11/1/05 

Well the last couple of days have been very educational for me.  Kevin Volz from GoLite.com came down from their headquarters in Boulder Colorado to help me switch to lighter, warmer gear.  They have been trying to convince me for months to do this but sometimes I am hard to convince. Case in point, I switched a lot of the gear in Elk City for their stuff and went from about 70lbs to 55lbs. 

However, I was reluctant to change out everything mainly because I was thinking about my needs in the wrong way. I was thinking that being prepared meant to have everything that I MIGHT possibly need with me. You know, just in case, but at the last minute switched back to the original “trusty” gear 

They were preaching the exact opposite and I wasn’t biting.  So after several emails back and forth I think that they decided I was being a nimrod and that they needed to show me first hand, that is where Kevin comes into the picture, I guess that he is the nimrod fixer.

We sat and talked about some of the Fastpacking methods and then we starting tossing out gear. I really never thought about redundancies before but after really examining what I had versus what I needed it became apparent that I had way too much junk. 

Several items were just replaced for lighter GoLite products, some were left out completely and a couple of things we added and when it was all over the pack went from 55lbs to 16lbs.  I can definitely deal with 16lbs! 

So now I am off with a new attitude, new methods and about 40lbs of freedom and with this I hope to get into the stride that I need to complete this walk by the end of the year. I am really enthusiastic and GoLite seems to be committed to helping me to get to the level that I am trying to achieve.

I have to say here that they are not paying me a dime to say any of this and in fact they paid a premium sending Kevin here at the last minute to help me out and then of course the gear it self. I think that says a lot about their commitment to me and I wanted to show my appreciation by making sure to tell you guys about them.

Finally here are the five steps that they go by for lighter backpacking;

Step 1: Don’t bring things that you don’t need.

(Not as simple as you would think because the natural tendency is to think that you need everything.)

Step 2: Replace heavy and overbuilt items.

            (I was amazed at how much this really meant in terms of extra weight)

Step 3: Seek multi-function items and avoid redundancies.

Step 4: Modify you gear to make it lighter and more functional.

Step 5: Refine, Refine, Refine.

Read more at Golite.com

So tomorrow I am back at it again and I am going to take the next seven days to make some of the other changes that I have been working on and I will let you know in a week how it all went.  I am changing several areas of behavior and methodology so it will be interesting to see how it changes things for me. 

You know how boring I think that it is to dwell on the mundane day to day details of walking. But for the next seven days I will keep very thorough records of thing like food intake, mileage and the effect or changes that come of the new methods and then post is in sort of a report form on the website.  

That ought to keep the type A’s busy for a while! 

I have made it to Chandler, OK.  Yeah Chandler!  This is a good sized city along the turnpike but it seems totally out of place here. It looks like a lot of the small towns near where I was raised in Ohio. It looks very fall here with all of the trees changing color but it doesn’t feel like it, in fact today was easily in the mid 80’s. I have figured out that when I prepare for the cold the temperature goes up. When I shed the warm gear it goes cold.  So I have started buying warm stuff every where I go in an attempt to keep it in the eighties all the way to New York.  Will it work? 

I was invited to meet up with some nice folks in Edmond on Wednesday and took them up on the offer. After they got off of work they met me at the local Starbucks, While I was waiting for them I made a few new friends there and of course got some pictures. Why are all of the girls at Starbucks so damned pretty?

Shawn and Karen turned out to be a real nice couple I really enjoyed meeting them.  Karen made a spaghetti dinner which she assured me would not be like prison food and luckily it wasn’t. In fact it was a nice change from the things that I have been eating lately and as it turns out it was also the last real meal before my “seven day experiment”. Oh but I have said too much already, you will have to wait until I am finished before I give the details.

I met quite a few interesting people on the way to Luther, Ok. But the man who runs the round barn in Arcadia was by far the most interesting. He was just waiting for someone to show up so that he could lay his “round barn” jokes on them. Did you know that you can’t have a square dance in a round barn?  Me either! 

Along this stretch of Route 66 there is quite a bit of historical sites to check out. I got some good photos and will post them in a day or two when I retrieve the patch cord for my camera.  But there was an especially freaky old gas station where they once made counterfeit ten dollar bills in a hidden back room.  The counterfeiters were eventually caught, the station closed and the building fell until ruins and then mostly forgotten about. That is until they found a dead body in it. I usually avoid dead bodies or their spots for obvious reasons but the sign didn’t mention it until the very end. Thanks!

I made it to Luther at dusk and finally found a spot near a football field that was hosting a peewee football game. Lodgings and entertainment in the same spot is a bonus.  It was warm but very windy and I had some trouble adjusting to sleeping in a bivy instead of a tent but finally managed after an hour or so. It is really dark in rural Oklahoma at night by the way.  Then comes the really weird thing, I woke up at around 11pm and noticed a black spot in the grass about 5 feet away from me.  Being certain that there was no spot there earlier I was a little freaked. I looked at it for a minute trying to figure out whether is was a bag that had blown this way or a portal to the netherworld awaiting me.  Then the damned thing jumped up on all fours and came loping over to me. After un-swallowing my tongue, I had to quickly get back under the bivy cover to avoid being licked to death by an over-sized Labrador with really, really bad breath. It just would not leave me alone so I finally gave it the rest of my beef jerky thinking that it might keep him busy for a minute and maybe put a dent in that breath *Note to self – Invent industrial sized dog tic-tac, make tons, retire to Fiji.

Well the jerky gave me the needed break to readjust the bivy cover and get hidden but the residual dog breath was a bit much so I got out the Speed-stick that I normally used for my feet and rubbed it all over my face. It was the better choice of the two (only kidding, I fear getting athlete’s face!).  Well the mangy dog finally got the idea and just lay down next to me and stayed there for the rest of the night. I know this because every time I rolled over he thought that it meant that it was time to play.  In the morning he was still there and decided that we belonged together so he kept following me.

I must have been a sight standing there on route 66 arguing with this dog trying to get him to stay put.  He followed me for about three miles, almost getting himself run over two or three times.  One person yelled for me to control my animal and I yelled back “He is not my dog!” but it didn’t seem to make an impression on the animal at all. Finally I got desperate; he had a collar on, but no tag. However, he did have the remnants of a rope that he had chewed though in his obvious earlier escape.  So I got out a piece of my rope (again thanks to Kevin from GoLite) and tied his silly-ass to a fence. 

I figured it was better than him getting run over and he would eventually chew through it and get free by which time I would be long gone. Oh boy was he was working the room after that, with the sad eyes and the occasional plaintive wail (<Plagiarized from my friend Pablo). But I was strong and also soon out of sight.  Anyone who is traveling route 66 near Luther who happens to see a black dog tied to a fence go ahead and cut him loose please. He is totally harmless, well except for the breath. (11/17 - I have to add here that the animal is fine, I called the cops about an hour later and the went to check on him. All is well and now you don't have to email me with your "dogs are people too" stuff.)

I continued the walking and eventually made it to Chandler and am here nursing a couple of blisters and possibly another black toe.  I have come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with this new pair of shoes because they have been giving me nothing but trouble since I switched into them. I am going to switch to boots as soon as I get to Tulsa but until then I am going to go back to my last pair that I left in the documentary crew vehicle back in Clinton. They will be here tomorrow so I don’t have too long to wait.

Final notes; First of all the birthday that has been referenced a few times on the guestbook and the yahoo group is the Marine Corps birthday on Nov 10^th. Secondly, I will be flying back to San Diego on the 12^th for my son’s birthday on the 14th he is going to be the big 4.  We are having his party that Sunday and I will be back on the evening of the 15^th. Finally, my segment for the Oprah show has been delayed because they are trying to find a more appropriate show theme to fit it in.  They assured me that as soon as they know they will let me know. In turn I will let you know, you know?

11/06/05                     

Like all good deeds there is the person upon whom the credit is bestowed and then there are those who, by virtue of their support, are actually responsible for his success.  I have not mentioned my family lately and there is good reason for that.  But I assure you that they are doing well and very much behind me in this effort. I decided tonight though that maybe while I am protecting them from the nonsense associated with something like this I have inadvertently seemed ungrateful for their sacrifices and continued support. This is not true at all and I would like to say here that without them I would not be doing this and certainly would not have made it through the hardest parts.

It is the thought of them wanting me to succeed and return home that keeps me going. They are my inspiration without whom there is little point in any of this.

REHAB FOR THE FAT-GUY!

I have been doing great for the last few days with the exception of a nasty case of poison “something” that has spread all over my legs. Itches like mad and now I am free-basing Calamine lotion. It should not last much longer so I will just have to deal with it until it subsides.

The other irritant is the nuttiness surrounding the last journal entry, specifically the dog story. I want to make it clear to those who need to be told. I would not leave that dog in a situation where he was in any real danger. I just didn’t want him to get run over trying to follow me as this represented the more immediate threat to the animal and me. 

After I was down the road a while I called the authorities and asked for them to go by and check on him and he was already gone. Apparently he chewed through the rope, imagine that!

So I am completely within my right to say

“NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS OR ANY OTHER JOURNAL ENTRY”

A couple of nuts were cracked though but no one called PETA about that.

Oh yeah! Did I mention that the Luther Police department was inundated with calls by concerned people from all of the country including a representative from PETA? Does this mean that all of the homeless people have been taken care of? Why don’t we have a group called PETP as well? People for the ethical treatment of people!

Now that I have had my rant let me tell you about the other dog story!

The very next day I was walking in Davenport, OK when I was rushed by a big ugly, angry, orange, pit-bullish looking dog. His disposition was remarkably different than the fence dog.  I was considering ropin’ him for a whole different reason. 

He was dragging a 20 ft. half inch thick chain behind him. Apparently the animal had broken away from another “animal owner” and made his getaway heading for the highway.  He made a beeline for me and almost got run over doing it, then narrowly missed being snatched back into the street by an SUV driving over the chain he was dragging across the street. (I would like to point out here that at least a dozen people drove by while I was there and not one stopped to help). 

Well after a lot of discussion, I convinced the dog with my superior diplomatic skills…..Hold on I need a moment here.    Hehehehehehehehehe. Ok, Well I spoke Dog-speak to him and let him know that I had no dog gravy on me so he was therefore in no immediate danger.

After a brief, but memorable sniffing exchange, I pulled out my unreasonably BIG-ASS KNIFE (Did I mention the knife before?) and I started cutting. No, No, No damn it all, the canvas strap!  Geez people, lighten up.

I cut the maniac dog loose and he ran off without even a growl.  (This is a real story people; I cannot make this stuff up). See the pictures here!

And also…

Documentary Dave is here this week and I actually tricked him into posing for a picture with me and a guy that runs a Route 66 museum here. I have added it in the Route 66 section here!

I also have added content to the Oklahoma pictures page and told no one, smart move, well I am telling you now.

I also visited the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and posted them here.

And finally yes, it is true I am going home to San Diego for my son’s birthday. Marc is going to be four and I have never missed any of his or Melanie’s birthdays and I don’t intend to start now.

Don’t tell him but I am thinking remote control dinosaur!

I am leaving this Saturday and will return the following Monday evening.

11/10/05

Middle way is a Buddhist concept of not living to excess either by over indulgence or by estheticism. But instead finding the middle road, ground, method or way and for our purposes here following a slow and steady development towards change. This is very appropriate to obesity and weightloss. Slow steady development is better than repaid weight loss.  Rapid weight loss is not true weight loss and one side of the Yo-yo effect of dieting. 

