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More Walking

A few decisions have been made about walking.

Last June 7th, minutes after walking across the state line into Mississippi and finishing my 122 mile walk from Kentucky,  I made one determination about walking. …..I wasn’t finished.

Some people, though interested and even intrigued about my walk, gave me that look and in some cases voiced it, that I did the ‘wimpy’, short kind of walk, (since Tennessee is almost 500 miles long), from Memphis to Bristol. I was OK with that. I had had a whole lot of fun and a great time meeting people.

So, I have decided that if God is willing to allow me to, I am now in the planning stages of going ‘East to West’ across Tennessee. What will that look like? For one, not an ‘all at one time’ kind of walk. That would be a 6 to 8 week trip. Since I am still a working man, I don’t think my boss will let me just take a two month vacation all at once.

I truly would love to say someday that I walked all the way from North Carolina to Arkansas, but that’s not going to happen. Last year, I spent hours and hours on Google Maps searching out just the right spots to walk, making sure I had either shoulders or sidewalks. I have checked every single route out of NC and every  one of them at one or more points, narrows down to one lane, a single 6” wide stripe, and a sheer drop off, farther down than I want to drop. So since I will still be pushing a 2’ wide cart, it would not be safe anywhere for the first 20 miles.

That is the same for the 40-50 miles across the Cumberland Plateau. So I hope to do this in three chunks, hopefully about two weeks at a time.

So, this coming late summer/early fall of 2020, I hope to walk from my hometown of Maryville to the Chattanooga area.  And sometime after that, I will start close to I-24 and walk US Hwy 64 all the way to Memphis, and if I can, across the Mississippi into Arkansas. So, I am walking as much as I can. As much as the wet weather will allow. (For you West Texas friends of mine, yes since Jan., I don’t think we have gone 3 days without it raining here in the foothills of the Smokies.)

And if you are wondering, my trusty and beautiful assistant has decided to not go along like she did last time.  My hopes? To contact churches along the way and get permission to camp out on their property if their church happens to be the closest one to where I need a stay for the night. I think that if I pulled off getting churches to actually find hosts to keep us for the night, that I can get permission to camp for one night. We will see.

And though I am letting y’all know of this on my old blog, I plan on doing something different this time. Either a more reliable blog, or Facebook, I’m not sure yet. But please, if you have any ideas, please comment about them below.

She shouldn't be walking, but is.

I walked into a Wendy's in south Jackson on day 7 and met Laura Ann and her husband. We had two connections, I have a daughter named Laura Anne and she had had blood flow issues that should have killed her.

Philospher and Artist

In downtown Medina, I took a break in the quaint little 'Main Street Grill'. While there, I met a man who had filled the walls of the cafe with his artwork and filled my ears with his philosophies on life.

(This is not his artwork, I don't think.

 But the two below are his. He simply finds 

junk and makes it into sell-able art.)

The Church with the Horse Carriage.

On day two I passed this country church and a not very typical lawn ornament, a wooden horse carriage, which was about 145-150 years old. 

Blount County Library (Final Reminder)

For those living close enough, here is a final reminder that I am going to share about my walk a week from tonight to the general public. Tues. Feb 4th, at 7 p.m. in the Sharon Lawson Room of the Blount County Library in Maryville, Tn. Hope to see you there.

Blount County Library

This is to all my 60trip followers who live in the Knoxville/Maryville area. Tues Evening, Feb 4th., I have the privilege of sharing about my Walk across Tennessee to anyone willing to come. I'm not asking for a show of hands of all that would 100% commit, but how many would possibly come if your schedule worked out. Please send me a simple yes, no, or probably to sixtytrip@juno.com  . Thanks.

John Wayne???....uh, no.

Day 3. I walked into Bradford, and found a convenience store to rest in and wait for Judy and then, well,....I'll just reprint what I said in my day 3 post weeks ago. 

