Previously on Walking The States…

• Following successful crossings of Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia, and some taxing sitting down in Washington DC, Stuart and Dave made it to the border of Ohio. There, after accepting the advice of two bikers, Tim and Joe, they decided to break with the American Discovery Trail and head to the nearby college town Athens in search of a night out.
• Athens proves to be a fine place to hang around, and our heroes meet such interesting folk as the Girl Who Thinks We Are Backpacking Across Europe, Jamie and Jac, Kristen from the Athens Messenger, her colleague Gallagher and his lovely wife Erica and the good folks at the Italian Deli round the corner from their house.
• After Athens it is Nelsonville, where photos are taken for our piece in the paper, poor quality sandwiches are bought at the Crossroads Gas Station and a realisation dawns that Kristen knows everybody in Athens county.
• How did our travellers know this? Because on Wednesday night they ended the day in possession of a log cabin at the top of a hill outside of Nelsonville, soaking themselves in a hot tub looking out on some fields. Such gifts as these (provided by Mikki and Jay, good friends of Kristen) come along rarely, if at all, and a hot tub is a hot tub is a hot tub. It was A Good Thing (and they got to watch a documentary on the history of heavy metal. Twisted Sister, for anyone’s information, were a really awful band but Motley Crue, on the other hand, were almost as groundbreaking as the Beatles. According to VH1 anyway…).
• Following hot tub action, there is a brief interlude of 20 more miles where our heroes walk apart for an entire day, as tiredness moves Dave a little off the pace and impatience to be moving forward puts Stuart at the front. Dogs bark at the passing walkers, people wave and many backroads are walked. Shortly outside of Blackjack there is an encounter with a general store where Stuart drinks two cans of coke in quick succession and a cat eats Dave’s sandwich while he is not looking.
• That night is spent at Old Man’s Cave campsite, where there is a feast of pasta in a tuna and tomato sauce. The iPod is broken out for the first time in weeks and music fills the air as wine is supped. While said wine is being supped, Stuart, looking over Dave’s shoulder from the picnic table, is able to see a five year old climb inside his mother’s car and let the handbrake off, almost resulting in a comedy SUV-Disappearing-Inside-A-Hedge moment. Sadly, his mother was hip to his game at the last, and a big car/toddler tragedy was avoided.
• Later that night, Stuart fends off racoons from outside the tent with one of Dave’s walking poles.
• Friday is a tough day for Walking the States. The fella’s hearts just aren’t in it, and Stuart has a small blister. He is annoyed, because he believes himself to be Blister Superior, and this blister is laughing in the face of superiority and natural order. Dave, who has massive blisters like seashells on his feet, appears to be able to walk through tremendous pain every day. Go figure who is more blister superior…
• The end of Friday afternoon is especially tough, with our heroes seperated by distance once again until an unlikely visitor approaches Stuart bearing gifts. It is a man on a motorcycle, and he pulls right up in front of our man on point and asks “Are you the guys looking for a bar?”. Most unexpected, as was his next gesture, the producing of a clear plastic bag containing a can of Speckled Hen and a can of Double Chocolate Stout.
• It turns out the man, who shall henceforth be known as Jon Rudolf, for that is he, has been in touch with our team before via email and left a message too convoluted to explain here but which nevertheless contained the phrase ‘dingo baby’. Jon had travelled 100 miles on his motorcycle in search of our two hikers, and had found them by mistake because they had gone off the trail (again).
• Jon showers more wonders on our team – motorbike rides to a nearby campsite and more beer. Dave is escorted first, while Stuart waits on a perfect lawn walking in circles reading Malcolm X – he cannot sit down because of the huge number of flies surrounding his stinky carcass. All day he has resembled that smelly child in Peanuts…
• And so it came to pass that Friday night passed by in a haze of pizza, showers and laundry, campfires and good company. And Speckled Hen and Chocolate Stout. And figs. Good for the digestion apparently.

And so to more recent developments…

• This morning, our team rise with the shouting of campsite children to a beautiful day. They are ferried down the mountain via a brief stop at a fire tower where Stuart can only get reception on his cell phone by repeatedly climbing to the top and shouting. At the top of the tower can be seen more trees that obscure a most delightful view (we are told).
• Many goodbyes are said when Stuart and Dave are returned to the trail, and Jon invites them to his place in a couple of weeks where all things will be washed, including rucksacks. More non-chaffing wicking underwear can be bought, and local beer can be drunk. It is a fine invite.
• Dave is briefly insulted by a local landowner who does not like the look of him sitting on her lawn. He is told to go and loaf elsewhere. So happened the first time in months that anyone has been rude to Walking the States. Stuart goes back down the trail to get a good look at this woman, for she is in The Minority.
• Stuart and Dave head for Londonderry (Derry!) where they are to make a phone call to Connie Myers, a contact of Pat Hayes the local ADT trail co-ordinator. It is rumoured there may be beds and laundary. On the way to the payphone they see a convoy of about 20 jeeps, and all the drivers wave at our walkers. It is difficult to come up with a different wave back for each driver, although Stuart tries peace signs, jazz hands and even The Wink, although this final effort does not make an impact on account of Stuart wearing shades.
• At the Londonderry gas station we are told to be on the look out for an escaped convict in the area, a 21 year cop killer who has escaped the local penetentiary after making a rope out of bedsheets and toilet roll (true). A tatooed man with a large wife informs us that the cops are after the wrong guy however, because “if he really was a murderer he would have killed more people by now”.
• After a successful call to Connie, Stuart and Dave make their way to Richmondale where they are received like kings. One gigantic meal of bison meat loaf, mac n’cheese and various vegetables later, they are given a tour of nearby Chillicothe which has an extremely interesting mix of historical sites, paper mills, burned out buidlings (there is serial arsonist on the loose), great parks, Native American burial mounds, beautiful residential areas and corrective facilities.
• They also go to a supermarket where they buy more packet pasta.
• Finally, they return to Connie’s to eat ice cream and pie and chocolate brownies, watch Will Ferrell as Ricky Bobby on Larry King Live, write journal entries like this one and argue over who gets the bed in the basement.
• Since they last wrote, Stuart and Dave have had a very good time.

This journal entry was bought to you in association with Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ (“Really really bad!”) and Jon Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’, both of which were performed extensively on the road today.

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