In this day and age humans are on an instant gratification kick and cannot seem to get their minds around gradual change.  We want things fast and then to double that. There seems to be no end to our desire for instant gratification and it is killing us as much as a famine, a plague or war would do. It is a curse on society and will eventually result in a lot of grief and hardship before we decide as a people to make a change. Like any change in society it starts with a single person and grows from there. 

We need to learn the middle way and practice patience with all things if we have any hope of escaping from the negative cyclic nature of our present day crisis.  I was talking with a friend today about socio-political issues and told him about what I think this era of American life really should be labeled.  We spoke about the virtues and evils of both Communism and Capitalism and I told him that we now have transitioned far, far away from both.  We now live in a society of Consumerism. 

What I mean by this is that we have created a system in this country that requires us to live beyond our means. To be a consumer is required to support our infrastructure and to try and get away from this behavior is inherently dangerous to our very way of life.  If we all decided to get rid of our credit card debt or to not buy a new (Insert item here) every time the newest version comes out the system would crumble and our way of life with it. 

An important thing to realize here is that this is a system of built upon and fueled by dissatisfaction.  We simply cannot be happy with what we have because there is always something better around the corner.  We cannot be happy with who we are because we can easily have it altered, enhanced or installed. We cannot be content with the people that we have become because there is always a better lifestyle, body, husband/wife or whatever right around the corner.  We are divorcing at a disturbing rate and there seems to be no end in sight to the rise in those numbers.  In our self-centeredness we cannot see that this is eating us away from the inside out. 

We need then to medicate ourselves against the hollowness and pain with alcohol, drugs, TV, video games, food, work or whatever.  Curing the symptoms becomes all important to us and then that mindset becomes part of the problem, and all these are necessary aspects of consumerism.  We think that we can buy happiness, buy a cure or relief of our problems. 

This is something that has lately become crystal clear to me, the solitude of this walk is responsible for that and I am eternally indebted to this journey for that one simple understanding. I have always said that if you want a good indication of how your mental health really is spend an hour in an isolated place with no distractions, just be alone with your thoughts, and be alone with you. Then you we see whether you really like who you are.  Having to face your own inner thoughts is much more difficult than it seems.

I said early on in this trip that after a few days of isolation I really started to realize that I am a pretty boring guy.  I said this in jest but I really did mean it.  I soon learned that without external input to keep me busy I was alone with myself and we had nothing to talk about. I was a stranger in my own head. Luckily on this trip I spent a lot of time there and then started to see that I really wasn’t as boring as I had originally suspected. Instead I found a lot of old me’s that had been long disregarded and were just waiting around to be dealt with.  I found that there really is a lot more to me than I had ever given myself credit for in the past and most importantly I discovered that I am a fully self contained unit capable of dealing with any of the things that required my attention.  I discovered that I came equipped with my very own medicine cabinet full of cures that I had not visited it in a long, long time. 

We on the other had hit the ground running in the morning, this after an insufficient nights sleep usually and then we start the gratification ritual, like clockwork. I need a cigarette! I can’t get started without my coffee! What is for breakfast? Where is my day-planner?  Do I know you!?! 

But we forget to watch the sunrise, take a peek at the kids sleeping or stretch out and wake up.  No, we hit the ground running. We need to get to the job to get the money to get the stuff to get happy.  When you really consider this is it is a very sick and unhealthy dynamic. This is why we are unhealthy. We are what we live.

Well I quit! I only have a limited time in this life and I am not going to waste another minute artificially propping up a machine whose very nature requires my absolute devotion and ultimate sacrifice.  I am not going freely give my children as sacrifice at its altar neither.  I am going to live each day as if it were my last because sooner or later it will be. I do not want to look back at my life regretting having freely given it away.

Enough ranting about that! Now for a completely different rant! Sort of.

No food is bad food in appropriate portions.  You can eat what ever you want but is has to be the amount of calories that your body requires and not more. If you add good nutritious food then you are doing even better. But it is not the food that makes you overweight, instead it in the excess food that does it. 

Eating the right amounts will give you body what it needs and it will process effectively through your body.  Eating more than you need offsets the natural balance and causes the body to react.  Excess food storage and poor health are side effects that result from overeating and eventually they lead to obesity and a big list of other health problems. 

Do not try and modify your lifestyle and diet beyond what you are capable of sustaining. Setting unattainable, unrealistic goals is ridiculous and you are setting yourself up for failure.  You gained the weight with years of slow and steady behavior and you are going to lose the weight by changing those behaviors in the same slow method. 

To think that you can make these rapid, drastic changes effective and permanent is to buy into the wealth of bad information about the condition.  Anything to excess is bad! Eating, smoking and drinking are all examples of hazardous excesses and each is requires loss of control. They all have their hold on people and we give them even more of that power when we try these fast, instant gratification cures and continually fail. We then start to believe that we will never succeed and when that happens it becomes guaranteed.

 There is no pill or surgery that will take away character weakness, emotional pain, low-self esteem or any of the hundreds of other possible contributing factors to our addictions. We have to realize that these things are what keep us from overcoming them and looking for a fast fix may become just another one to be dealt with.  Our addictions give us pleasure and comfort in the short term. As long as we are determined to have instant gratification the very notion of a long, drawn out, uncomfortable struggle to overcome something is simply out of the question. 

Once in a while we might get a running start at something or take a shortcut and see results but unless there is an overall attitude change we are going to slip back into the old behaviors and regain the weight.  We see this all the time but refuse to think that this rule applies to us.  We want to believe that we are the exception and that the shortcut will actually work for us.  We say things like “When I have lost 100 lbs. then I will go to the gym everyday. Then it will be easy.” But we don’t see that if we have not earned the weight-loss then we cannot appreciate its value. If we don’t change the mentality but change the body the mentality will put us right where it put us before. You see we have only addressed the symptom and not its cause.

I am losing weight the proper, permanent way, slow and steady just like if gained it.  Along the way I am learning self control and discipline.  These will help make to weight-loss permanent.  It is easy to lose the weight but difficult to keep it off.  As of 11/08/05 I weigh 332 lbs.

This journey is not a gimmick, it is my life and long after the webpage and all of the interest is gone I still have to live with myself, my accomplishments and my failures. 

Late addition:

I have been dealing with Poison Oak or Ivy or Sumac all this week. I finally got to a Doctor and got a shot and some topical medicine and now it is getting better. I only lost the days walking that I actually took to go to the Doctor but this week’s numbers have not been as good as the prior weeks due to the spreading of the Poison whatever. I will make it to Tulsa for the flight home which is all that matters to me this week anyway.

I certainly hope that every person who reads the journal says “”"huh"? What the heck is he talking about? “”. I am only a human being and I admittedly have flaws. I am not telling anyone that I have their answers because no one person does. And besides, only the individual knows the truth about themselves and therefore capable of knowing what is needed to bring about happiness in their lives. 

I am allowing you to see my life and what my thoughts are.  If from that you get something then great. If you think that “”It is like cotton candy.. it takes up space, but has no substance. “” Then I would strongly suggest that you do not waste anymore of your valuable time pouring over it like an addict on some dope remnants.

Take it or leave it are the only two options and only you control which one you select.  To live by every word I say or to be under the uncontrollable urge of wanting to tear every word apart is the very definition of a mindless follower.  If it is not obvious yet, I will say it here again. I think that too many people are guilty of living their lives looking for others to give them the answers. Some do that with a positive or neutral attitude and some do it trough negative reinforcement.  Either way you still decide for yourself whether you grow from the experience.  I personally think that when something that I write affects someone so deeply, I must have hit close to home.  Maybe that is where the value in my nonsense is for you.

The first paragraph is a comment from one of four regular guestbook cynics. I liked the content so I decided to use it in my journal entry.

I don’t want to reward this person for being an internet troll but I would like to address the content of the message so repeating it is a necessary evil. This particular internet troll has sent hundreds of deprecating emails to people who have visited the website, guestbook and Yahoo group. It seems that he has made it his duty to try and hurt me. I think that a person like him needs a person like me more than I need myself.  Where would he be if he didn’t have a hated protagonist to focus on? He would only have himself and I suspect that he hates himself far more that he hates me.

I decided to make this journal entry to try and give some insight into what it is like to try and do something like this in full public view. Right now I have four people who have set out to annoy and harangue as many site visitors as possible. They do this in a misguided attempt to try and derail me and my efforts. It is important to show this because it is a part of the process for me.  I have always let myself be consumed by what others think or might think and it has crippled me at times. I have learned that regardless of what others think I am the only person in my head. No matter what they impose on me they cannot affect me unless I allow it.

I continue to allow them to take their shots because each one deflected make me stronger and reinforces my resolve to grow from it as much as from the good input.  I cannot control how people think about me but I can control how I feel about it.  I am not trying to make them understand me. Instead I am being true to myself and honest about what I think and letting you decide what that means for you, if anything.

Whether a person likes it or hates it makes no difference to me because it is my perspective regardless.

To be swayed by a desire to be liked by all is the epitome of foolishness and the single biggest soul leaching activity I can think of. It is to be a slave to something that you will never be able to please. Regardless of what I say or do there will always be those that don’t like it and by extension, me.

This is my journey but everyone who peeks in will get something from it whether they try on not.  What they do with it is part of their journey. 

Slow down long enough long enough to see the world around you and always consider that when we have our heads buried in our own nonsense it takes an apocalypse to get our attention. When we let it all go, just a smile can have a greater effect.

The singer India Arie said it best: 

Don’t be offended - this is all my opinion - ain't nothing that I’m saying law.
This is a true confession - of a life-learned lesson - I was sent here to share with y'all.
So get in, where you fit in - go on and shine.
Clear your mind - now's the time
Put your salt on the shelf
Go on and love yourself
'Cause everything is gonna be alright.

11/12/05

This last week has been really hectic.  First off I got a bit of poison oak last week but it stayed contained to a small area on my legs.  Then over the weekend it spread like wild fire and got to a point where it covered more that half of my body.  The itching got so bad that I finally was persuaded by my wife to go to the Doctor’s. Of course when I say persuaded I mean “told to go”.  She said that I wouldn’t be allowed in the house if I didn’t.  That would be sort of funny actually, go home to San Diego and then sleep in the yard.  Well it is a nice yard so it would be a step up for me at this point. 

The Doctor gave me a shot of Cortisone and it seemed to help quite a bit. Now it is drying out and itching because it is drying out. But apparently this is better.  Also there is a large patch of it on the back of my left knee and walking caused it to open up a bit, which really hurts. But the upside of that pain is that it makes me forget about the itching. That has to be worth something right?

I have walked as much as I could considering the malady but did not get as far as I wanted, only 60 miles.  But it all worked out well enough and now I am going to go home for the weekend and have a goodtime with my wife and kids. I will back Monday afternoon and back to the walk Tuesday morning, much to the chagrin of a few.

Everything else is going along great and my seven day experiment  has taught me much more than I expected and I am putting that information together tonight and will post it tomorrow. There will not be a post after that until Tuesday night.

I wanted to make sure to mention Chandler, Oklahoma again because they were very kind there and I had a great time meeting a lot of the local. The waitress’ at B’s Café even gave me a card.  That really caught me off guard.  I don’t know why though because they are like that here in Oklahoma.

Finally I have discovered a new way to gauge my emotional development and I would like to share that with my friends. It is the number of times people complain to hotel management that I am singing too loud. I have been asked to shut up twice this week. The last one just about five minutes ago.  Side note: I asked whether I could videotape him giving me “what for” but he refused. Maybe he needs to go on a long walk too!