Close to the end of my day, I found a quiet peaceful convenience store in the town of Bradford. The clerk, or owner, was the only one in the store. I talked to her and asked her if she had any story about her life to tell me and she said she was not much of a talker. I sat down at a table to rest and drink something. Then, in walked two men. The second one was rather large, and LOUD. He looked at the clerk and yelled, pointing to himself and his friend, "Well, it's 'Dumb' and 'Dumber'." I immediately realized this man was probably a talker with a story. So, I yelled out myself, 'Hey, Dumb, come talk to me a second.' He kindly came over and sat at my table and I told him I was walking across Tennessee and asked him if he had anything to tell the world. 

So, you may ask, 'why did you title this, 'John Wayne'?

In the video he just calls himself 'Rooster'. His full stage name in the ring is Rooster Cogburn, the same name as the John Wayne character in True Grit. 

Click on 'Rooster' if the video does not come up

Hold on! Wait a minute. I'm not finished.

Just a little more fun here. I didn't learn this from Rooster, but from the Baptist pastor that we stayed with that night. Just east of Bradford is the unincorporated town of Skullbone, Tn. According to legend, Skullbone was incorporated back in the 1800's and as I understand it, was and possibly still is a center for 'bare fisted fighting'. It was illegal, I'm guessing according to state law, to have bare fisted fighting within the city limits, so Skullbone 'un-incorporated' itself just so they could keep the fun going. What is left is one store, and one pole announcing mileage to cities all over the world. 

Here is a website explaining the town of Skullbone. Make sure to watch the video inside. 

'Crack skulls here' to get to website. 

Recovering Meth Addict

On day five, I started out in downtown Milan at the Marathon gas Station. I barely went 5 blocks when I saw this man walking toward me next to a cemetery. I stopped and asked him if he had a story for me and he was super excited to share this with me. 

Click here if  the video is not visible. 

Hosts and other kindnesses on the trip.

I have mentioned very little of our overnight stays, so here goes. Months before starting this journey, I started calling and emailing churches all along Hwy 45 explaining what I had planned and that I was hoping that the pastors could find a gracious host family to put Judy and I up for a night. 

Knowing all would not respond, I contacted about three in each major town along the way. Some responded quickly, others only a week or so before the trip started.

I did not speak to any of our hosts about telling their stories, so I will honor every one's privacy and mention no names or specific towns, just in case I have somebody reading this that would be crazy enough to think that since it worked for David and Judy, I will just give them a call and try to drop in also. 

I will say that all our hosts were north of Jackson or in Jackson and we had none south of Jackson even offer us a night's stay, but as you will see from my story, I think , ... I know God worked it out the way it happened.

One of our stays was on a Wed. night and our host was the pastor of the church and weeks before I had arranged with him for me to be the guest speaker for his Wed. night service. 

For 12 years now, Judy and I have been involved with a ministry called VOM, Voice of the Martyrs. It's main purpose is as a prayer ministry showing members of Christian Churches in the western world what kind of lives our Christian brothers and sisters are living, being persecuted for their simply being Christians.

The founder of VOM, Richard Wurmbrand, was a Jewish, converted Christian from Romania who shortly after WW2, was arrested and imprisoned three different times for a total of 14 years in communist prisons just because of his Christian faith. His wife, Sabina, was also arrested and worked in a cruel work camp for three years. 

My part in this is sharing the many times tragic, but always, victorious stories of how people are living under persecution today, and how God is sustaining them through their hardships. 

If anyone is interested in learning more, simply go to  www.persecution.com .

So that night, we had a great time with about 40 members of his church and getting to know him, his wife, and three cute little children.

Another stay was with a family of 7. This couple had adopted their oldest child about ten years ago and since have had two more girls and then two more boys and had just moved into this much larger house to accommodate a growing family. 

One lady called me several weeks before our trip started and told me that it had been worked out by them and their pastor that they would host us either on a Monday or a Tuesday.  "Which day would you be needing?" she asked. "Well, either really," I responded. "So, you need both nights?" she asked. "Great, you will stay with us both nights." 

