Trail. We truly discovered the broad mosaic of America as we walked 5,000 miles across the country. We discovered a wide variety of natural and cultural landscapes, as well as many sources for beauty, joy and kindness across the country. So much so that I composed the symphony to tell the story of this rich American Discovery, which I subtitle “an orchestrated travelog and love story.”
If I were to ignore hindsight I would also say we were successful in regards to our most important mission, to reboot our lives and heal Cindy. She went from a withdrawn person who could not keep a journal on her own, nor assist me with setting up camp, to being able to do both. She grew more confident and hopeful for herself with each passing week of the journey.
I bottled up the moment Cindy put the tent up by herself as a permanent memory of what hope feels like; I still flash back to those moments when Cindy proclaimed: “I feel myself getting better!” Unfortunately, such hope was short-lived. The day after our finish I brought Cindy in to see a physician, where she was diagnosed as having Lyme disease, acquired from that New Jersey tick. There happens to be a high correlation between the spirochetes responsible for Lyme and gum disease with dementia, an even higher correlation than with the amyloid plaques that mark Alzheimer’s.
We had just finished what would be the most amazing of all our journeys together, but my caregiver journey was really just beginning.
Week 52 will be my second to last post reliving our walk across the country from ten years ago. The final two days will be posted shortly after May 24, the tenth anniversary of when we finished the hike and the date my symphony about the hike will premiere. The following link is for those in the neighborhood who want to register and attend.
We left the Community Presbyterian Church in Chester for the last time, with Ky dropping us off just miles away from the New York border. By the end of the day we would be inside New York and on the Appalachian Trail, which we would follow for most of the way home. We packed for nine days, the remainder of the journey, with the intent of camping mostly on the AT. I got the sense that Ky would have liked to continue supporting us until the end, but the opportunity to meet her would be few and far in between while we followed the AT.
We tell people asking how we met that thru-hiking the AT was our fifth date. Ending our ADT journey this way, on the same trail where our overall journey began, added an exclamation point of nostalgia for us as we passed familiar places like Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain State Park and the crossing of the Hudson River. We hiked on familiar rocky trail through familiar deciduous forests, as comfortable to us as the local park.
Interjected into this comfortable nostalgia was a heartwarming sign of new hope. On our second night of camping on the AT, I was in the midst of cooking our traditional trail supper of mac and cheese with tuna when Cindy told me she wanted to put the tent up by herself. I watched her slowly but surely lay out the ground cloth, tent and rain fly; stake down the tent and properly attach the fly; then put sleeping pads and bags into the tent. She looked at me with that cute smile of hers when she was done, a subdued expression of joy I suspected held back soaring spirits underneath. Certainly my spirits were soaring.
On our third night along the AT we camped on the grounds of the Graymoor Monastery. When I first thru-hiked the AT in 1975 I stopped at the Monastery, as almost all thru-hikers did, for the free all-you-can-eat meals they provided, in keeping with their mission of accommodating wayward travelers. AT traffic back then could be measured in the hundreds total, now the traffic measures in the thousands yearly. Predictably, the Monastery no longer offered all-you-can-eats, but instead constructed a pavilion on their property for AT hikers, along with a fire ring and even a shower. Once again this is an example of how the nature of kindness must change, or even disappear, once volumes of people come to expect kindness from targeted sources.
While a graduate student in the late eighties I entered a national essay contest in my field of Natural Resources. My paper on “UHiking” was awarded second place. My thesis was that as long distance hiking traffic increased, established trails would suffer both environmental and cultural abuse. I offered “UHiking” (I should have called it You Hiking) as an alternative. Rather than follow a fixed, established trail end-to-end, I suggested sojourners incorporate just sections of established trails into a journey tailored specifically for “you,” with meaningful start and end points that do not necessarily correspond to the established trail, thus spreading out the traffic and mitigating the abuses.
If I wrote that essay today I also would encourage sojourners to be spreaders of kindness, not just recipients. Perhaps there are things you know how to build or repair; Habitat for Humanity’s Bike and Build programs follow this model. Perhaps you are in the health care or culinary fields. Perhaps you can perform music or other means of entertainment. Perhaps your kindness to folks along the way can be giving talks about kindness or community. Your mission of kindness would be tailored to you, just like the route you choose.