I really am not trying to be rude in fact I didn’t even realize that I was singing. I am a zealous music fan and have a ton of things that I listen to. I usually wear my iPod head phones because it is quieter. Then I guess that sometimes I get into it too much and start singing or drumming on the table. I am the first one to admit that my singing is terrible. However, with head phones on I don’t have to listen to it. Anyway, the manager says that he knocked on my door but I didn’t answer so he went back to the front desk and called. How embarrassing it that? Especially a big ole white boy singing Parliament’s “One nation under a groove” in a hotel room in rural Oklahoma. No! That’s not weird at all, Steve. It happens here all the time. I just realized that I am singing loudly again. Oops. Oh no! Ohio Players are up next. I better go.

11/16/05

There is only one word that can adequately describe me today.

Discom’doggone’bobulated.

I can't even get this stupid font right!

I have been feeling ill since my return from San Diego and it has only started to subside tonight. Because of it I have really been scatterbrained. Yes more than usual! I apologize for not being able to do a journal entry like promised. I will get it done though don’t you worry.

I had a great time in San Diego, it was really nice to see the family and we did the best to fit the most into our time as we could. Marc’s party was nice and he scored some good booty. He really dug the dinosaur but of course I knew he would because he is my son and I know my boy, if it roars it scores.

Melanie is doing great and going on thirty-five it seems. She is the thinker of the family always working on some issue or theory or something. One time she explained to me quite convincingly that her lungs were too small, then another time she assured me that human free flight (flight without aid of machine or magic) is possible and according to her, she is almost to the point that she can prove it.

Tonight she called me and wanted to know about the limits of space and the time paradox. She is 8 years old people! And she does this on her own. Well it was an interesting conversation and I told her what I knew about the subject. Then like I always do I told her that she has to do the research herself or she will not fully understand it. My biggest goal with Melanie is to guide her to self-reliance and if I achieve nothing else I will be happy to see her able to think for herself. Something that it seems is not as important to people these days.

April was fine and we final had a chance to spend some alone time and we had a lot of things to catch up on. Remember she is still “Not Happy” with me since Groom, Texas. So all in all it was a good weekend for family time and I am glad that I went.

But now back to the walk and the cold weather approaching. I have been preparing for it for several weeks now and feel confident that I am ready. It is going to be back and forth for a week or two between cold and mild but then my luck will give way to winter. Consider how lucky I am that my mere presence in Oklahoma has staved off the winter weather well into November. They should be paying me for that. But alas even my power has its limits.

This is just a howdy-do type of journal entry just to let you know that I made it back, late but I did make it. I will post another journal entry tomorrow that will tell about the specifics of the last few days and should prove interesting. Precaution here: If you are one of those that hate it when I get all philosophical maybe you should go for a smoke or beer or whatever you do to calm down because then journal entry coming up is “all up in your grill with the philosoficating”

11/17/05 (Disclaimer: Disjointed pseudo-philosophical yammering straight ahead)

The last three days have been slow and I am grateful for that. Since I have been back I have been a little homesick and it has been hard to focus, then you throw in more poison oak, the usual distractions and now the cold weather, which arrived while I was in San Diego. Last night the temperature dipped down to the mid-twenties for the first time this season. I was OK because I am in Tulsa now and in cities I don’t camp out much. But in two days I will be out of the city and back to camping. I am better prepared now thanks to GoLite so I am not worrying about too much. Get bundled up before the sun sets, break the wind flow and you can stay warm all night. Also, I have re-introduced my cooking stove into my gear load and it is a pretty good heater in a pinch. So I have been easing back into the walk and have a singular goal now of getting as many miles as possible into each day, get this walk over with and get back to my family.

The last two weeks have been very enlightening for me on several levels; some good, some bad. I did a seven day experiment where I tested my discipline with food and allowed myself to just do what came naturally instead of constantly thinking about what not to eat. I thought that after a while making better food choices would just become a habit but I found that this is not true. During the seven day experiment I allowed myself to do what came naturally and it took only three days to fall back into old habits. I am still working on trying to understand what I need to do to make food a non-issue in my life but I am not there yet.

With regard to the things that I have been dealing with these last two weeks the first thing that is on my mind is stress and how I deal with it. While on the road I have not had to deal with a lot of the things that I would normally. I originally thought that this was an advantage because I have always maintained that it’s the difficulties in everyday live that wear me down. This in turn breaks my resolve and that usually results in binge eating. But I have realized that doing something like this walk has its own unique difficulties and I am finding that regardless of the source, stress is stress.

I have been battling my food addictions all along this journey and some days are better than others, but it is stress that can turn a successful couple of days into lost time with as little as a day of indulgence. Oddly, I do not particularly enjoy food and don’t overeat to treat myself. I subconsciously want to eat to relieve stress and sometimes that desire can lead to almost epic internal conflict that demoralizes me even more than the overeating does.

This loss of control and my inability to force myself to do the right thing is hard to face and again leads to more stress. The whole cyclic dynamic of binge eating is a self perpetuating mechanism that can only be stopped through introspection and understanding of the root causes. But introspection and loss of control are two things that mix like gas and fire in the soul of a troubled person, and this seems to be a paradox of human frailty and the desire for instant gratification.

Of course I am looking for some answers in my own life but I cannot avoid the philosophical implications of my discoveries along the way. This is true for me in every aspect of my life. It is not well enough to know that a thing exists I feel a powerful urge to understand why it exists. Unfortunately, I think that this makes it harder to feel that you have achieved any success because you know that for every bit of growth there is an infinite amount left. In fact the more I learn about myself the more I realize that I have been living in an illusion posing as reality. This may seem grandiose to you but if you really think about what we have to accept to get through our days you will so see that this self-delusion is not that difficult.

We accept things as such even though intellectually we know that those things are not what they appear to be. Overeating is a good example of this. We think of eating as a series of different events during the course of the day. A burger here some chips there, individually they do not amount to much and their impact on the body is minor. We do this day after day and then week after week and eventually we come to the realization that we eat too much, and worse we are now overweight. But why not come to such a simple conclusion in the time that we are doing the overeating. Well I think that the reason is simple. It is because we delude ourselves into segmenting all of the things that go on in our day into individual occurrences. We never get the burger meal because all that food would be too much. Instead we just get the burger and a diet coke because that means that we are watching what we eat and not eating too much; then we do this three or four times a day. We deal with each meal individually but not the entire days food intake.

This is a simple trick that our mind uses to keep us from having to deal with things that are too difficult or cause us debilitating anxiety. So the mind wants to compartmentalize each difficult thing and this individuality makes them seem minor, divide and conquer. This is done in an effort to avoid having to deal with the whole problem at once and too frequently. If we dealt with the serious issues that face us in life whenever they appear we would simply be unable to function.

Bear in mind that none of this is aberrant behavior at all; in fact our whole understanding of our world is based on it. We are the end result of the empirical data that we have processed in our lifetime. But it is the nature and value of that data that forces us to live in an illusion. The five senses that we possess informs us of what is around us, gives us our understanding of the environment in which we exist. This information is vast and overwhelming and every second of everyday the mind is busy prioritizing it all for us to be able to effectively process it.

Let’s think about what is going on in the ten minutes that it takes you to read this journal entry for an example of what we have gone through over that time period. Stop for a minute and examine your environment, think about what you now see, hear, smell, taste and feel. How many of these things were just background things to you 30 seconds ago? How is it that we can read the journal while there are kids in the other room raising hell? Think about all of the sounds that have gone on around you while you are sitting there. There might be thousands of different things going on, individual birds chirping, the clock ticking, cars passing by, music, mouse clicks, it is endless. If you really concentrate on this you will see that the amount of input is astounding. But while you are reading the journal you filter out probably 95 to 99% of the “white noise”. Well that white noise is the world. It continues oblivious to whether you are paying attention to it or not.

If you were to try and process all of the noise that it is your world you would lose your mind. And this is just one sense. What about the others? How many different smells, tastes, sights or touches were processed while you were sitting there, and you were not aware of the majority of them? Your brain examined, processed, prioritized and decided whether to let you know about them or not. “She’s not paying any attention so I will just tuck it away over here.” “Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!” Says little Bociferous (Sorry Jimmy doesn’t amuse me like Bociferous does) “I have been calling you for like an hour or something, you were just ignoring me!”

But you didn’t hear him. That is silly of course you heard him he just was filtered out while you were focused on something else. Does the fact that his words were not “heard” by you mean that for that time he did not exist? This too is silly of course he existed……Well logically anyway. But you chose not to deal with him at that moment because it was simply overwhelming to do so. You selected to ignore him; you compartmentalized that nonsense so that it did not overwhelm you. Is it still to difficult to believe that we create our own self-delusion?

While you were reading this journal and then considering my test you focused on what was important and then ignored the rest. Later on if you were to try and quantify where the afternoon went you will not be able to do it. Even though you were there for every second of your day you will only remember a fraction of it. This is the very definition of delusion (Delude: to mislead the mind or judgment of: DECEIVE, TRICK) and we do it all day long. This is all necessary and usually harmless until we start to think that we are not deluded and then believe that we are in complete control of our mind and subsequently body and soul. This is what I mean when I said early, way earlier, that I have been living in an illusion posing as reality. I have been looking at life incorrectly for forty years now it seems. I have been battling with things all these years in an attempt to get control over my life when all along I have been fighting myself at every turn because intellectually I have not been ready to face the truth of who and what I am. My mind has been feeding me exactly what I needed to get by and no more, now I’m beginning to see that the default mode has been secretly steering this boat from below deck, and of course all along I was thinking that I was in charge, delusion at its best!

Again I am sure that this sounds preposterous and a bit florid in style and a lot of it is that by design but that doesn’t detract from its value. For me its lesson is to realize that everything is transitional and temporary. Nothing about us is permanent this applies especially to personality and emotion and in a backwards sort of way this has given me a better understanding of the Buddhist concept of “interconnectedness” For that one you are going to have to do your own reading.

In closing I want to emphasize that this understanding obviously applies to any behavior that you wish to consider; Smoking, drinking or what ever other compulsion we have that think that we cannot handle well.

Finally something for those of you thinking about emailing me to tell me what knot-head I am because of this journal entry or any other. First remember two very important facts. One is that this writings are solely my opinion and in no way to be misconstrued as universal and second you paid nothing for them, in fact you willing came to the site to read my rants. So as unfortunate as it is, there are a couple of people whose only ambition in life it seems is to sit back and wait for me to write something so they can try and tear it apart.

They jump on it like a Hobo on a hot pocket.

Zen Koan –

11/21/05

The Challenge of Patience

A popular story which Tibetan (Buddhist) teachers are fond of telling their students narrates an encounter between a hermit and a herdsman. The hermit was living alone in the mountains. One day a herdsman happened to pass by his cave. Intrigued the herdsman shouted at the hermit and asked, “What are you doing alone in the middle of nowhere?”

The hermit replied, “I am meditating.”

“What are you meditating on?” asked the herdsman.

“On patience,” said the hermit.

There was a moment of silence. After a while, the herdsman decided to leave. Just as he turned to go, he looked back at the hermit and shouted, “By the way, you go to hell!”

                       “What do you mean? You go to hell!" came flying back.

                       The herdsman laughed and reminded the hermit that he was supposed to be practicing patience!

This simple story wonderfully illustrates the key challenge for someone who wishes to practice patience: in a situation which would normally give rise to an outburst of anger, how can we maintain spontaneity and yet remain calm in our response? The challenge is not restricted to religious practitioners alone. It is a challenge each of us faces as we try to live our lives with a degree of human dignity and decency. At nearly every turn we are confronted with situations that test the limits of our patience and tolerance….often our prejudices are revealed, our beliefs challenged, and or self image threatened. It is these moments that our inner resources are most called upon. All this…tests our character, revealing how far we have developed our capacity for patience and tolerance.

