State Number 4

Welcome to North Carolina!

As we continue our southwest trip from Washington, DC to Charlotte, NC we crossed another state border, and are now in the state of North Carolina.  We are now about 40 miles away from Greensboro, North Carolina, and 91.4 miles away from Charlotte.

We are currently around Yanceyville, North Carolina, but there aren't many major towns around us now.  According to the town website, the best part of living in Yanceyville is All of the Above, which includes the quaint town, the people, the green surroundings, the hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and canoeing.  Sounds like a nice little place to pass through!

A little about North Carolina, it is the 10th most populous state in the country.  The capital is Raleigh, and it is the 28th largest state in the US.  North Carolina was the 12th state admitted to the union.

We'll continue on our southwest path after going through North Carolina and we'll hit Atlanta before we begin our western path across the country.  California here we come!

My walking route

I've settled into a good routine, waking up early, currently the alarm goes off at 5:55 AM, get dressed and head out the door on my 3 mile route.  Officially it measures in at about 3.2 miles, but for my purposes 3 miles is close enough.  The bad part of following the same route every day is you go the same place every day, but the good part is things are familiar.

I pass many of the same people every day, both on foot, either walking or running, or even in the car.  After 31 straight days of following pretty much the same route I even have some people that drive by beeping and waving.   I've made some small changes to the route adding a little bit of distance.  I added a little bit of distance by looping down a residential street, and went a street further past Church street (there were two things that bothered me about Church street - 1) there are no churches on the street, and 2) there was a house with a big Red Sox flag).  I also go a street further in the opposite direction and dub the route my 'Statue of Liberty' route now.

Why do I call it that?  Because of this in the back yard:

Its a little blurry from taking the picture while walking (and not trying to be obvious about it), but as you can see there is a mini Statue of Liberty in their backyard.

On my walk I go past both the police station, and the fire station.  I go past a cemetery, the post office, and the library.  A gas station and a WaWa, along with two pizza places and a liquor store.  A TV repair shop, pharmacy, butcher, a salon, and the Flying Pig Saloon.

I go past many houses, and walk a loop around the path at the Paoli Battlefield before heading home.  There is a park right next to the Paoli Battlefield, where I walk with the kids.  I took a few pictures tonight of the loop I walk each morning -

One of the monuments:

The middle of the loop:

The sun setting for a change:

Feel free to tell us all about your routes!

The Big 4-0....0

We made it past another milestone today, moving past 400 miles!  We've made it 6.7% of the way through our journey, which I think is very good for just starting week 3.

Keep up the good work everyone!  Let's get moving and remember to log your miles (Lynn!).

Just a quick sanity check on our journey, we've averaged a bit over 25 miles per day for the first 16 days.  Dad, Ann, and myself have logged miles every day so far!

There are 349 days left in our journey, and to make it to our goal we'll need to average 17.2 miles per day.  If we remain on our current pace we are projected to finish on Dad's birthday, April 13th!

Getting up early to walk - A Quick Week 2 Update

Getting up while the first number on the clock reads 5 has left me worn out at night, and today was the first day of school/last day of our sprint at work.  I'll post a progress update soon, but we did walk more miles in week 2 than week 1!

180.5 compared to 168.5.  Keep up the good work everyone!  We got off to a good start in week 3 with 29 miles on the first day, without everyone entering their info.  I know Lynn walked and don't see her miles yet.  We may just beat our 32 miles in a day record.

Pictures from my walks...

State Number 3 - Welcome to the Commonwealth of Virginia

We've now made it to state number 3 - Virginia!  Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and was the birthplace of 8 US Presidents.  Anyone know who all 8 of those presidents are?

Another trivia question - Virginia is one of four states that designate themselves as Commonwealths.  We've got people living in two of those Commonwealths, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.  Anyone know what the fourth Commonwealth is?

Here is a picture of the Virginia flag:

We've actually made it through quite a bit of Virginia, and our now .9 miles away from Jetersville, Virginia, no relationship to Derek.  Jetersville is part of Amelia County.  It looks like quite a small town in a small county of 11,000 people.

The county is served by the weekly Amelia Bulletin Monitor.  When I checked out the paper's website they had a breaking news bulletin -

Breaking News

Officers respond to mooning report 

Keep your eyes peeled, or shielded as we walk on through!

31 Miles Today

Which is our biggest day ever!  Our previous high of 28 miles was done yesterday, so we are really on a roll.  Keep up the good work everyone!  Its nice to see us setting records.  We need 45 miles over the weekend to beat last week's total.  Let's get it done!

Erica and Ashley each logged their first miles tonight on our walk to and from the park tonight.

Leg 2 (Completed)

For the second leg of our journey we traveled from the capital of Maryland, Annapolis to the nation's capital, Washington, DC.

We completed the second leg of our journey on August 22nd, four days ago.  From here our road heads a little bit southwest before going west.  The next major stop on our journey will be Charlotte, North Carolina.

Leg 1 (Completed)

Once again we started off our journey in Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, Delaware, and we started off down route 9 passing through Georgetown, Delaware and crossed into Maryland on route 24.  Once in Maryland we started heading south down Sharptown Mardela Springs Road until we reached route 50.