Shortly after the Graymoor Monastery we shortened our route by getting off the trail and onto roads for that day. I knew from several times hiking that section that we missed with our detour. As an AT thru-hiker this would be an appalling detour worthy of scorn for “yellow blazing” (the Appalachian Trail is marked with white blazes). As an ADT “You Hiker” I become the only judge of my routes.
Through this extra mixture of rural roads we met a variety of hikers, bicyclists, motorists and people out in their front yards, over fifty people in five days. Some were earlybird AT thru-hikers, having hiked over 1200 miles already. We delighted in meeting thru-hikers because of our own experiences; now I wonder how I might have felt if, after hiking over a thousand miles on my own journey, rightfully satisfied in doing so, I suddenly met a couple who had just hiked four thousand more.
On our alternate route we camped at Fahnestock State Park, where we became celebrities to the neighboring campsites. One young couple shared their supper and had their picture taken with us. A group of young adults invited us to join in their birthday celebration at another site. Some of the birthday gatherers were involved in a social experiment leaving T-shirts in bathrooms for strangers to pick up, hoping that these shirts would end up being spotted around the world. They gave us one of their T-shirts to leave in a bathroom farther up the trail.
Our daughter Charissa came out to join us for the last four days of our journey. Being our daughter she of course had prior hiking experience. We once went out to Mt. Rainier to hike the 100 mile Wonderland Trail as a family, but Charissa literally went the extra mile. As a high school student she worked at a McDonald’s in the neighboring town of North Canaan, eight miles away. She occasionally would bike to work and even walked there once. Charissa left no doubt she was the daughter of the woman who once told me “mind over matter” for handling the pain and discomfort involved in long distance hiking.
The evening we met Charissa we hiked a short distance to the next AT lean-to. We encountered several hikers already set up there and had a good time chatting with them. The next day featured heavy rains and we hiked only eight miles to the next lean-to, which we shared with Craig and his 12 year old son Hunter, both thru-hikers. I asked Craig what kindness he experienced on their travels and his first reply was the kindness of his son taking care of him during the hike.
The eight mile day meant hiking 22 miles the next with Charissa, who of course was not yet broken in. The weather continued to be rainy, but you would not know from the women in our group. Though Cindy’s spirits were lifted when she put up the tent by herself, that was nothing compared to her obvious joy from hiking with her oldest daughter. Despite the long miles and rainy weather, Charissa infused the days with good cheer.
Liv
Not everything was rosy. For my part I had a slight intestinal disorder which worried me as to whether I could do justice to the potluck dinner awaiting us at the end of the hike. Those concerns were alleviated when we reached the Housatonic Valley Association office at the end of the 22 mile day. We arrived too late to spend time with my former officemates, but they left behind a feast for us while we camped on the office floors.
I also worried for Cindy, as during this stretch I noticed a red bullseye on her. I knew this came from our guerilla camp near the zoo in New Jersey, when our tent was invaded by ticks that night. Having had Lyme disease twice before myself, I made a doctor’s appointment for Cindy the day after our journey would end.
With the finish line in sight, our pace picked up through New Jersey. As this was not part of any official route we chose whatever local and state roads provided the most direct route. We encountered a diversity of people and places, but did not linger anywhere for long.
We walked by large estates and humble homes, home proprietors and shopping malls, gardens and skyscrapers, Hindu temples and carriage horse racing. We stopped only briefly to chat with a postman, pregnant Mom, Paraguayan family and various ages and ethnicities. We transitioned between cultural landscapes similarly to how long distance hikers transition through natural landscapes.
Much of the appeal for us long distance hikers lies in this grand scale transitioning. I realized this as we strolled through a garden. Many people like to view different museum exhibits or the flowers in a garden over a small portion of a day. I love viewing various landscapes over an entire day, particularly mountain landscapes that change after every pass or bend in the river.