I just started a new book and right off the bat it had a really great story that I thought parallels my current story.  That story is the one that you have just read.  Along the walk I have encountered really great people, more than I had ever suspected, and while surrounded by these people my attitude about things changed of course, as I thought that it would.  Through these experiences I believed that I became more patient and tolerant. I was able to allow things be as they were, in the absence of strife. This I misunderstood to be clarity but instead it seems that it was just common to being around nice people.

But we cannot always be around nice people in life and this journey has actually attracted some of those challenging people into my world. When through the guestbook or email they attacked, ridiculed or just ranted at me, I reacted.  I admit that I have never suffered fools well and they do bring out the worst in me. I am quick to “put people in their place”.

This has been a problem out here because I allowed it to negatively affect me and in turn my ability to focus on that task at hand.  I resented that I had to deal with them and at first tried to make them go away through website moderating.  However, it then occurred to me that by trying to squelch the offending people I was actually depriving myself of a great opportunity to grow. Through their hatred and spite they were giving me a chance to learn patience.  At first, I could not see that because of my own hostility and failed to grasp the importance of these hurtful people. Like in nature, our bodies learn how to defend against a virus not by putting all of its resources into shutting it out but instead by allowing it to be a part of the system and learning how to protect against it.

The mind needs hurtful angry people to help it learn to deal with them.  The experience of dealing with the negatives of life leads us to understand both the negativity and more importantly what we need to learn to be able to grow from the experience. A fact of life is that no matter how we evolve as a species there will always be a percentage that lags behind and becomes society’s thorn. It seems to me that this is actually by design because without negative people we would not appreciate the positive people.

So I was the struck by the coincidence of finding a book that, practically from the first page turn, told me exactly what I needed to know at that moment. Is there some design behind this? You might have guessed but I generally reject design on principal and prefer to think that we are in the middle of a big scramble of possibilities that we are too insignificant to comprehend other than in the remotest way.  “When the student is ready the teacher will arrive”, or maybe divine providence, can it be one of these? Or can it possibly be as simple as a self generated guidance to things already known; sometime we have heard the answers but reject the source.  Most of the mistakes in my life would not have happened had I listened to the advice of my mother.  But like most of us I had to learn for myself and in doing so pay the price of a lot of wasted time.  But this is part of the learning process, we need to understand why and not just be told why.

Discovering this seems to have lifted and enormous weight off of my shoulders and improved the walk for me exponentially. I feel as though I have turned an important corner that I previously was unaware existed. This corner was preventing me from seeing what was important and that blindness allowed me to convince myself that I was a victim instead of the perpetrator.  I now see that any true change happens through understanding, and understanding happens through a desire to learn and that desire starts with facing the truth about whom or what you are and accepting your responsibility for it.  Now I see clearly that the idea of being told by parents what the right decisions are. It is just the planting of the seed; begetting guidance for a future day that will only come through chance if left to happen on it own or strife when sought out purposefully.

I am a fool and I admit it freely. I have made many mistakes in my life thus far and a few of those repeatedly. But now I see that to think that I am now not a fool would be the biggest mistake yet. I mean to say that I will never have it all figured out and to try and pursue such a fruitless endeavor would waste even more precious time. Instead I will proceed with the understanding that I am just one step in a long and ever expanding series of steps; each of which contributes its portion to the collective human understanding.

I will try and be the best man and father that I can be. I will learn what my path presents and try to affect those around me positively thus creating a positive instead of negative ripple in our collective existence. Having done this I will ensure that I have not wasted a single minute of my life.

Through good and bad experiences I am who I am today and what I choose to do from here will dictate the value of my life. Therefore, I am in fact in control of my destiny as my destiny is the value of my life to those that are affected by it, even if I never know what that affect is.

11 27 05

I am sitting here writing this journal entry while all of the people around me are running around freaking out. I am in Vinita, OK tonight but I didn’t expect to be here.  I had to get a ride the last ten miles into town because there is a tornado coming through. Or at least they think so.  The winds are averaging around 29 mph but have been gusting up to 50 mph. In fact the 40’ sign for the hotel blew down just a little while ago. It made one hell of a racket and landed just a few feet away from some people sitting in their car. 

Now the hotel staff has informed me that my room happens to be the tornado safety corridor. So if it gets much worse they will have to move everyone in here with me. I slept in a tent on the side of the road last night after walking all day and then walked all day today. I am pretty ripe right now and I suspect that given the choice most of those folks might prefer to take their chances with the wind.

I was getting blown around pretty good today and once I got out of it I had quite a task picking rocks and junk out of my hair.  Little pebbles and sticks & things were pelting the hell out of me and got into everything. This is the most interesting day in quite a while and I knew it was going to be a weird one when I seen the man who had roped a tractor tire to two mules and was riding it down route 66.  He was not a happy looking guy so I waited until he passed me before I took his picture. He was riding on the ridge of the tire like it was a sleigh or something. See the picture on the Vinita, OK section.

Now the police and fire department keep flying back and forth in front of the hotel and I guess there is a report of a fire down the street. The traffic seems to have been diverted off of the freeway and is backing up on Route 66 through town. It seems that this is the most action that this town has seen in a while. I am going to try and get some pictures but the batteries in my camera have died so I am going to walk up to the convenience store to get new ones. If I get blown away I will not be able to post the pictures, so no complaints please.

Since I got back from San Diego it has taken me some time to get back into things. But now the poison oak is cleared up, I have put some miles down and I am getting back to the regular routine. So I am feeling better about things. Since it is turning colder and there are fewer people out and about I am hoping to get some distance done and get to St. Louis as quickly as I can.  I am considering changing my course a bit from St. Louis to take a route that might prove to be a bit safer when things start to get icy. I am still looking at the choices I have to determine which might be better and I will let you know when I have decided.

11 29 05

It snowed!  Imagine my surprise; well actually I wasn’t surprised at all because it has been building up for a few days. It has been switching between warm and cold for the last two weeks and I am glad that it has finally decided on just one.  It is really tough on the body to keep changing like that.

I was in Vinita, OK yesterday to meet Dennis Kinch, he is a guy walking from Chicago to Los Angeles to try and raise awareness for the National Pain Foundation . We met at a great little Route 66 restaurant called Clanton’s and had a very good time talking shop and visiting with some of the locals. I tried to convince Dennis that he was going in the wrong direction and that the adventure was east but he wasn’t biting. While we were talking it started to snow and for a minute I considered heading west with him, only kidding!

Dennis had an interview with the local radio station and invited me to go with him but I declined because I didn’t want to dilute his time with my story. He is walking for a good cause and that should really be the focus. I hope that you might take a few minutes to visit the Pain Foundation website. I wish him the best of luck and hope that he makes it to Los Angeles. 

From here I am on my way out of Oklahoma with less than fifty miles left till the Kansas border. I have to admit that I will miss Oklahoma and its people. I was surprised at the people in this state because I never thought that they would be as great as they are.  I want to say thanks to all of those that I have met along the way and want you to know that whether I mentioned you on the site or not I have not and will not forget the experience that you provided me with.

Well now on to some bad news, the poison oak is back.  I washed everything that I had in an attempt to get rid of any residual oil but apparently I missed some.  Now I have it on my face, neck and right side.  This is really getting old and I am going to lose my mind with the itching.  One of the things that I have learned is a truth in life is that there is always a good side to be found in any bad situation. In this case two “bads” make a good.  The itching from the poison oak is neutralized by the cold weather. I don’t start itching until I stop walking and begin to warm up. This is the story of my life I am afraid, but I am now able to see the value of these things instead of dwelling just on the negative.

Besides that I have just been trying to focus, focus, and then focus some more. I have decided that I am going to put some distance between me and the distractions that keep taking up too much of my time. The guestbook and Yahoo group are two of those distractions that I simply cannot afford right now. I really need to concentrate on the most important things so I have turned both of those things over to Teresa from Texas to handle. I appreciate all of the encouragement that people give me in those forums and will check in periodically but the daily requirements of both are simply more trouble than they are worth. So if you want to contact me directly then you can either do it through the email address on the contact page or join the Yahoo group. 

I have been trying to focus on getting down the road and to New York as soon as I can. I am really not spending much time in the towns like I normally try to do.  It is getting cold and now I am really down to the mechanics of getting the goal accomplished.  There are still some things going on that I will take part in, and they will certainly take some time to accomplish but unless they are really important they will take a back seat to the more important task of learning what I need to learn. 

I have come a long way in the last seven months and you have been there to see the ups and downs in near real time. I will continue to keep you informed of the progress and the setbacks because I appreciate the interest and concern that literally millions of people have shown by continuing to visit my site.  This has inadvertently become a grand experiment in the human condition and I have learned more in this short period of time that I did in the years of my life previous to it. I am grateful that this opportunity has presented itself to me and I hope that the learning has just started.

I now know that there is a lifetime out there to be had and if I lived a thousand years it still wouldn’t be enough time to experience it all. So, I am not wasting any more of my precious lifetime feeling sorry for myself, dwelling in self doubt or allowing the time to slip away by focusing on things that ultimately are unimportant and give nothing to the quality of my life. 

I hope that you have been able to get something out of this experience as well and I assure you that there is more to come. Plenty of things that will come out as this journey continues to progress.  Most importantly I hope that you can see that this type of journey can be had by anyone, anywhere and at anytime. It really is a simple matter of deciding what is important and focusing on that.  Then leave behind all of the other things that do not enhance the quality of your life.

Missouri

Discipline and how much good is lost from a single indulgence? This is something that I have been wrestling with lately and it is the only thing that I can write about at the moment. I have tried unsuccessfully several times to write a summary type journal about the last few days but that is not what I am dealing with and to try and write about it seems forced and basic to me so I am sticking with this one instead. I am not trying to be a teacher or a sage but instead just a story teller. That story is my own and currently ongoing. In it there is a lot of dilemma and I find that sometimes that is the best catalyst for change in ones life.

As you already know I am trying to become a better person by spending this time learning how I have come to be whom I am currently. I have allowed myself to become overweight through self pity, self indulgence and self delusion. Ironically, I find that the key to reversing this behavior is again a self thing. I think that the answer is in two very difficult things. One is continuous self examination and the ability to do so truthfully, which in turn leads you to the second element, discipline.  And of course I mean self discipline.

Having spent time in the Marines I am very well aware of what discipline is and have championed the philosophy when required to do so.  But when the governing power for discipline is the self there is an inherent problem that some are not able to see until it is too late. The Marines teach you the elements of discipline and how to attain it from within, but their form of discipline is based on a duty and responsibility to the Corps, the country and most importantly your brothers.  This is something that makes you dig deep inside yourself to find the power to preserve those very important things.  But once you are no longer responsible to external things and your personal preservation is not as important to you then the drive disappears quickly.  The only thing left is the inherent resolve to exist and if that is all that you have, generally you do not realize this until you find yourself examining the result of disciplines absence.  This is an extraordinary thing when you really consider it. We will merely exist even without trying to do so. 

Now living is a different matter and takes effort, dedication and resolve to make living the priority. We think about ourselves in terms of an entire lifetime instead of the more realistic term of the right now.  We are always putting off difficult things in favor of easy ones, putting off exercise or good nutrition until another day when it will be easier to get it done.  We say; this is not a good day to add more crap to my pile; I will get to it later, I will go to the gym more often once I am done with this big project at work or when I don’t have to work late to help catch up on these bills. We fail to see that all of these distractions are both endless and permanent; the reality of the matter is that you have a short time to live and when you die you will do so with bills, projects, dilemmas and drama pending. These things will always be there but how much of your life they consume is the only thing that you truly have control over.