Then, she found out Judy and I used to live in Texas and she asked where. It turned out that 30 years ago, she and her husband and Judy and I all lived in the same town in East Texas for about three years. Wow, did we have a great time putting the dots together of common friends. One of the couples they knew there, we knew in another town we lived in ten years later.  

Another host we had was also a pastor. Earlier in the day he had taken his wife to the airport for an out of state trip to see grandkids. So it was just the three of us. He took us to the town of Humboldt where we ate at a downtown coffee shop oddly named, 'The Coffee Shop'. So, a big shout out to Guy and Tammy, owners of  'The Coffee Shop' , home to good sandwiches, soups, and salads, and I assume, coffee. (I don't drink the stuff) 

Friday night was our last known stay with a host family,  we thought. Thinking that I could finish this walk in 8 walking days, I hoped to have been finished Tues or Wed of the second week. We found a nice AirBnB in Jackson and rented it for Mon-Wed nights on week two. We still had Sat and Sun up in the air several days into the trip, so we reserved Sat and Sun night at a motel close to the famous Casey Jones village. By then, I knew I could not finish by Wed, so we made a split reservation for Sat-Sun and then Thur-Frid. 

It didn't take long to realize, that though our room was clean and adequate, there were many aspects of the motel that were very sub-par, especially the noise level around the lobby. And the three closest ice-makers were not working. Several things could be upgraded. 

The main hostess at the counter was very kind and professional. We had told her what kind of trip we were doing, and asked her if it was possible to get out of the Thur-Frid reservation if we did find something down the road. We weren't sure what we might find south of town. She said we would not be charged if we let them know 24 hours in advance. 

Sunday morning, we visited Cornerstone Comm. Church in Jackson. While there, we ran into a family from our own church in Maryville who were dropping their daughter off at a four week class at nearby Union University. We live about a mile from each other. What a coincidence. 

Monday morning I had the privilege of starting very early while leaving Judy asleep in the motel. I walked about 15-16 miles that day, my farthest of the trip. 

The is Judy's excited conversation when she picked me up Monday afternoon just north of Pinson. 

"I checked in to the AirBnB and the wife asked where we lived. I answered 'Maryville' and the wife asked, 'wait a minute. Are you the people walking across Tennessee?'

"Yes we are," Judy answered, very surprised.

'We know who y'all are. We've been praying for you for weeks. We are members of Cornerstone.' (The church I just mentioned from the day before.)

She went on to explain that when the pastor had put out a notice to the church that this crazy guy was walking across Tennessee and he and his wife are looking for a place to stay, that she and her husband had initially sent an email saying they were interested in hosting since they had several empty rooms. But somehow, there was a miscommunication, or a lost email, or something and they never got on the list.

Our Friday night stay was with a family also from Cornerstone.

When Judy picked me up after finishing my walk on Tues, (day 8, Crazy Guy Day) we went back to Jackson for our 2nd night at this AirBnB and we got this announcement from the couple who lived there. They told us that since they had wanted to host us in the first place, that they had gone online and re-imbursed our money for the three days and offered to let us stay through Friday night if we needed, for free. 

God blessed us with 5 free days with this very generous couple who should have made several hundred dollars as a business owner. WOW. And my walk did finish on Friday, and the next morning we headed home. God is good. 

Now to summarize some of the gifts along the way. Many of them have been mentioned already.  Day 1 I had a hat, a hamburger, and a handful of change offered to me, which I refused, since it was from a fellow traveler and I figured he might need the money as much as I. I did take the tire patch kit which was later needed. 

I was given a $20 bill, a $5 bill, two free meals by shop owners and I don't know how many bottles of water and several bottles of soft drinks. Besides one unfortunate incident, we both were showered with love and kindness the whole trip.

Praise be to our God.