The American Discovery Trail provided us with changing landscapes at a meta scale. Natural landscapes changed between ocean shores, plains, mountains, canyons, deserts and different forest ecosystems. Cultural landscapes included cityscapes, urban neighborhoods, suburbia, rail trails, farmland, ranches, villages and ghost towns. The American Discovery Trail lived up to its name and I highly recommend it to any landscape junky.
The grand diversity of our journey extended to the various church floors upon which we slept. With the references of our home UCC church, the nature of our blog and access to a cell phone we knew we would be staying on those church floors across America. With Ky serving as our support person, making advanced contact on our behalf, we also stayed on Baptist, Methodist, Assembly of God, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and community church floors as well. Ky arranged for our three church stays in New Jersey.
Ky also served as a great kindness ambassador. All my interviews, podcasts and blog posts limited my socializing with many of our hosts across the country. When Cindy was known as “Gabby Galvin” her warm, conversational style would have engaged anyone. Though she grew more garrulous as we headed east, she remained the quietest among the three of us. Fortunately, Ky filled in for our shortcomings quite well.
Ky arranged for our three church stays in New Jersey, which proved to be a challenge because of insurance issues at many of the churches she tried. This was yet another example of how the quest for security, or to “be safe,” conflicts with a quest for kindness. Still, Ky managed to find us places to stay when and where we needed.
Our first church stay was at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Medford. Father Don Muller and his wife Lynn took us out to dinner at the Mexican Food Factory. Afterwards, we went back to stay at the church, and to learn about “Ugly Quilts.” Ugly quilts are made from scrap fabric and neckties by the 10-12th graders. They go to the inner city, where their “ugly” status minimizes the possibility they will be stolen from the homeless.
After a free stay at the Timberland Lake Campground, once again arranged by Ky, we then stayed at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton. Ky arrived at the church in time for one of the three community meals they offer each week. They prepared extra meals to give to Cindy and me when we arrived.
We save the best for last, the last church we stayed at in New Jersey, the last church we stayed at for the entire journey. Ky first picked us up in Bridgewater and brought us to the Community Presbyterian Church (CPC) in Chester, where we stayed a few nights. Unlike the insurance conscious churches of New Jersey, this Presbyterian church went out of their way to welcome us into their fold.
We arrived while they were rehearsing for their Mother’s Day service, which we then attended the next day. Presbyterian and Congregational churches (my home church) have a common lineage, which perhaps explain why everything from the church structure to the service seemed comfortably familiar to us. The vibrant coffee hour after the service particularly reminded us of home.
Over the few days spent at CPC, while Ky slackpacked us northward, we spent time with a variety of parishioners. We chatted with families at the coffee hour. Andy and Martha Smith invited us into their home for dinner and showers. We kibitzed with volunteers Tabby and Bonnie as the Midday Friendship Center prepared dinners for Meals on Wheels. We talked to handyman Richard and son Dan, who repaired things for the church and for whom the church helped find a home.
The single factor that made us feel most at home at CPC was Pastor Chris Scriven, who reminded us greatly of our own Pastor Erick Olsen. On our last morning Chris brought us some bread freshly baked by his wife Michelle and chatted for a while. Our visitation near the close of our journey reminded him of Presbyterian Kenyans they hosted near the end of their visit to this country. He shared a dream he had about us, conjuring an image of us walking for kindness juxtaposed with a night rain.
We talked of ways to connect our two churches together and in a final gesture he gave us the key to their church, attached to a lanyard. Anytime we were in the neighborhood, walking for kindness or any other reason, we could just use the key to make ourselves at home. What an extraordinary gesture at our last church encounter, in a state where many churches were worried about their insurance. The best saved for last!
Handyman Richard would become Ky’s boyfriend; in years hence they traveled back and forth between New Jersey and Connecticut to be with each other. Richard could be seen on many occasions at our church services in Norfolk. I had every intention of returning to the CPC, of using our key to the church someday, but have yet to do so. The arc of how Cindy’s dementia and my caregiver duties progressed after the journey was over still prevents me from doing so.
On May 24 the symphony I composed to tell the story about our walk across the country will be premiered at the Music Shed in Norfolk, CT. You can register for the event here.