What is really happening here is self delusion and poor discipline. We try to avoid looking at the truth because in doing so we have to face some harsh realities, listen to the harshest of critics and worse yet, do something about them.  We know that we need to give up smoking or do some hard exercises or lay off of our favorite foods and right now that is just too much to deal with.  The worst thing about this behavior is  that one day you look up and find that you are old, fat and looking at the harshest reality yet, sickness and mortality, and still for most people this is not enough to force them to act. Instead we wait until we are too far beyond the ability to avoid these terrible things and then start praying or wishing for another chance. However, even with a second chance to do better most would still fail.

We know that it takes an epic resolve to change lifetime behaviors and heal oneself, but I have found that once you embark on the journey to change the destructive behaviors you will find that it is actually much easier than you had ever imagined.  This is not to say that it is easy but instead that it is not impossible.

Nothing is impossible but many things are too late.

Today was both a great and horrible day.  Great because I had a chance to prove something to someone and did so, horrible because it was freakin’ cold.  Documentary Dave was asking me questions last night and one of them was why when he is here I walk shorter distances. Now Dave has been here from the beginning and has become a good friend. In the time that we have spent together I have come to trust him and don’t think that he was suggesting any funny business on my part.

My answer to him was that there are two obstacles that accompany his being here. One is that just someone being here in itself influences the outcome of the day because a new element has been introduced into my routine. The second factor is “options”, with too many options a person will tend to choose the easiest or most immediately rewarding one.  When the documentary guys are here it is easy to goof off and justify it to myself by saying that they need to get more for their story than just me walking so today I will just walk a bit and then we can hang out for the rest of the day.

Typically when they are here I walk less than 10 miles a day. Now understand that it takes quite a bit of concentration to walk more than this because if you are not focused you can become bored and then distracted from the goal.  These are excuses I agree but fact none the less. 

So I was bothered by his question because I started to feel like I had to prove to him that I normally walk about 18 miles a day.  Well today I ignored him completely and he stayed at a fair distance from me and I walked 18 miles in the cold, cold Kansas-Missouri countryside.  I started this morning at 14 degrees in Baxter Springs, KS and ended on the east side of Joplin, Mo at 6pm and 26 degrees.  My face fell off twice but it was worth it because I don’t want him to think that he is slowing me down by being here. I am responsible for my walking and the documentary guys are only observers. I am the one that has to dig deep for discipline and finish my daily goal.

I just wanted to share this with you so that you had some insight into what goes on when they are here. Plus I might be pulling my own chain about being a badass walking in such cold temperatures.  But if I am it is only a little.

The real journal

Today I was giving a lot of thought to the causes of the emotional difficulties that I believe have brought me to be where I am today.  There are a lot of unresolved issues from childhood that certainly have an affect, but the most pressing issue for me has always been loss and my fear of it.  I have spent many hours dwelling on things lost, never had or might be lost in the future and have regretted not only the loss but the anxiety about dwelling on it in the first place (More loss).

I have seen friends move on, grow apart or even die. I am responsible for the deaths of two people myself and these things have haunted me for a long, long time.  This led me to thinking about grief; what is really is and its effects on my psyche.  I remembered learning about the five stages of grief a long time ago and decided to revisit them to see where I thought I was on the scale presently.  

The five stages of grief are:

1. Denial and Isolation

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

After consider this theory for a while I realized that I am finally in the acceptance stage and lucky to be here because it was a rough road to say the least.

Now, the thing that I think is missing from the five stages of grief is the aftermath.  What does a person do with the carnage caused by spending years and years in grief? And how does he transition to a healthier state? 

It occurred to me that discipline is the answer. I don’t want to confuse military discipline with personal life discipline here. I am talking about the little moments in our lives when we make choices and have the opportunity to do either the right thing or the wrong thing. Self-discipline is the thing that allows us to easily do the right thing and better the odds of a preferable outcome. Now that is easy to say but what is this discipline thing anyway?  If not careful in its examination we might reduce it to a pitiful platitude, rendering it and ourselves ineffective.

I want to be careful to not get too in-depth here because self-discipline is different to every person and what it takes for me to achieve it is certainly different that any other person. So what I thought would be better is to share what I have come to believe are the essential elements of self-discipline. 

1. Self-Control – restraint exercised over one's own impulses, emotions, or desires.

4. Goals – The end toward which effort is directed.

I have not mastered self-discipline yet but I am on the way and a lot closer than I was before I started trying.

Remember that someday never comes and it is much easier to begin today that is will be someday.

12 11 05

Some days of this trip are better than others and some are nothing less than unbelievable. Today was one of those unbelievable days. I am here in Springfield, Missouri at a cheap hotel. The woman that checked me in was not very hospitable and she looked at me with great disdain but that is her problem and not mine so I just disregarded it completely. Photo

Regardless of how she felt about me she took my money and gave me a room. I could tell you about how the room was dirty and in disrepair including a 5 gallon bucket on a chair to catch the drops from a roof leak, or I could talk about how the couple in the next room sounded to be on the verge of beating the hell out of each other. I could even mention the variety of prostitutes that were trolling the place but I won’t. Instead I have a far more interesting tale to tell.

I had been contacted by a local news station to do an interview. I said that I would and they showed up at this hotel around 2:30.  Since the room was a wreck I went outside to meet them and do the interview in a cleaner area; like the empty dirt lot next door. The photojournalist unpacked his gear and was getting ready to do an interview when the little blue-hair happy manager from earlier showed up and wanted to know what the hell we were doing. Between the reporter and me, we filled her in on the story.

Normally here there is one of two reactions. First might be interest and if not then the second is disinterest. But now we have a third category, Hatred!  This woman, in cheap, oversized rose colored glasses, went up one side of me and down the other. She called me a bum and a hoodlum and then told me I was filthy and a liar to boot. She accused me of being a malcontent and having abandoned my family. She said that I was lying about who I was, and when asked why she thought this she responded. “Just look at him, he’s a bum”. The scene was so outrageous that cameraman had a look on his face which has to be seen to be appreciated. Later, he was so embarrassed by this woman’s tirade that he tried to apologize for the entire mid-west. I also pointed out that she had no problem with me earlier and that she only developed the problem when the camera showed up, for whatever that is worth. I told him that apologizing was not required and assured him that I did not think that this maniac did not typify the mid-west.

Back to the story - She said that she wanted to verify my story with the authorities or that I would have to leave her property.  Hookers and wife beaters apparently are held in higher esteem with this woman then a shiftless traveler apparently, especially ones with dirty shirts. So she called the police and they arrived on scene a few minutes later. Meanwhile the reporter skillfully asked this bastion of society why she was so hostile towards me. Rant, rant and more rant. Then he asked whether I had done something to her and she said only that I was a liar and a bum. He was smart enough to keep the camera rolling the whole time, it was brilliant!

Finally one of these psycho moments was caught on tape. This woman was so out of it that even the Police Officer was having a hard time containing his laughter. In fact several times he didn’t.  So this woman berated me to the police then to the reporter and finally tells the reporter that he was a fool for wasting him time on a fraud, liar and malcontent like me.  He gave her every opportunity to be reasonable but she refused and instead was determined to show her ignorance.

Why do I sound like I enjoyed this moment? Well because I did. I enjoyed it for two reasons. First, I have had very few confrontations like this as most people are nice and respectful of others. But the few occasions where I have met with such open ignorance and hostility, I have been unable to say anything about them because they were too unbelievable. No one was there to witness the madness in these situations and writing about them would have proven frustrating because I felt that they were too outrageous to be believed. This time all of the planets must have been aligned because the camera was going when the madness began. 

Second reason is that if this woman had dared to be so disrespectful and mean to me like this eight months ago the outcome would have been a different story entirely.  I would have let this woman have it verbally and I assure you that I am very good at cutting to the heart of the matter and before I would have been done with here she would have cried. But now I am so far above that sort of nonsense and my self esteem is in no danger of collapse because of the ranting of a haunted little person like this lady that it was a humorous moment instead. If I might even be so bold as to presume that it might even be a moment of spiritual growth for me.

I accepted her opinion of me, out of common decency and respect I tried to explain myself and when I realized that she would not hear it I simply let it go. She has spent a lot of years developing her sophisticated outlook on life and I obviously have nothing import to add to her life so I didn’t bother. The police also let it go and went on to “More important things” and the reporter could not get back to the station fast enough to get this coverage edited. It was indeed a beautiful growth opportunity.

Finally the other thing that came out of this was that the Best Western right next door was watching the whole thing and graciously offered to allow this shiftless bum to stay at their hotel over the protests of my newest fan. My lesson here is that mean people only pass through your life unless you invite them become part of it.

12 12 05 The saga continues.....

After the news coverage last night there was a huge response against this woman and her attitude. The people of Springfield want to make it clear that she is not speaking for them. 

Then this morning bright and early I get a call at my new hotel from one of the residents of the Economy Inn and she wanted to tell me that she was really saddened by that woman's behavior but not surprised.  The caller said that this woman doesn't own the hotel like she claimed but instead is the girlfriend of the owner. The staff there refers to her as a "gutter drunk" and yesterday apparently was not a day off from drinking.

I feel bad for this woman and now understand the incident a lot more. It is not me that she was berating, instead it was what I represent and what she feels she will never have; the ability to change the direction of an unhappy life.  The caller also told me that I was right on the money about this lady not minding prostitutes in the hotel because it makes her feel morally superior.

That is probably why she let me check in even though I was a "Bum and a malcontent" but wanted me to leave when she learned about my story. Apparently the lady was so angry with me that she was raving about me each time the caller was within ear-shot of her.

At first I didn’t understand her hostility but now it seems clearer. I hope that something clicks for her and she can find her way back to the inner happiness that we all possess but have to work at to find. 

12 16 05

(I)

I am so sorry that it has taken this long to update the journal.

I wish I had a good excuse other that just trying to get as close to St. Louis as I can before this weekend. I am leaving for San Diego on Saturday for my daughter’s birthday. I will be home for a week until Christmas. Then I will return to Missouri to pick up where I left off.  So the closer to St. Louis I get the better it will be for me when I get back. 

I will continue walking at home but not for 6 – 7 hours a day as this takes a lot of focus and recovery time and I don’t want to spend my time at home away from my family. I might even ride my bike a little bit to take it easy and quicker.  I need to do this or when I get back to Missouri I will spend several weeks getting back into condition to walk long distances.

I am also hoping to take advantage of the time off of the road to make some serious adjustments to a couple of areas. I am going to start to prepare some well crafted food to make along the way with things that are available to me on the road. Since I have the pack down to right at about 30 lbs. (Thanks to Golite.com) I am going to add 3 lbs of basic foods that I can prepare on the road. I will also be speaking with a physical trainer to see if his program can actually help me while on the road.

My goal is to optimize nutrition to get faster and go further. I want to be clear that I am not looking for a diet or miracle food. Instead, I want to work with real food to learn sensible, sustainable eating habits that are something that I can stick with for the rest of my life. Secondly, it is time to focus on upper-body development and muscle tone. Walking has really helped me get into a healthier and strong body but I no longer believe that it is the total answer for all of the weight loss. I need to change things a bit to reach other parts of the body and keep the weight-loss momentum going and more importantly, make the loss permanent.