Route 50 was part of the original highway system that was established in 1926 and stretches across the country. We could just travel Route 50 across the country, but this sign made me think otherwise:

70 miles was long enough, but it did get us across Chesapeake Bay and once across the Bay we headed south past the Naval Academy and into the capital city of Maryland - Annapolis.

Which brings us to the end of our first leg.  Up next, from one capital city to another!

Back to the Blog

Two changes - I'm going to move back to the blog.  I'm having trouble with the web page, so I think for our purposes the blog will work well enough.

The second change is to the route.  I was having trouble following along with the American Discovery Trail, and knowing where exactly we were on the route, which makes things difficult.  We'll still be moving across the country, starting from the same location, but I've created a new route that will take us across the country, and back again with the finishing point in Malvern.  The new route will take us through 24 states, including the District of Columbia and will take us 6010.4 miles, which is a little bit higher, but based on our progress so far I know that we can get there!

I'm expecting more mileage from both Mike and Michelle after the wedding, and Mom and Kim both need to get moving!

We'll take a southern route across the country, crossing places such as Charlotte, Albuquerque, and end up in Oceanside, California.  Our return trip we'll be passing through Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon National Park, and Indianapolis.  I've got the route all planned out, and I'll update on our progress right now.

Keep on walking, running, and biking!

The Starting Point

Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware

Currently 79 degrees.  Here is some information about our first leg of the trip:

Cape Henlopen to Maryland State Line

Upon leaving Cape Henlopen State Park you pass the Cape May/Lewes Ferry, which crosses Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey. The ADT stays on the main road through Lewes, a growing town of about 2,500 people that is rich in history. Settled in 1631, Lewes is considered the "first town in the first state" and offers a number of shops, restaurants and motels.

After a short section along busy U.S. 9, which has a wide paved shoulder, the route follows paved country roads into Milton. Located on the Broadkill River, this town was the shipbuilding capital of Delaware in the 1800s. It is the site of many fine Victorian mansions. Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge is a few miles east of Milton and makes an interesting side trip for those who enjoy bird watching.

After leaving Milton, the ADT follows rural roads through farmland. Soon after crossing U.S. 113, the trail passes through Redden State Forest, which offers primitive camping. Continuing west, the trail enters Bridgeville, a town of 1,500 people and the agricultural and railroad center of the region. Bridgeville has a bed and breakfast.

The ADT follows country roads through the unincorporated towns of Cocked Hat, Adamsville, and Hickman before leaving Delaware on Rural Road 113, which becomes Hobbs Road in Maryland. The boundary between Delaware and Maryland is part of the Mason-Dixon Line. 

The Spreadsheet for Tracking

You should have received a link to the spreadsheet if you've confirmed that you are doing it.  Just enter the miles that you walked into the spreadsheet on the date you walked them under your name and that is it.  I'll total it up and post updates as we go across the country.

There are a couple of tools that you can use to map your distance.  There are a bunch of google map pedometers out there where you can just click the route you took.  Here is an example of one:
http://walking.about.com/library/walk/blgooglemap1.htm

If you want to estimate it you can use this as a guide:
walk slowly = 20-25 mins per mile 
walk briskly = 17-20 mins per mile 
walk fast = 13-17 mins per mile 
jog = 9-13 mins per mile 
run = 5-9 mins per mile 



We aren't looking for precision, just a good estimate of your distance.  If you have any other tips for tracking your mileage post away!

Our Path

The American Discovery Trail is the only coast to coast non-motorized recreational trail and stretches from Delaware to California.  The trail splits in Ohio into a Northern path and a Southern path, and for our purposes we'll be taking the Southern path of the trail.  Our journey will take us across 12 states, starting in Delaware, traversing across Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada before ending up in California for a total of 5048 miles.

Across our journey we'll look at some of the highlights, and hopefully this will be a fun experience for everyone as we move closer to our goal.  I'll try and put together a spreadsheet and the map to get that out tonight.  We'll start our journey today, August 16th, 2010 and end our journey on August 15th, 2011.

Have fun everyone and get moving!

A Virtual Journey Across America

I was looking for ideas to stay motivated, and came across what looked like a fun challenge idea, a virtual walk across America.  The route will be the American Discovery Trail, which is 5048 miles from one end of the country to the other.  We'll have a year to complete our virtual journey.

I'll create a simple spreadsheet where everyone can log their totals that they walk, run, or bike each day and I'll plot our course across the country weekly.  The goal will be to reach the final destination, 5048 miles.  I thought it would be a fun experience, so I'm not looking for exact measurements, just a rough idea of how far you've gone as close as possible.  I'll send out some free tools you can use to measure your walks, and get the map set-up.  You should be able to post to the blog, and if you want to invite someone to join please let me know and I'll add them.  The more people that want to do this the better.  We'll have a year to complete this virtual trek, and if we finish early we'll have to figure something out, maybe we'll start walking back.  I'll get some more details out soon, but wanted to officially kick off our virtual walk across America.


I'll leave the blog open for now so anybody can view, but you have to have permission to post.