What I remember most about the day we finished the ADT portion of our journey was working out the lyrics for the song I composed in my head back in Ohio, the song about kindness. I came up with lyrics about the kindness found in children, a village and overall humanity, based on all the kind experiences we witnessed on the journey. A photo captures my memory of precisely where I finished those lyrics; Cindy was looking at the dead end to a sidewalk, which consequently came right before the first film crew came to meet us.
I incorporated that song into my American Discovery Symphony, an orchestrated travelogue and love story. The Yale School of Music will premiere my symphony on May 24, the tenth anniversary of when we finished our walk across the country. You can register for free admission to the concert here:
The route went by the high school where our host Serinda Conner taught and she had her class out there cheering us on as we walked by. She also baked us a thoughtful cake (having known we were coming) with ADT references, that she brought to our finish on the beach. Lion Karl Gude, on behalf of the Lord Baltimore Lions Club, came out to hike the last half mile with us. He also treated us to lunch the day before our finish, and escorted us as guests of honor for his Lions Club meeting the evening of our finish. Poetically, the Lions Club contact that started our journey’s mission for kindness and community became the last.
As for the finish on the beach, we started the ADT journey at the Pacific Ocean on a raw day in June and finished at the Atlantic Ocean on a raw day in May. Aside from the subdued atmosphere of the ocean mists, we were not really finishing the end of our journey. We would hang a left and continue hiking up the Atlantic Coast until we reached our home in Connecticut. Before leaving the shore I picked up two smoothed pebbles that I would later use for guitar picks whenever I play the final movement of my American Discovery symphony.
Reaching Cape Henlopen was preclimatic for us, but not for the media. In addition to the crew from WBCC 16 to meet us on our way to the finish, a crew from WMDT 47 met us at the shore, and we followed up with an in-studio interview with WMDT 47 the next morning. A reporter from the Cape Gazette also covered us at Cape Henlopen and we were their front page news the next day.
We spent a couple of rest days with Serinda and her family, and joining the Conners one pleasant evening on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk. We also went on a tour of Dogfish Brewery. We did not need the rest days so much as we were stalling for time. Before we resumed our hike up the coast we rented a car to attend our oldest daughter Charissa’s graduation from the Honors program in Nutritional Science, making the trip up and back in one day. We resumed hiking after making that field trip.
I also used the rest days to catch up on my blog posts and wax philosophical about a couple of issues our journey highlighted. One was the pervasiveness of virtually everyone wishing us to “be safe.” If we wanted to be safe we would not have hiked 5,000 miles across the country. I prefer instead to “be well,” or to “live well,” to strive for a high quality of life rather than all my actions geared towards safety. For that matter, all those people wishing us to “be safe,” while bestowing an act of kindness upon us, failed to practice their own advice. Being kind to strangers involves risk, easily avoided if one wants primarily to “be safe.”
Perhaps I am making too much out of the fact that “be safe” is universal in this country, while “be well” is seldom heard as a parting greeting, but I can’t help but link how pervasive “be safe” is with how fear-mongering has made our nation increasingly apprehensive. The fear-mongering goes beyond the NRA and their corporate benefactors using the tactic for gun sales. During our recent pandemic, fear-mongering was the currency for both anti-vaxxers and pro-vaxxers. Adherents to different political parties have gone beyond vilifying each other’s platforms to vilifying each other. I fear the ever-increasing fear in America.
In a switch from the usual, Ky waited for us back in Delaware. Upon our return Cindy and I took the ferry over to Cape May in New Jersey, while Ky drove to meet us. While avoiding major highways, we often hiked along residential streets, going into and out of towns, meeting people in their yards on a frequent basis. One commented on my blog afterwards; a couple of people offered us their place to stay the night; one cute little girl wanted her picture taken with Cindy.
We could not accept many offers of kindness because we were now near the end of our journey. In December we could take impromptu days off for weather or hospitality; we knew we could make up the mileage before our targeted finish date of May 24, one leap year after we began our journey. With under three weeks to go any major diversion from our intended daily mileage would make our target finish increasingly difficult to achieve.