(II)

I have been having a fairly interesting few days because I have changed my schedule to allow for more walking time and it seems that leaving two hours early makes the whole world change. I forgot that most people in the Midwest, during winter do not even consider coming out of their homes until after the sun has warmed things up a bit. Between 8 and 10 am it is like a weird science fiction movie where all of the residents of the town have disappeared and then like clockwork around 10 am they all seem to appear out of nowhere. Before the last few days I would start walking around 10 or 11 am and really didn’t notice this before. I really don’t know whether anyone else will find that little factoid interesting but I did.

(III)

I have been getting a lot of emails from people regarding that woman in Springfield that gave me all the grief. The story even managed to draw out a long since dormant troll/cyber-stalker or two who felt the need to set me straight about how stupid I really am. It is funny what seems to get them going. Anyway, I just wanted to say here that regardless of what this woman said or did I understand the shortsightedness of her outlook and hold no grudge against her. In fact I honestly found the whole episode both somewhat amusing and sad. What she provided to me was a growth opportunity and in an odd way I appreciate her crossing my path when she did. It really enlightened me to something that can only be revealed during situations like the one she created. It is easy to be patient, kind and understanding of all humans when living in a cave away from them. The real challenge is to retain these qualities when amongst them.

Recently I have been spending a lot of time considering balance in things and I have concluded that the world is actually perfect and the way that it is meant to be. I think this because it maintains a perfect balance between opposing sides, good and bad, light and dark, happy and sad.  Sometimes it may not seem that way but when you really consider the true nature of the things that interact with you during your life you will see that everything, the good and the bad, posses the ability to provide you with good and bad influences. It is all in how you decide to see it that determines what you get from the experiences. If you are looking for the bad in things then that is what you are going to find. But conversely, if you look for the good in things then that is what you will find. 

I have come to believe that we live our lives searching for a way to have power over it and we miss the simple fact that we already possess that power, if we were to just accept that it is as simple as how you decide to see the world.

So in fact the lady at the motel in Springfield happens to be a great spiritual guide because she appears to me as a reflection of my former self and as a test of my own new found patience and compassion. I am not saying that I have mastered these things instead I am saying that I can see them from here and that is a better place than I have ever been before.

12 21 05

Hello there. I am sitting in my computer room and am happy to report that it has been great to be home. My daughter got a kitten for her birthday; my son and I have been scratched to pieces but my wife and daughter have sustained only minor injuries. 

I have been taking care of a lot of things that I have had to put off for a while and it feels good to get them squared away. I have even managed to do a couple of interviews with little disruption to my family time which is great.  But there are also the demands that some people feel are more important than family time and I have had to deal with a few of those things much to their chagrin. But overall it has been great to be home.

I am preparing for the final part of the trip now and looking forward to getting back to it as soon as possible. Not because I like the hardship but because I am eager to get it done. Towards that end I am going to try something new, I am going to do 500 miles in 35 days…pause here to allow the trolls and wannabe’s to pick themselves up off of the floor….

I have come to realize that walking is really not enough to tone a body instead it gets the lower part of the body strong and helps with the cardiovascular system but does almost nothing for the mid-section and overall muscle tone. So it is obvious that whatever effort I make needs to incorporate other types of exercise if I want to affect these areas, and I do.

So I have accepted the help of a great guy named Eric.  He calls himself “Eric the trainer” and was recommended by a friend. (More info about him to come as well as a link to his website) He is a personal trainer and is going to assist me in developing a nutrition and exercise plan that is realistic to the limitations of walking across country.  Additionally, to make sure that I maximize the time that I have left on this trip, I am going to focus solely on physical development and just get as many miles down as I can, hence the new goal of 500 miles in 35 days. This represents 14.3 miles a day and presently I am doing 18 fairly consistently so I am sure that this is an obtainable goal.

Now I feel that I need to clarify some things about this walk of mine that seem to have been misunderstood.  In my journal I have stated many times that this walk has become more about the journey than just weight loss. I thought that I was clear, but it has been pointed out to me that it seems that I have given up on weight loss.  This can’t be farther from the truth. This walk is indeed about weight loss. The difference between now and when I started is that I have realized that weight loss has almost nothing to do with the physical act of losing weight. Instead it has to deal with the problems that brought me to this point. Specifically I am talking about the emotional and character issues that cause one to have such a self-destructive outlook and continual disregard for one’s own health.

It truly serves little purpose to lose weight through whatever method if you have not fixed the underlying issues that have caused you to allow the weight to pile up in the first place.  67 percent of Americans are overweight, this is truly an epidemic and it is one that we are losing.

Most people who lose weight eventually put it all back on and usually then some. I believe that the reason for this is that most people are looking for a fast cure and have not accepted that they are at fault for their physical condition.  The simple truth is that you put the weight on over time and that is how it has to come off.  When I left on this trip I was spouting off about the evils of a quick fix but have since realized that in a lot of ways that is exactly what this trip was for me.

I need to change behaviors and habits to really learn how to take care of myself. If I manage this by the time that I get to New York then great but if, when I get there, I still have work to do then I will accept that and keep at it until I reach my goal. The most important thing to remember is that I am doing what I think is best for me and my family and not looking for someone else to fix me. Also, I am not asking that you like or agree with what I am doing and I am certainly not going to judge my success or failure regarding my health by web traffic. Instead I am going to judge it by the quality of my life as a result of my efforts, however misguided they may be.

12 29 05

In case you have been wondering, here I am? Camped out! This is the Ozarks after all. Well it is midnight and I cannot sleep so I thought that I would write a quick update. It is a little cold tonight but I have an awesome sleeping bag thanks to GoLite and I am doing ok. It was raining a little while ago but it seemed to have stopped which is okay by me. I am in a wooded area and it is offering a great deal of protection from the elements so all told I am doing pretty good. Remember I am in Daniel Boone, Mark Twain and Jesse James country.

This whole area is hilly, rocky and full of trees and lots of places to hide out. A campers delight and as soon as I find one I will be sure to mention it. I am camped out even though I can see a hotel from here because I am trying not to waste too much time. Hotels tend to make it easy to sleep in and spend too much time screwing around. To maximize my effort I am just walking and sleeping. Or more accurately walking and not sleeping, it seems tonight.

On top of my pace I have also been doing something else different. I have been reading up on diet and nutrition, toxins in the body and how it all affects us. It is really an insidious mix when it is off kilter. So I have been fasting; not for diet or religious purposes, although both are valid reasons, but for detoxification purposes. (All of the faster’s out there that are warming up their e-mail’s, please  don’t bother! Yes I know I should not be doing strenuous exercise while fasting and yes I realize about muscle loss…And yes I have a splitting headache but besides that I feel great. Except of course the you know what’s from you know where. Sorry people a little inside joke, relax already)

I have been doing this walk now for longer than I would like to admit and although I have made great strides toward a healthier me there still is a long way to go. I have reached a plateau with walking where walking just isn’t affecting me as I had hoped. Also, I am still fighting with some bad eating habits, including the wrong foods and not enough variety. So with the limited time that I have left I am refocusing my efforts towards addressing some of these more stubborn behaviors.

Like I said a few days ago I am consulting with a nutritionist and a physical trainer, but as you are aware, I am a big advocate of personal responsibility. Where I see that there is a need for these folks to help me with the details, I am very aware of what I need to do and really I knew it all along. I think that we all know what we need to do to improve our lot in life; this has never really been the issue. Instead the issue is our unwillingness to face our shortcomings, addictions and fears, and most importantly our reluctance to start working towards dealing with them. I think that is all starts with eating healthier, properly portioned foods and exercise; then to try and lead a cleaner healthier, lifestyle. This is what is working for me but each person needs to find their own way. 

Some of us have the additional burden of multiple vices but the solution is the same­ be the burden one or many. If you truly want to make a change in your life then YOU have to go out and do it; it is that simple!

So I have a renewed vigor and of course with it more angst but certainly not more that I can deal with. It can’t be because the minute one believes that a thing is too formidable it then becomes so.

The last day of there year and I am making a resolution to not be foolish enough to make resolutions. We would like to wish a happy New Year everyone and to thank you all for you support and enthusiasm!

Every month there are almost 500,000 visitors to this site and that amazing show of support helps keep me walking.

When I started this walk I did think that it was a simple matter of walking and losing weight.  I knew that I needed to find the root cause of the self destructive behavior, but, until I was out here for a while, I didn’t know how profound that search really was and after a while the actual walk became less important to me and the journey and constant discovery became far more valuable. 

But I found that a percentage of the FMW internet community was resistant to any change at all. I really started to catch hell because some people felt that I had lost my way and this was hard for me to accept at first because I felt that I had never asked what their opinions were in the first place.  Some people felt that I did ask when I made this thing public but I see it differently of course.  With time and consideration all things become clearer and I realized that I did ask for opinions when I allowed this to become public. For me, having a larger audience was a way of adding another layer of difficulty in that they would witness me fail if I decided to quit; as most of you know from experience, it is easy to quit when you are all alone. But even though I accept responsibility for inviting you all in I still am not interested in being entertainment for mean spirited people; however, as long as some (the important some) are getting inspiration then I think that it is worth the nonsense that I have to endure. This is a difficult thing to deal with because I see the good that this journey can be for a lot of people but it is sometimes hard to listen to the constant ridicule from a few disenchanted people. I believe that in all things there is balance and I now see that I needed this lesson in humility to learn to be comfortable with myself and the world at large.

Now let’s talk about the rest of the walk. Honestly, in the beginning of this thing, I didn’t think about the cold weather being an issue because I thought that it would only take six months or so to complete.  Now I am faced with a hardship for which I was not prepared and more importantly, don’t particularly care for.  I grew up in this stuff and I have been done with it for quite some time. Living in California for most of my adult life I have become a tenderfoot in the ways of winter in the east.  But this is another challenge and I won’t run from it; instead it will be an added element to the overall success.

Now forget about a timetable as it obviously does not apply anymore.  This walk is the epitome of human adaptability; I planned on six months and now I have to adapt to the change in circumstances get it done within the new, which is the end of February to the middle of March. Forget what you read about financial penalties, Harper-Collins/Regan Books is a great company with great people and behind this walk 100% and are not going to do anything to add to my task. Judith Regan had the vision to see the human drama in this story long before it became a national story and she has not wavered in her support of my walk.  This walk still remains about me dealing with the demons that brought me to the edge of my life with a bleak view of the future. It has never been about corporations or money and if those things compromise my objectives I would walk away and never look back. This is about me and my desire to make myself a better person and no one is going to stop that. I have dealt with people along the way who would have me dance like a monkey in the circus to promote their products and I refused. I did not accept their stipends when I needed it most and I am certainly not going to change that now in the last chapter. So I am walking at my pace and I am focusing on my health and well-being and that is the way it is going to be. With the support of my family and for as long as they allow it I am going to finish this walk under my own steam and in the proper timeframe.

What got me out here in the first place is the big question and it is one that I have struggled to answer for sometime. People ask constantly why I am doing this and I usually cannot give a complete and comprehensive answer because of it’s complexity. I usually try and give some meaningful and glib answer and then tell them that it is really much more than that and encourage them to see the website for more information.  But I am noticing more and more that the “Why am I walking” part of the home page is now hopelessly off the mark. It represents what I thought I was doing before I even left and it has not been updated since. So I am going to attempt to address that issue now.

