Day 4

Had a great time with these 2 today!

A huge pile of poop

I woke up and it was still dark. I felt like it was 3 or 4 am on my biological time clock. So I tried to go back to sleep. I just couldn’t get comfortable. So after tossing and turning for about 30 minutes I gave up. I noticed the slightest hint of sunlight coming up. I turned my phone on to check the time (yes I started to walk across America without a watch.. ugh) and it said 7:14. I was way off. I laid there for a while and then started to pack things up. I fed domino but not myself. I only had 3 miles to a Walmart and I had a list of things to get. The list got a lot longer after my first night camping. A watch was one of those items….

I packed everything up and it was sunny by the time I got started. The first house I passed a woman waved and said, “good morning!” As if seeing someone push a baby stroller out of the woods and across a busy highway was something that didn’t strike her as odd. I said it back and smiled.

It is amazing how much a kind gesture can lighten my feet and how a rude one weighs them down. Very shortly after I started walking I felt the sun and could tell it was going to be a warm day. I took off two layers and got down to a tshirt. It felt great to be out of all those clothes.

I finally get to Walmart. I felt like suck a redneck to be so excited to see one. I tied Jenny and Domino up in the shade and walked into a Walmart. It was like a scene from a movie. This has to be the cleanest walmart I’d ever seen. Angels sung out and the lights got brighter. This must be what Heaven is like!

I go through and try to be a little quick with shopping. I had things that i wanted to do there besides shop that would take a little time… I ran through my list and got a new sleeping bag because my last one was so uncomfortable that it defeated it’s purpose. I looked at watches but was surprised on how much they cost there. I will find a better deal somewhere else. I was over shopping by the time I got to the watches and didn’t have the patience to figure out which watch to get. I went back out to arrange Jenny with the new items and to go through my clothes to see what I could get rid of. I packed way too much stuff and it’s time to start to figure out what to give away or send back home for use later in the walk.

As I was doing this, a woman who I’d been talking with on Facebook and her daughter pulled up to bring me breakfast and hang out. I was starving!  She brought a scrapple sandwich and said it’s something big in the local area. Sounded awesome!  It was. She tells me not to ask what it is.. which obviously makes you ask what it is.. I’m glad she told me AFTER I ate it haha.

We sat and talked and I really liked her and the stories she was telling me about her family and things that connected her to my cause. I spent way too long sitting there but the time was not wasted. I enjoyed every second that I sat there.

We went over to Petco next. I needed to get Domino a name tag because she recently lost hers and I wanted to look at dog shoes for her. We walked in together this time and our vests caught people’s attention. I told a clerk there what we are doing and she thought it was cool and interesting. I gave her a card when I paid for the name tag. As I was waiting to get the name tag engraved in the machine she comes back to me and tells me that she also lost a sister to the same thing and appreciated what I was doing. I wanted to hug her but I smelled so bad! I hope she is doing ok and I hate that she has that hole in her heart. I know it all too well.

After that we finally got on the road again and it was hot now. We walked through the town of Denton. It was beautiful. I loved it! I headed one way on Gay street. It was fun! Haha.

After Denton we started moving really slow. The sun and lack of sleep and food was kicking both of our butts. We stopped for water way too much. I kept feeding domino food but for some reason I never ate more than a few bites of trail mix. I just wanted to make it to Queen Anne. It was my goal to get there today. It was nice and everything but I passed through it to get to a Shell station that I saw on the map. I wanted to get a soda or something and to charge up my phone. Well it was closed but there was another gas station across the street. So I turned back and went there. I went in to buy a soda to justify me using there power to charge my phone. I bought the cheapest one and passed on a few snacks that I wanted because I didn’t want to spend money on food when I had been pushing so much of it all day. I come back out and a guy who I had seen before I walked in came up to ask for change. I don’t do that. I live in Atlanta and know of places to get them shelter or food so I always let them know about that and go about my business. But out here in don’t know of any resources. I still thought that it wasn’t fair to just give this man money. I had been walking all day and I spared my own comforts to save some change. I still hadn’t even figured out where I was going to sleep tonight and the sun was going down in about an hour and a half. I told him no. I said I don’t want to give him money. Maybe if he had come up with a story and/or a good reason I would have done it. But he was just loitering and asking everyone there for money. It’s something I can’t stand. I’ll be honest. And now that I’m basically homeless also, I still don’t feel bad to say no. I offered him crackers and he didn’t take them. That’s all I have to say about that.

I started to get anxious when I plugged my phone into the outlets outside of the gas station and they didn’t work. I had about 50% on my cell phone and I had no idea where to set up camp. I looked on Google maps and found a wooded area nearby. I walk down a backroad and pass a few nice houses. With nice yards. That they probably would’ve let me camp on if I had just asked but I can’t seem to get there yet. So I kept going. Frantically trying to find a good spot to sleep for the night. Being that I am trying to not be seen, I want to set up my tent and cook before it gets too dark to see and I need to use a flash light. Flash lights are a big no-no in this situation. I struggled a lot to find a place. Everywhere that looked promising from a distance was a total bust. I notice a bridge up ahead and figure I’d find somewhere under or around there. I dash through a huge yard of bumps and mud to get to the tree line between a break in the cars. I get there and there is mud everywhere and nowhere good to camp. The sun was setting.

I decided to just set up anyways. I had to pretty much make a space by stepping on small trees and roots so that I could get it as flat as possible. I laid a tarp down because of the mud and put my tent up on top of that. I set everything else up and cooked and we ate and I’m blogging. I don’t think we’ll get into any harm tonight. I saw some deer tracks in the mud but nothing else. I’ll have a mess with all of my stuff but I can figure that out later. Right now I’m just ready for a good night’s sleep.

I’m going to turn my phone off now. I don’t have much battery left to do all of the comments. I’ll catch up tomorrow.

All in all in was another good day. We got some good miles in and we’re safe. I struggled in the end there but I think it was unnecessary. Everything would’ve been fine had I not let myself get hangry. I’ll be sure to eat better tomorrow.

This new sleeping bag is great by the way! So at least I ended on a positive note 🙂