We became more like passing motorists as we walked through the pine barrens, or past a zoo right along the route. One night Ky brought us to a campground that comped us our stay; the other night we camped with permission in a homeowner’s woodsy yard. We discovered the next morning that the woodsy yard we stayed in nearly bordered the zoo we passed. That might explain what I discovered later as the worst thing to happen along our entire journey.
Throughout our ADT journey we encountered a variety of sleeping arrangements. Most often we slept outdoors, due mainly to the western, wilderness portion of the route. Sleeping on church floors was not far behind, due to the wintry, heartland. Much less often, but still significant, were stays at motels or inns paid for by hosts of my talks, trail angels or the motels themselves. With some regularity people hosted us in their homes. This included trail angels just met, old hiking buddies of ours and people connected to the ADT. In the week leading up to finishing the ADT portion of our journey, we benefited from every single one of these prior sleeping arrangements.
First up was the Community Church of Greenbelt, headed by Pastor Dan Hamlin. The town of Greenbelt originated in 1937 as a planned community, with a focus on affordable housing and diversity. Residents for the community were selected to reflect proportions on the 1920 census. The theme of community continued to be infused throughout the town to the present day, such as the credit union and cooperative supermarket where we resupplied.
No surprise then regarding the vibrancy of the Community Church. For one thing they were among the churches outside the DC area taking turns housing the homeless with a rotation. They also renovate a low income house for someone every year, and often lead all UCC churches in raising money from CROP walks. We caught Pastor Dan just before he was to transition from the Community Church pastor for 28 years to working for Church World Service and CROP walks.
Greenbelt’s reputation extended beyond town boundaries. At Greenbelt Lake we met Kent and Julie McCullough, organizers of a NASA-Goddard Flight Center 10K run. They endorsed Greenbelt’s care for the elderly.
Next up as our evening hosts were Kyler Kamp and husband Craig, who lived in Annapolis. Kyler was the twin sister of Torria (TJ), who hosted us on the Eve of Easter after seeing us on the road as a motorist. Both sisters became art teachers. Apparently with advanced warning from TJ in regards to our appetites, Kyler prepared lasagna, chicken pot pie and a vegetarian pizza for supper.
Our third evening host was a Best Western on the east side of Chesapeake Bay. We spent the day hiking through the charming city of Annapolis, with its preserved historical buildings and tours, innovative community initiatives and the Naval Academy. At the far end spanned the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which bans pedestrians and forces ADT travelers to find an alternative means of getting across. Fortunately, we had Ky to drive us over the bridge. After dropping us off on the east side she went on to Grasonville, where she persuaded a Best Western to comp us a room, the third Best Western on our journey to do so.
The next evening we camped outdoors at Tuckahoe State Park, staying at the only lean-to along the southern route of the ADT. Much of the day before and morning after our stay at the lean-to we traveled by farms, as well as people who actually knew about the ADT, not all that common across the country. Then we hiked into the town of Ridgeley around 11:00 pm, right when the United Methodist Church service began. We attended the service and went out with Pastor Joe Smith and wife Dolly afterwards.
The next two evenings were our first in Delaware, the final state along the ADT. We stayed with Jean Hinckley, the Mom of our good hiking buddy Mike. We dropped in on Mike while driving out to California; we stayed with him a few days while in Denver; now he came out to his Mom’s to be with us again. While the five of us were having dinner together the first evening there Jean commented on how jovial us old thru-hikers were. The bond created by people hiking long distances together, along with the memories shared, results in such jovial reunions.
Knowing about our kindness mission, Jean brought us on a field trip to meet her friends Ken and Lori Ockel’s, and specifically daughter Emily. Emily collected “gently used” shoes, over 10,000 of them at the time I interviewed her. The “Waterstep” program funnels shoes to new owners in developing countries via an exporter, the funds exchanged in the process then applied to clean water projects in developing countries. At the time Emily was their leading “shoe-getter,” and eventually was awarded a national humanitarian award for her efforts.
When Mike joined us hiking, for much of the time I hiked ahead a few paces while Mike and Cindy hiked together. Paired with such a good friend from our hiking days, Cindy nearly became the “Gabby Galvin” of old. Maybe, just maybe, this journey healed Cindy.