When I had my reconciliation with myself I knew that I needed to do something about my situation before it was really too late.  I was approaching 40 years old and I was 400+ lbs. and that cannot be a good thing. I am a lucky man because despite my disregard of my health I had no major issues as one would expect, but it was certain that they were not far off.  There just aren’t that many 400 lb. men above 45 and certainly not healthy ones. I have two great kids and I didn’t want to die while they were so young so I knew that I had to fix this problem and I needed to do it now.  Whatever I did had to deal with a couple if key issues, namely my willingness to give up when it gets too hard and ,more importantly, it has to be a concerted effort that would ultimately force me to change my destructive behaviors. It also had to give me enough room and space to be able to reflect on the years of my life and begin to sort it all out.

I decided to walk across the country because of the challenge and the difficulty involved because those are the things that deep in my core keep me focused. Consider what it takes to be 400 lbs. and walk through the desert alone with just him and his demons to keep himself going and you start to see what challenges I am talking about. It is very difficult to first make yourself start, then more difficult to keep at it and some think impossible if you are a typical 400 lb. man.  This is the simple matter of the weight that you are carrying on your body that prohibits most from people from doing it and I accepted the challenge to prove that idea wrong. I wanted to prove to myself first, and then to others, that no matter what the challenge is the level difficulty is decided by you.

Of course there are difficulties.  Chief among them are the issues of internal health and strength; these two are the most important because they are what you are relying on to build the strength needed to sustain the journey. This inner health is what we refer to when asked how we feel and answer almost without thinking that we are good, tired, in pain or whatever. It is also what we feel when we decide whether we are going to try and work through it or just give up because it is too difficult; although, if you have serious health problem then walking into the desert is the dumbest thing that you can do.

Those issues aside, there is the mental struggle to deal with that I, for one, certainly under-appreciated in the beginning.  Walking is slow and tedious, the results are not immediate and some of us unreasonably require instant gratification to stay motivated. This is very difficult because you are putting in so much effort into it and going nowhere and seeing scarcely any change at all. It is very difficult to keep your spirits up in this situation and without a good outlook you cannot sustain the pace needed to accomplish the goal.  That is an hour-to-hour struggle, and this fact alone is enough to derail even the best of them.

So what does it take to stay out here? Honestly I think a healthy fear of failure and a wife that listens to your complaints but does not indulge them.  It is hard to remain motivated out here and sometimes there are good reasons to give it up...pulled tendons, stomach flu, and falling a lot to name a few. But this is when you need to draw upon your family for motivation, support and love.  You have to remember what is really important and make some hard decisions about what to prioritize, and I think that this is where a lot of people fail because they don’t give themselves the time needed for serious consideration. Instead they react hastily, which more often then not leads to poor decision making.

That is not to say that it is as simple as just making a decision. That is just the start and you have to re-confirm that decision every time you feel weak or sorry for yourself or are just tired and looking for a comfy spot to take a break. Of what I go through on a daily basis, self doubt is number one problem.  I defeat myself by wondering if I am going to be able to do it today; whether I am going to be able to make the next goal even if I met a bigger challenge the day before. Every day I need to renew my commitment even when I don’t feel it inside and that is not a characteristic possessed by someone who over-indulges. In fact I try and sabotage the whole thing sometimes by not setting goals at all and instead say to myself things like, “I will be where I am when I get there.”

Then pain and discomfort is the second problem. This is a big issue on the road because you normally don’t have a comfortable place to return to for rest or recovery time. Everyday something hurts and you have only two choices: walk or don’t walk.  Both have the costs and it is sometimes hard to choose which one to bear.  It is frustrating because there really is no standard response because there is no standard issue. Everyday is different and has it own malady to contend with.

Loneliness is the third biggest problem.  Sometimes I really hope that I am recognized just so that I would have someone to talk with.  I call people but a lot of the time they are busy doing their thing and you feel like a burden to them.  Of course the isolation is a big factor sometimes and then other times there just doesn’t seem to be enough of it.  There never seems to be a happy medium with isolation, either you are way out of the loop or everyone is waiting on you for something and they all need it now.  Sometimes I just turn my phone off to get some peace and quiet and then other times I am checking it all day to see if it is still working.

So the point, if I ever had one, is that I am not following a well-worn course here, and I am dealing with things as the come along. Learning and adapting, changing and then changing again as I discover better things and hopefully in the end I finish better off than when I started.

Sometimes I see this whole journey like that of a child’s life. No matter how many times you tell the child not to do something or he is going to get hurt he will never learn his lesson until he has the knot on his head. Sometimes it just has to be learned the hard way!

Illinois

01 05 06

I am having an interesting start to 2006 here in Illinois, to say the least. I am currently heading towards Effingham along some pretty rural and surprisingly busy, shoulder-less side roads. I almost was smashed by a cement truck the other day in Collinsville. It seems the driver had mistaken his truck for a Porsche and was driving in a 30 mph zone at somewhere approaching 50 and needed the shoulder to make the curve, and there I was. So that was a bit scary but a miss is a miss nonetheless and as they say “Horseshoes and hand-grenades”.

Roadway pinball aside, I am doing well out here after my holiday. In the last week I made it through St. Louis and East St. Louis and started my Northeasterly turn towards my first hometown some 600 miles away and of course I noticed an immediate change in the weather; it went deceptively nice for a few days coaxing me further in before it just went damned cold. But what am I complaining about, I picked the route and time, right? And honestly, if one is going to truly test himself, the more difficult route and method must be accepted otherwise the effort is just perfunctory at best. I have always been better the more difficult the challenge and now things are really getting interesting, the desert in the summer and the Northeast in the winter; well damn-it is there really any other way?

I am making my way along State Route 40 because it provides better access to resources and I have been asked twice not to walk on the freeway. I stayed in Highland for the night and then made it to Greenville where I am presently. On the way here I met some interesting people to say the least. One guy in particular needs to have a file on him somewhere because he is really, really out there. This guy has a Pepsi and a Coke 2 liter bottle velcro’d to his dashboard. Can you visualize that folks? A blue bottle and a red bottle low on the dashboard to look like police lights from a distance. He stopped and wanted to meet me because the Holy Spirit had moved him to do so. He was asking me if I really understood the story of Jacob and Rachel and then wanted to know more about my life than I am usually prepared to divulge: now then wanted to take me to lunch. With the Christian rock blaring from his truck we talked about religion and people then we discussed how he was asked not to return to work because of his mental illness which led to his extended stay at a psychiatric hospital….Only eight small weeks ago.

So here I am in the middle of rural nowhere with someone who is wearing name tags from three different businesses and seemingly just barely hanging on and I am trapped.

After searching through my database of reasons to leave and after trying a few unsuccessfully I finally brought the big guns to bear. “I really am not feeling well and I need to use the bathroom…RIGHT NOW!” I was out of my chair before there was a response and I went the restroom and tried to regroup, knowing that I had broken his ranting rhythm I thought that now I could easily bring the conversation to a close. I marched right out there and said “Well hey, this has been great but I really need to be back on the road soon, schedule to keep you know”. So thirty minutes later I finally got out of there and as far out of sight as I could get and he was on his way back to his old employers place to sing him a forgiveness song that he had been rehearsing. Rehearsing while we were talking he told me.

So now I am just sitting down and trying to catch up. Besides the “interesting” people I have had to visit a Chiropractor because of a hip and shoulder problem and the documentary crew was here “all up in my grill” until yesterday. It has been an eventful, trying and scary few days and now I am looking forward to being alone for a few days while I make my way to Effingham.

A lot of people have been asking and I guess I have been remiss in my duties so here goes.  After being off for 9 days and being back on the road for 10 I am still at 320 lbs. I am not discouraged by that because I am really behind the idea of gradual, permanent weightloss and actually proud that with all the temptations around over the past three weeks I have not overindulged once and in fact have really changed my eating habits dramatically for the better. I am eating less and eating healthier with fewer indulgences than ever and maintaining the willpower to be healthier. I believe that this method of slow and steady development is working and that it will prove to be the most effective weightloss plan for me.

I am still having trouble maintaining any consistent walking patterns and energy is definitely an issue everyday but that is why I am out here. I am trying different things and adapting to the changing environment while learning how to make the right choices and examining the consequences of indulgences. Hopefully, this will lead to a healthier, stronger attitude towards food and other temptations and ultimately a better life.

I have been trying to avoid things that distract me as much as I can but still have not broken the hotel habit. In fact today, I pushed myself further than I had planned to in order to avoid having to campout. It is rainy, dreary and cold which is one of the best reasons there is to not stay outside longer than absolutely necessary.  The main reason why I thought about avoiding hotels was that when you stay in one it is just that much harder to leave early the next morning. But as long as I am maintaining the pace and in fact walking further then I guess I won’t beat myself up about it. 

There is a lesson in all things if you just look for it and the lesson here is that I have to be disciplined enough to do my duties even when doing so is not easy. Leaving early into the morning cold from a nice warm place is something that I need to do but hiding from temptation in order to avoid it is teaching me nothing. I need to be able to make the right choices regardless of the circumstances and not try to create an artificial environment where the choices are limited. Temptations are all around and I need to live with them and that is the real lesson.

Tomorrow I am off again and I am trying to get to Vandalia but I don’t know how far I will get. I am pretty sore and worn out today and actually fell asleep right after I finished walking. I think that I might be coming down with something but it will have to wait until Sunday which is my next break, if I make it to Vandalia tomorrow night. If not then I will have to make up the mileage on Sunday to stay on schedule.

I really want to apologize for taking so long to get a journal entry posted. It has really been a tough week with a serious sinus headache, hip problems and lots if bizarre weather.

First the physical problems; I have been having considerable discomfort in my left hip for about the last five or six weeks. I have tried everything to alleviate the pain and discover its cause. I went to a chiropractor last week to get and adjustment and was feeling okay for about two days but then the pain returned. With the hip discomfort there is also sciatic nerve pain and this week it really became a problem.

Thinking that the pack was the problem I tried several different packing methods to shift the weight in the pack but realized that this was not the problem; and still I marched on. Then two days ago I caught a glimpse of how I was walking as I approached a glass front store and there it was; I recognized the problem.  I have an additional carry case on the left side of the pack but its main attaching strap is on the backpack’s right shoulder strap and it had moved way up the strap which in turn was causing the shoulder adjustment to stop about three inches early. So what that did was cause the backpack to sit at an angle and subsequently caused me to walk slightly twisted to compensate. So after several weeks of hip, ankle and lower back problems plaguing me I adjusted the strap and the last two days have been pain free. Well at least free of that pain anyway.

You may be wondering why I am telling you about this and I actually have a good reason. I am starting to appreciate that all things provide us lessons if we bothered to look. With regard to the maladjusted carry case strap, this problem that I let get worse over several weeks is a really good example of how we let nagging things get out of control and barely notice it. I walked for weeks with pain not realizing that the cause of the problem was an easy fix; in this case a strap moving out of place and changing the dynamics of my back pack. I tried everything that I could think of except stepping back and looking at the basics.  Assuming that it had to be a complicated thing I looked for all sorts of exotic fixes only to find that is was just a small seemingly insignificant thing that was left to grow into something huge.

I guess that the moral and my point here would be to take a hard look at ourselves before running off to find a fix outside. Most of the answers are simple and readily available, but the art is in knowing that and not losing sight of its simplicity.

Then there is the weather, I have not been able to catch a break for at least a week with the weather changing so radically each day. On Monday I was walking around in just my Khaki shirt and Tuesday it was so cold my jaw was shivering. Well the result of all of this strange weather is that I have been sick since I got back to the walk. I have been hitting the fruits and veggies pretty hard this last week and now I am starting to feel much better.

