Friday, August 31, 2007:  Our meeting with Senator Lieberman's chief of staff this morning was interesting. Ms. Riddle has been with Senator Lieberman since the hounds of hell were puppies - I think she said she started working for him in 1973 - so I have no doubt that what she has to say was very much what we would have heard had the meeting been with the Senator himself. She was very hospitable and friendly and, although as we outlined the rationale behind what we're trying to do it was obvious on occasion that there were points of divergence, I think we at least got a respectful hearing and were taken seriously.

There were two points that came out of the meeting that I wanted to talk about this evening. We got rather heavily into the problem of what our current actions are doing to the men and women who are in the military service because this was an area that Jonna and I recognized was resonating very strongly with Ms. Riddle. We talked about the tremendous support we've had from current and formar military personnel. We talked about the fact that the very same people who are presently thumping their chests and demanding, "Support our troops!" are the ones who are extending tours of duty from twelve to fifteen to eighteen months and sending people on two, three or four tours to Iraq, meanwhile cutting their benefits and failing to care for them when they return stateside. We talked about the serviceman's wife we heard from down in Kentucky, whose husband is shipping out for his third tour - and their marriage is the only one in his unit that has survived this far. Ms. Riddle looked genuinely surprised and began relating an apparently recent incident of her own.

She said that not too long ago a rabbi had come to Senator Lieberman wanting to set up a special counseling program for military couples whose marriages were failing due to service related stress. They thought that was a very good idea...so the first step they took was to go to the Department of Defense to request statistical data on the problem. The DoD told them - in effect - There really is no problem our married troops are doing just fine thank you for your interest we'll show you to the door goodbye. So they dropped the idea.

(Long incredulous pause)

To our credit, I think, neither Jonna nor I screamed. We may be wrong, but it occured to both of us simultaneously that this was pretty much like asking Exxon if it is profiteering. Did they honestly expect that the DoD was going to admit that this war is tearing military couples apart? Sadly, I think they did. And here is one of the big D.C. disconnects. To a large degree, the information that flows around the capitol is generated within and colored by the capitol. It is what people in our legislature know, therefore it is what they trust. And in many cases it has very little to do with reality - or with the voice of the American people.

The second point came when I was outlining the rationale of our petition and came to the part where I talk about the "War on Terror" as being a metaphor - and we cannot rationally upset the Constitutional balance of powers on the basis of a metaphor. Ms. Ridlle observed, "Well, there are people who would argue with you on that." I smiled politely and agreed and we continued. But this is no minor point and, although I've talked about it before, I want to hit it again tonight.

In my lifetime, our nation has not officially declared war on any other sovereign state or nation in the world. This is not to say that we have not gone to war against other countries - we have. But we have not actually declared ourselves to be at war with any of the countries against which we've taken up arms since World War II. At the same time, we have declared war on poverty, drugs, crime, homelessness - ad nauseum.

In other words - and I know this sounds like a crazy thing to say - we have not taken the subject of war seriously. We have applied the term and taken the mindset in numerous areas where we shouldn't while determinedly refusing to apply it where we should. The result has been an overall confusion in regard to what war is, which has generated the downward spiral in reasoning and logic that finds us today engaged in a War on Terror.

Now, you can argue this six ways from Sunday. Yes, we should be taking drastic and comprehensive action against terrorism. Yes, it remains a constant threat to the security of all nations. And on. And on. But when you're done with your argument I will point out one incontrovertible problem: When our founders cobbled this republic together and laid out the distribution of powers among the branches of government - and when they came to the topic of war and how it should be properly handled - they had not one single inkling that we would ever do anything so bizarre as to turn war into a metaphor. That is to say, the basis for the separation and distribution of war powers was and is - to terribly misuse a familiar phrase - a "good old fashioned" war, as in an armed conflict between sovereign powers for the purpose of securing territory, establishing sovereignty or deposing incompetent rule. If we lose that distinction and redistribute war powers based on a metaphoric war, we have at that point created a permanent imbalance in the Constitutional distribution of powers, as a metaphoric war cannot be won in any ultimate sense and therefore is perpetual. We cannot declare "victory" in a war on poverty - as J. C. himself says, "The poor will always be with you." It does not mean we should not perpetually strive to lift up the poor and do what we can to assuage the never-ending inequality of the distribution of wealth and goods, but the problem will always exist. So it is with terror, or terrorism.