While they chatted I reminisced about our journey, with plenty of visual aids along the way. The whole state of Delaware called up the flat farmlands of Kansas, as well as the border between Illinois and Indiana. Earthworms on the road after a rainy night reminded me of our last morning in Ohio. Caterpillars crawling across the road reminded me of California, also a reminder that we started and were finishing the ADT in spring. The hot conditions on the second day in Delaware reminded me of the Utah desert in summer.
To round out the nostalgia tour of sleeping arrangements we stayed with a friend of the ADT on our next night. Serinda Connor, like a few of the other friends of the ADT, kept us on her radar far in advance of our arrival into Delaware. She welcomed us into her home on the final night before we would hike to the Cape Henlopen beach and the end of the trail, though not of our journey. More about Serinda and the finish next time.
Amidst the otherwise busy C&0 Canal east of Hancock we experienced one slow day, meeting only two other people on the trail. Perhaps the one gray, overcast day interrupting the spectacular blossoming of spring discouraged some recreationalists. Perhaps the location about halfway in between Harpers Ferry and Georgetown allowed for mainly long distance travelers on that stretch. If so, we were fortunate to encounter the one person out there for his daily walk.
Bahram is an Iranian taxi driver who walks regularly to address a sciatic nerve problem. Upon our meeting he referred to us as inspirations and phoned his Costa Rican wife just to tell her about meeting us. He then handed the phone to Cindy, not me, and Cindy gladly took the phone and chatted with a woman she never met. An unremarkable thing, unless you consider that a woman once in cognitive decline was growing more confident each week.
Bahram turned around to walk with us back to the parking lot where he started. He brought us to a nearby store, where we ordered a couple of pizza slices, then returned us to the rail trail. We later met Scott Matheson, also a hiker fitted with his rain gear for the day, who was hiking the towpath to Cumberland, then following the Allegheny Trail towards Pittsburgh. No one besides us stayed at the Chisel Branch campsite that night, perhaps because of Dulles International Airport being a mere ten miles away.
Our destination the next night was Swains Lock, where we met none other than Irving Swain, whose grandfather was the last locktender there. Locktenders were on 24/7 call to open the locks for passing boats and were given canal quarters to live in near the locks. The canal ceased operations in 1924 but some locktenders remained for a while afterwards. Irving’s cousin remained at the Swains quarters until just a few years ago.
At age 75 himself, Irving asked if I was 70. The farther east we hiked I went from an old man with a young blonde, to a father with a daughter, to looking thirteen years older than my real age. The trail is a humbling experience for all, but this was a new twist to that humility.
We camped next to five young urban professionals near Swains Lock, four whose work involved transportation, two who worked for the Department of Transportation. Ironically, none of them owned cars and had cycled to the campsite from the city. Cindy did well at helping me set up the tent, then spent some time writing in her journal, not once asking me about what happened that day.
More confirmation that Cindy was on the cognitive mend came the next day. As we neared Georgetown the traffic on the C&O Canal increased, with most people walking. Cindy Stewart walked with us for a little while, engaging mainly Cindy in conversation while I walked behind and listened. The other Cindy led an impressive life as a photographer, journalist and an exotic trip leader for a nonprofit. Cindy in turn shared a little about her own impressive life.
We met a woman walking two dogs, which irresistibly drew Cindy towards her. Cindy recalled the names of other pets we met along the way, starting with Buster and moving on to dogs that slipped my mind. In general now Cindy no longer deferred to me answering questions if she enjoyed the topic, which was a good thing since some things she remembered that I did not.
The C&O Canal ended and we continued on an urban walkway into Georgetown and onto the Thompson Boat House. Ky met us there to bring us to the home of Cindy’s close friend Jean Fregeau, well off the ADT route in Ellicott City, Maryland. Technically we were all friends, all had hiked long distances together, but this was a case of Cindy and Jean being friends and college roommates first, leading to them hiking together. The only thru-hike Cindy did without me was the Long Trail in Vermont with Jean.