I managed to find a small portable blender that will fit in the pack easily. I know that I really don’t need any extra weight but nutrition is becoming such an issue for me that I feel the burden is worth the benefits it will provide. So starting tomorrow morning I am going to be making fresh juices from fruits and vegetables to replace at least one “travelers” meal. I am working closely with a personal trainer from LA who went so far as to drive out to a typical truck-stop to examine what was available for himself. From his observations he is going to make a food plan that takes in to consideration the constraints of being on the road.  So I will keep you posted at to the progress of this new dietary adjustment.

I was visited but several great people this week as well and that always make difficult times a little more bearable. Thanks to Tony in St. Louis, Lana, Dawn and Clayton from Alton, Katie and Ross who drove from St. Louis to Troy, Sue and Kim from Keyesport (By the way ladies I lost that glove again, so if you happen to see it let me know) and finally my new Navy pal, Ian from St. Louis who has been a supporter and providing great advice since way back in Arizona. He came out from St. Louis and drove most of the route to Vandalia, IL looking for me.  I really appreciate all of the support you guys. It made this last couple of weeks to be better than it would have been without you.

Other notables this week is that there is a squirrel in Mulberry Grove that I managed to scare the hell out of when he realized that there was someone in the tent he was standing on.  I had my manhood challenged by a couple of good old boys in a pickup truck; one of which was about 6 foot ugly and a half.  Then I had to walk on the interstate again, but this time for only five miles, however, at mile four, after having been passed up by no less than five Highway Patrolmen the sixth one booted me off.

Officer Isaiah actually ran my license and luckily I am clean. Why do I always get panicky when they run my license? But this time I was told in no uncertain terms that if I was caught on the interstate again I was getting a ticket! Oh Yeah, now you see here flatfoot, yeah that’s right!-In my best James Cagney voice. But in all seriousness he could have ticketed me there and then but he was gracious enough to just boot me off instead, so thanks, I really appreciate the gesture.

So I guess all in all this has been an acceptable couple of weeks and tomorrow I walk off into the journey again; just happy to be here.

Indiana

01 16 06

I wanted to write a journal entry about the changes that have occurred since I began this walk and how I feel about them.  Since this is a very involved subject I am going to list them here in outline form and speak about each briefly, but you will need to consider each subjects value for yourself.

When I first started this walk I really did think that it was simply about weightloss and maybe a little bit about finding me. I realized that the finding me part had to be ahead of the weightloss because without it any weightloss would be temporary because my emotions were the cause of the weight gain.  But I certainly have learned a thing or two about walking along the way.

I first seriously considered the idea of walking across the country when I found that I could barely walk through a store. I knew that there was a time when I was strong and had great stamina but that I had since lost my way. It was obvious that I needed to do something about this and from that I decided to walk as far as I could go.  Now I find that I can walk from one city to another with no worries and that alone is worth all of the difficulty that I have gone through to get here.  I feel free from the emotional and physical bonds that I had earlier thought were going to be the death of me.

Now this is something that I am both proud and ashamed of at the same time. This is the weapon of choice in what I have called the coward’s suicide, otherwise known as obesity.  I know that sounds harsh but it is true nonetheless because if left unresolved it will surely kill you and only you have the power to stop it.  And that power is primarily in our eating habits.

Overeating is a powerful addiction not unlike drugs or alcohol yet we act as though it is a choice rather than a compulsion and look down on people who have not yet found their power over it. Food is an addiction that cannot be avoided because it is the same thing that, in the right amount, nourishes our bodies and we simply will not survive without it. It is part of our social and family lives and it is part of our cultural makeup.  It is not illegal and therefore easy to have access to and in fact it is plentiful to the point of being out of control. We are to the point as a society where it is killing us and still we find even more ways to make it cheaper and easier to get. Food truly can be worse that drugs because of this and the only thing that regulates it is the individual and sometimes he simply cannot do it. 

What I am proud of about my eating habits is that most days I eat well and do not feel out of control. But there are other days when I am feeling out of control, alone, sad or just plain selfish, and then I over-indulge and take a few steps back by eating poorly. The most important thing to see here is that I recognize my weaknesses and do not let small failures become large failures by beating myself up over them. Instead, I recognize that I am not perfect and I am going to make mistakes but see that the true test is whether overall I have better eating habits; this is the mark of having changed a bad behavior.

In the beginning of this walk I struggled a great deal trying to get to the point where the walking was not a burden everyday. I thought that there would be this mythical moment where walking 15 miles would be no problem at all. Well that is not the case but what has occurred is that after 9 months I am still at it and I am feeling great.  I am feeling much stronger than I have in years, my heart and lungs feel healthy and clean, my system in general is feeling like it’s brand new. I have lost over 90 lbs and the weightloss continues steadily.

My legs and buttocks have seen the most dramatic improvement in loss of inches and physical development; I dare even say that I am stronger now then I was at my best during my Marine Corps days. In fact, I have even starting jogging at least one mile of my daily walk. Now one mile isn’t much but considering that I couldn’t make it through a store nine months ago, it’s huge! More importantly I am moving around in a way that was until recently was just a distant memory. So if I had to sum of my overall physical improvement since the beginning of my journey I would have to say that it is a 100% turnaround from where I started.

Now I know that some people out there are wanting me to say that this is all about weightloss and that there is a simple thing that will cure all weight problems for them. But I am afraid that I am not going to be able to say that at all.  I am going to say that there is nothing easy about being overweight except for the getting there. It was a slow and dedicated process that got you here and it will take the same to get you back.  This is the single most important thing that I have had to face out here and it is a hard pill to swallow.  There are no shortcuts and the journey is difficult but the rewards are tremendous.  I have had to deal with walking, nutrition, emotional causes of the problem, the public, logistics of the walk and on and on.  But the hardest thing of all was dealing with not liking me very much. It is hard to be with yourself all the time when self-loathing is the thing that has fueled your self destructive behaviors for so long.  Looking inward and finding an idiot is no picnic and I have the added element of a camera crew here to verify those findings. But in retrospect, I don’t think that I would change a thing because overall each element, good or bad, has had a part in this journey and each contributes in it’s own way. 

I have had to deal with some pretty tough issues and I feel as though I am starting to know me better than I have ever before.  This to me is the most valuable thing that I have gained from all the trials and tribulations of my walk across the country and it was worth every step.

01 18 06

Anatomy of a Today Show interview for TFMW.

430pm – Do and interview with local media.

6pm – Eating a chicken breast sandwich for dinner I notice that it is starting to snow.

7pm – Starting to feel sick to my stomach.

8pm – Spoke with Today Show / Dateline producers; really feeling very sick now.

9pm – Wondering why I ate the chicken sandwich; feeling like it would be nice to throw up.

10pm – Chatting with my brother and sister online; and feeling absolutely terrible now.

1030pm – Thinking that I have a backache I stretch-out on the floor for a bit.

11pm – Called my kids to say goodnight (They are three hours behind me now).

12am - Cannot sleep and now sick as a dog; take a hot bath but it was no help.

1am – Still cannot sleep, feeling really terrible and cannot lay down because it seems back and ribs hurt. I tried some stretching exercises to relieve the pain.

140am – Call the producer for the Dateline segment and alert her to my situation. At 140 in the morning she is not amused. Take a second hot bath but this seems to have worsened the situation.

2am – Very tired now but it is too painful to lie down. Now I am getting very anxious about the interviews today. Researching on line and decide that I have a lot of gas built up and my insides hurt from the pressure.

230am – Get dressed and head out to a store to get something for my stomach, Find that the wet roads have frozen over. Get Mylanta and lots of water.

235am – Drink Mylanta right outside of store.

3am – Mylanta is not helping, decide to take a hot shower, Started burping seriously.

330am – Threw up and much to my chagrin I am not feeling any better.

4am – Vomited for the second time and feeling marginally better but still in too much pain to lie down.

430am – Sitting here in the dark pondering the irony of getting sick right before a big day like today.

5am – I finally doze off sitting upright…I think.

530am – Sick again and now I have definitely strained something in my back.

6am – Frustrated to no end I get up and start to get ready.

610am – Decided to write this journal entry.

645am – Time to go meet the Today Show crew.

7am – Producer of Today Show meets me and take me to interview site.

715am – Meet the crew and some passerby’s, Starting to feel a little bit better despite the fact that it was 20 degrees and snowing.

730am – Interview with Katie Couric.

740am – Meet some more people who stopped for to watch the interview and then left for the hotel.

800am – Back at the hotel I found that Kim at the front desk had the show on in the lobby and all of the people there had watched the interview and wanted to meet with me.

830am – Back in my room to sleep for about an hour and a half before I actually start my day. When I get up Dateline will be waiting.

01 24 06

This last week since the Today show / Dateline interview has been incredibly hectic and I am surprised that I survived it at all.  After the interviews I wound up doing three radio interviews, one magazine, three newspapers and four local news casts, two in Terre Haute and two in Indianapolis…..So I think everyone knows that I am here now.

It is funny about the media, I went through the entire state of Illinois and scarcely a dozen people were interested. I hit Indiana and it seems that the whole state was waiting for me. Brazil was a treat because of all the great people I met; Thanks Hampton Inn in Terre Haute, Yesterday’s Pub and Brazil Family Diner in Brazil. Then yesterday as I was walking from Stilesville to Plainfield no less than 32 people stopped to wish me well; at one point there where three vehicle at the side of the road waiting in a queue to meet me. It was the most surreal thing I have ever seen. I made it to Belleville which was my midday stop and the whole staff had been waiting for me. They said they were watching me come down the highway and if I had decided to go to the store across the street they were going to come out and chase me down.  The support and enthusiasm of the folks here in Indiana has been amazing; from Jon, Kim and JT in Coatesville that took me in to the father and daughter in Belleville that left the bag of goodies for me; Indiana has been an awesome part of the trip. I think that it is a genuine testament to the quality of the people here that they have been so kind and I want to say that I do appreciate every bit of it.

The area between Brazil and Plainfield is wide open and not a great deal of things to see and this actually was a good thing because it really helped me to keep moving. I have walked everyday since the Today show interview because I just wanted to get back to civilization. Now I am on the outskirts of Indianapolis and considering the perils of walking through a city I am looking forward to the open space again; go figure.

I have been doing well with the walk and only pretty good with the food. There are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that I am ashamed to admit has gotten the better of me at times but I am recovering quicker than ever before so I am feeling okay about things overall.  I am going to see a Doctor about the little episode in Terre Haute before the Today show. This was actually the second time that this occurred, the first being back in Needles, Ca during fathers day weekend. Irony noted.  I am hopeful that it is just food issues but if not then I will deal with whatever it is when then time is right. I will also be getting weighed then and I will post it to the site.

Finally, I wanted to say thanks to my family in Ohio for not being completely insane as families can be sometimes. They were all under the microscope of the documentary crew this weekend. I do mean crew this time as two out of three of them were there. My sister was really getting worked up in the weeks before they arrived but she actually did very well, as I knew she would. Now the Documentary crew has split up, one going home to San Diego and the other on his was here.

My sister is now on to her next item to freak out about; she is trying to plan a shindig for me when I arrive in Youngtown. She has been running around trying to figure out who is going to be there, where there is and what to do with all these people when they get there.

To be honest she has been making me nuts with it all and I told her the other day that we should all just go to Outback and be done with it.  Apparently that was not the right answer. So if you are in Youngstown and planning to attend then my sister wants to hear from you soon. 

So back to the road tomorrow and in a day or so I will be out of Indianapolis and on the way to my home state, which I haven’t been to in about four years. This is going to be interesting.

I know that this isn’t much of a journal entry but it has been a rough week and my head has not stopped spinning yet. Give me a day or so and I will post a more insightful and entertaining one.