A sidebar here: Those who wish to continue to pursue our present deranged course of action but still have a few remaining active brain cells have already begun to perceive this annoying little detail and adjust their rhetoric accordingly, in case you haven't noticed. You don't hear the phrases "War on Terror" or "War in Iraq" much from the D.C. folks anymore. It has now become the "War on Al Qaeda". Really. They've recognized that we're not actually at war with Iraq, so they've dumped that phrase. They've recognized the cognitive dissonance of a War on Terror, so now they're calling it the War on Al Qaeda. Trouble is, it's the same thing. Al Qaeda, if you haven't been paying attention, is not a sovereign power. They hold no territory. They have no form of government, They do not offer a competing ideaology. They are an amorphous - and very small - marginally organized bunch of delusional sociopaths. Whatever it's called, the idea of war as it is addressed within the structure of our republic does not and cannot apply.

I had hoped that we would at least learn from the fiasco that is the War on Terror that we must begin to treat the loathesome subject of war respectfully. I had hoped that as a result of this mess we could begin to look toward a future where we'd finally abandon the use of this metaphor - and at the same time have the courage and sense to apply the label where it belongs. I believe that we should never take up arms against another sovereign power unless and until we're able to actually and formally declare a state of war against that power.

But then, just the other day, I was watching a report on TV about Lance Armstrong meeting with the Democratic candidates and pushing his initiative to increase government funding for and attention to cancer research. And in the clip there was a shot of Ms. Clinton announcing in cheery yet solemn tones, "If I am elected president, I will immediately declare War on Cancer." I wanted to scream. Actually, I did. NO!!! Call it anything you want! Implement whatever programs you can think of! Increase the funding for research! Do everything you can! But DON'T call it a war!!! Stop it! Stopitstopitstopit!

How many times....?

Thursday, August 30, 2007:   Our plans are in such a state of flux right now that it's getting pretty dizzy at times. First, we scheduled another meeting today with Congressman Grijalva from Arizona's 7th district, and once again, this is a contact one of you made for us and we truly appreciate it. We also got a call from another TV station back in San Diego. The lady who called seemed to think we were already back in San Diego so I had to tell her we'd be hanging around D.C. for a while yet. I think she was a bit disappointed, but we'll be making contact again. This one, I think, is for a half hour local show which would be great.

It is becoming clear that after the middle of September I'm going to have to go back to San Diego as soon as I can at least for a while. Among other things, we're going to have to start making a living again - but I also want to be able to thank all the folks back there who have helped us so much - and take advantage of the media contacts we've made there as well. Not much else for tonight; we're looking forward to the meeting tomorrow, which will also give us the opportunity to deliver some packets to some Senators while we're there - then back to the phones in the afternoon.

Speaking of work to be done, our friend Jackie reminds us of one area where we all need to be active right now. As you know, central to our messge is the fact that when you realize you're doing something wrong, the first thing you do is to stop. Then you deal with the consequences of your actions. It is obvious that the entire country is shifting its mood and that we may actually be able to end this war soon, so it is definitely not too soon to begin to prepare for the consequences. One consequence that we're already way behind on is the problem of Iraqi refugees. I may be out of date, but the last I heard is that our quota on receiving refugees from Iraq is presently around 5,000. People are already predicting that there may be two million or more people seeking refuge when we leave Iraq. Five thousand is not a low number - it is an outrageously low number, particularly in light of the fact that we will be the primary reason for the refugee crisis and therefore should assume the primary responsibility for providing the refuge people are already seeking. It is not too soon to be contacting your legislators about drastically increasing our quota for receiving Iraqi refugees. I have some ideas along these lines and will write about it more in the near future after I've had time to think it through a bit more - and another day to recuperate from whatever bug has been hassling me for the last day and a half.

I see that Duncan is getting more of our pictures into the journal, so don't forget to go back and check those out. But it's time for me to get back under the covers and get over this as soon as I can.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007: A quick mid-day entry today - while I'm not back up to speed in the health department yet today I've been spending time making telephone contacts, which is a part of the advice we got yesterday. But meanwhile, we received a call from Senator Lieberman's office and now a a meeting scheduled with his chief of staff for Friday.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007: The meeting with Jay's lobbyist friend went very well today; she provided us with many good ideas that we'll be incorporating into our efforts. I regret to report, though, that by the time our meeting was over I was feeling very poorly, so Jonna and I drove back to the house and I spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever. Just wanted to take a few minutes to update here, then I'm going back and hiding under the covers again. I'll write more as soon as I can.