The past few days revealed Cindy was quite up to the task of engaging our hostess herself. I did my usual thing of creating blog posts and podcasts, while Ky visited her relatives in the DC area. The three of us did a few things together, after all Jean was a hiking friend of mine as well, and Jean’s daughter joined our company occasionally, but otherwise Cindy often spent time with Jean on her own..
While staying with Jean we took a trip into DC for an interview with Krista Lenzmeier, the Executive Director at the time for the American Discovery Trail Society. We met with Krista at the Wilderness Society where she debriefed us in regards to our American Discovery Trail experiences and then took us out to lunch. We had a wonderful, chatty time together.
Ky dropped us back at the Thompson Boat House where we played the role of tourists hiking across DC. We stopped at the Capitol along our way for the long anticipated talk with our Congress representative about kindness and community across the country. Unfortunately, our representative seemed to think we mainly wanted a photo opportunity, definitely a false impression, and dropped in briefly only for that purpose. We instead talked to his interns about the problem of declining community involvement and the inspiring solutions we encountered during our journey.
Krista had been attempting to find us a place to stay within DC for the end of this day, but one barrier we faced was a DC law preventing churches from allowing the homeless to stay overnight on their premises. The law was passed in response to growing numbers of homeless, which is a bit ironic. However, we did see signs in the vicinity of the Supreme Court, displayed by both the United Methodist Church and Unitarian Universalist Church, demonstrating support for immigrants.
Without any churches or other prospects available in DC we continued hiking towards Greenbelt, with Ky picking us up at the end of the day to stay at the Community Church there.
On Tuesday evening, May 24, 8:00 pm, the American Discovery Symphony will premiere with a full orchestra at the Music Shed, on the Yale Summer School of Music campus in Norfolk, Connecticut. The symphony synchronizes five movements of music with photos, interviews and sound effects from our 5,000 mile walk across the country along the American Discovery Trail. In the telling of this story the symphony presents both a travelogue and a love story to the audience. Free General Admission tickets have been limited to about half capacity and are available here:
The C&O Canal started in the mid-nineteenth century as a towpath along the Potomac River, using a series of 74 locks to shepherd boats over difficult stretches. Now a trail shepherds hikers and bicyclists over the same route, through a National Historical Park that features the locks and other historical structures. Civil War signage at a few spots educates the recreationist along the way.
Frequent campsites with toilets and water made camping as easy as the gentle grade of the trail. The height of spring greeted us along this particular stretch, with frequent photo opportunities for birds, flowers and butterflies. As an added treat we hiked through the longest of all tunnels along the ADT, the 3,118 foot long Paw Paw Tunnel.
My blog posts from ten years ago revealed we took a rest day in the trail town of Hancock, but I have no photos taken of that day. I know we stayed at the United Methodist Church, where I caught up with the Internet and chatted with the staff, but I neither gave a talk nor interviewed anyone. Ky returning to us again after her longest time away was the one thing memorable about Hancock.
After Hancock the traffic along the C&O canal picked up. Most were bicyclists, which made us stand out as targets for conversation. Kathy stopped to give us snacks. Tom & Dave delighted in telling us about their fishing trip. We discussed humanitarian issues with Morey and his dog, though the dog was not interested. We got tips from the two brothers and lawyers, Eric and Jack, about our upcoming meeting in Washington, DC with our Congress representative.
I set up the meeting in Washington after my talk to the Lions Club in Dodge City, Kansas. In response to my information about declining community involvement, some of the members declared: “You need to tell them fellas in Washington.” As that meeting drew near I spent many a mile thinking over what information needed to be conveyed.
A six mile detour took us away from the bike trail and by the house of Sam and Dana Wright. Sam hailed us to chat as we were walking by, subsequently inviting us inside for water, snacks and meeting the family. Dana was a judge who through the court system witnessed the problems of housing and hunger our mission advocated addressing through community involvement. I took mental notes to work this into the conversation with my Congress representative.
Ky picked us up for a speaking engagement at the Christian Community Church of St. Paul’s, seven miles south of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, at the request of Pastor Roland England. Four former denominations merged together to form the UCC: Reformed, Evangelical, Christian and Congregational. Pastor Roland’s church joined the UCC as a grassroots, community church. They purchased a defunct Lutheran Church for one dollar, while start up money from the UCC enabled them to build from there.