Monday, August 27, 2007: Robert Burns observed, "The best laid plans of mice and men aft gang aglee." Well, they sure ganged aglee for us this morning. After working through the weekend to collect and format the information, coming up with a neat little fourteen page handout for legislators, making a hundred copies, collating them, sliding them into neat little transparent folders, selecting fifty legislators for our initial effort and schlepping everything downtown, we were informed by the guard at the Hart building that we can't bring the stuff in - he said we'll have to stuff it in envelopes and send it to the Congressional mailroom.

We retreated to a park bench to mull the situation over. If we do like he said it will probably be a month or more before anyone even sees the stuff. So we came up with a plan B. I had arrived today looking pretty much as I did during the walk - white shirt and jeans - and carrying two large bundles of this stuff. Tomorrow we'll have a car available, so I'll put the suit back on, take a portfolio and carry them in three or four at a time. When I went the other day to meet with Congresswoman Matsui's staff I carried the portfolio and had no trouble, so I figure we shouldn't have any trouble tomorrow. We'll just have to make a bunch of trips back to the car to reload and hit three or four more offices.

Who'da thunk it? I mean, I realized it would be foolish to try to carry the information in stuffed in envelopes - that's why we went with the transparent folders. But this really blindsided us. Oh well. So Jonna and I spent the day at the National Art Gallery (we didn't have a car available today - Jay drove us in so we were stuck until he got off work). The west gallery is pretty decent, but the east gallery impressed us both as being a pretentious waste of space - way too much building and way too little art. We marveled at the phenomenon that when people go to art galleries they act like they're at a cathedral - or a morgue. Hushed voices. Whispers. Very, very quiet. What for? Jay confessed on the way home that the only time he's visited any of the many D.C. galleries is when he's gone to private events that involved the consumption of inordinate quantities of alcohol. I told him that seemed fair, as it was quite obvious that many of the works on display were created in a process that also involved the consumption of inordinate quantities of alcohol.

It was a beautiful day. We also toured the sculpture garden next door to the west building. Jonna got hold of a brochure describing the various sculptures in the garden. We noted that the most common word used in describing the creative process of the many artists represented there was "hallucinatory". Interesting.

I see that Duncan has caught up on the journal (thanks, Duncan!) and has begun to insert pictures, so if you've been following along, you might want to go back through the month and take a look at the photos that have been added.

Tomorrow late morning we'll be meeting with a friend of Jay's, sort of a quasi-lobbyist, who would like to give us some tips about gaining entree to the halls - and the ears - of Congress. We can certainly use all the help we can get, so we're looking forward to it. Then we try our stealth method of package delivery. Wish us luck!

Saturday, August 25, 2007:  I spent the morning and evening gathering newspaper articles off the internet for the package we're preparing. During the afternoon we gave the guys a bath. While it was oppressively hot and humid outside it was at least sunny, so we did an outdoor bath this time with the garden hose. I think they both enjoyed a little relief from the heat. I'm certainly glad I arrived when I did because the past week's worth of weather would have had me quite frustrated and throughly worn out. The rain began again this eveining and feels like it's going to hang around all night.

I thought I'd share one of my fairly rare hate emails with you this evening. As is most usually the case, the sender did not sign his handiwork, but it comes from tuis92849@mypacks.net who offered the following short - if not too sweet - sentiment:

"You piece of sh__.

I hope you starve.

do not come back to san diego..."

I figure anyone who writes to me deserves at least a response, so I replied:

"What a well-reasoned argument you make - and so eloquently! Is there more to you than calling people names and wishing them misfortune, or is that the extent of your communicating and reasoning capabilities?"

I usually don't hear back from these folks again, but after collecting his wits for a couple of days (no small task, I'm sure) tuis92849 came back with:

"Look A__Hole,

I wasn't trying to make an argument. I gave you my opinion. I don't argue with Idiots, my grandmother told me that.

So, again....Eat Sh__."