Every Sunday morning at 8:30 am Roland, his wife Nancy and parishioner Shawn gather to cook pancakes, bacon, eggs, home fries and scrabble. A handful of parishioners come every Sunday morning at 9:30 to eat and a handful more join in for the service at 10:00.
The church service was the most informal I encountered, with everybody including the pastor dressed in jeans and flannels. I believe technically I gave a lay sermon, but felt more like a talk I would give at a school or Lions Club. As was often the case, questions I received were more about hiking than kindness and community. I was asked the two most common questions, one being about how many shoes were worn out, the other being about bears.
I gave my standard answer about bears, they are nothing to worry about in the wilderness if you know what you are doing. I even had the recent bear encounter in Dolly Sods to use as an example. One parishioner asked if I carried a gun. I reiterated that no, instead I knew what I was doing. He somewhat dismissed my answer and claimed that we ought to be carrying guns to protect us from bears and other dangers, pitting his handful of wilderness miles against my 20,000+ miles.
I agree wholeheartedly with the NRA slogan that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Unfortunately, prior to the seventies people cited hunting as their number one reason for owning guns, now they cite protection. This shift occurred even as crime rates went down; occurred because the NRA and their sponsored politicians scared the bejeebers out of the public for the sake of gun sales. Unfortunately, an apprehensive and at times angry person near a trigger is more dangerous than a calm person. Our journey across the country, from Green Mountain Falls, CO to Harpers Ferry, WV, provided testimony as to the growing apprehensions of gun owners, fueled by NRA rhetoric prioritizing gun corporations over members … or lives.
Harpers Ferry lies at the crossroads of the ADT and Appalachian Trail, with the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy located there. As a former AT thru-hiker I stopped in at headquarters to see how they were getting along without the famous Jean Cashen, former ATC secretary and friend to hundreds of AT hikers. The new folks, Dave and Wendell, greeted me with the same enthusiasm. Prior to this year they kept a photo album of long distance hikers that contained only AT hikers. This year we became the second pair of ADT hikers added to that photo album, “Boston” and “Cubby” having been the first.
While at ATC Headquarters we met Cassie Meador and Matt Mahaney, who were hiking 500 miles along the AT and collecting 500 stories about community, energy and dance. Cassie’s background in dance led to a friendship with Heather Doyle, also a dancer who happens to be the daughter of Warren Doyle, arguably the most recognized name among AT hikers and the person who organized the Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 1980 that brought Cindy and me together. With similar missions in mind, Cassie and I interviewed each other about our different community experiences.
We continued to encounter steady traffic on the C&O Canal after Harpers Ferry. We met thru-hiker Renaud, heading in our direction where the American Discovery and Appalachian Trails overlapped, who told us about the kindness he experienced as a cyclist from Belgium to Jerusalem. Then we met cyclist Tom, who told us about the kindness received in every book about thru-hikers he read. While we chatted with Tom, Phil stopped by while on bike patrol, relating to us that he was involved in the wounded warrior project and alleviating southern poverty.
We met Phil Wilkes at a campground the same day we visited ATC Headquarters. We mentioned to Dave and Wendell that we were the first ADT thru-hikers to continuously hike from west to east. Dave added: “that people know about.” I protested that, unlike the AT, very few people hiked the ADT and easily fell in the radar of folks like Sharon Weekly, Marcia Powers and Dick Bratton. Then meeting Phil caused me to rethink that boast.
Phil had recently lost his job and was down to no resources and no prospects, prompting him to hike the ADT until he either figured out what to do with his life or there was no more trail to hike. He was only vaguely aware of the ADT resources out there and I knew for a fact that, as of the day we met, none of the usual ADT “scouts” knew about him. He could have, in theory, hiked the entire ADT without anyone knowing … or he could have figured out what to do with his life, which is often a result of long distance hiking.
By the way, the answer to the shoe question was 8 pairs for me, only 3 pairs for Cindy. I pronate, while Cindy has one of the most beautiful, efficient strides I have ever seen.