Since he had enough perseverance to reply, I answered once again:

"Actually, you didn't give me your opinon. You:

a. Made a statement. A statement is not an opinion unless it is clearly presented as one (as in "I think you are a piece of sh__") or it is understood by both parties to the conversation that the statement constitutes an opinion. Since we had no prior communication, we could not have had such an understanding.

b. Expressed a desire regarding my future health.

c. Issued an instruction which, unless you are the mayor of San Diego - and I sincerely doubt you are - was outside the parameters of your authority. Of course, if you were assuming the understanding to which I alluded in point (a) above, your instruction then constitutes a threat. Was that your intention?

Your closing remark this time is also a paradox. While in your first email you called me a piece of sh__ and expressed the hope that I would starve, this time you instruct me to eat sh__, which seems to be a direct contradiction to the first two elements of your initial message. You seem to be terribly confused. If your grandmother taught you not to argue with idiots, is she also responsible for the quality of your other communicative skills? You might take these emails to her as a sample of your work and see if she has time to offer you a refresher course.

Peace,

Bill"

If this one follows the typical pattern, I will probably receive one more email filled with expletives and ending with the declaration that he is blocking any future emails from me. I guess these folks figure that having the last (four letter) word means that you win.

Friday, August 24, 2007: The last several days' respite from typical August weather for D.C. departed today. Whereas it's been wet but at least cool, going outside today meant your glasses would instantly fog up - and if you don't wear glasses your eyeballs would fog up. I understand the prediction is for things to jump right into very hot and very humid for the near future. The good news is that after three days of riding the bed and pleading with anyone listening to shoot her, Jonna is back up on her hind legs today and feeling much better.

The other good news is that I finally got caught up with emails today. With the rather full schedule of the past couple of weeks I had fallen way behind and it's good to be back up to date again. So many of you have sent emails of congratulations; this morning I went through all of them with Jonna, who hasn't been able to see the more recent several days, and we were both quite moved. We thank all of you for thinking of us - and hope you'll continue to tune in as we keep our efforts going.

We got a call today from Matt, who's helping to organize a reception for Mario, who has been walking to D.C. from Chicago, and for the young people who have been walking in from San Francisco, asking if we'd like to participate. We told him that one of the reasons we're hanging around D.C. is to be there for the other people who are walking in, and we will certainly be there - September 11th in Lafayette Park from noon to 3.

Thursday, August 23, 2007:  I'm going to try to refrain from going on too long tonight, as we're going to have a very busy weekend ahead. First of all, I'm going to try to get caught up on emails tomorrow, and then Jonna and I are going to be putting together an information package which, Monday morning, I'm going to begin dropping off at Congressional offices along with requests for appointments. The meeting with Congresswoman Matsui's aide today went very well, although I'm not sure he was with me completely on the need to move away from allowing the other side to constantly frame the debate or my contention that the most effective way to bring an end to this war is not through the funding avenue but rather through rescinding the war powers granted to the administration. Even so, it was another small step.

I can't sign off tonight without addressing some of the current news. Those of you who have been following me from the beginning remember that way back then I talked about this administration not actually being Republican - or conservative for that matter. I opined that the most accurate label for this group would be Opportunists, as they will do anything and say anything if they think it will serve to further their very narrow and very specific agenda. As if to prove my point, we now have Mr. Bush arguing with himself ("Iraq is not like Vietnam! Yes it is! No it isn't! Is too! Is not!"). We're currently in the land of is too, where a feverish attempt is being made to completely rewrite recent history and contend that if we hadn't left Vietnam, things would be oh so much better today. Like, um, the whole of Indochina wouldn't have fallen to communist rule. Wait a minute - it didn't. Like, today Vietnam would be a stable country and a favored nation trading partner. Wait a minute - it is. OK, well then, like, if we hadn't left when we did thousands of people wouldn't have suffered and perished in the resulting chaos. Well, yes, that's probably true - except that had we stayed longer, the resulting chaos would have continued to grow worse and even more people would have suffered and perished, including thousands more of our own sons and daughters. I'll actually side with you, Mr. Bush, in this hour's contention that Iraq is like Vietnam - except I will not permit you to write a fantasy ending to the Vietnam war that is not only counter-intuitive but serves only to try to support your fantasy of whatever it is you consider to be "victory" in Iraq. Vietnam and Iraq are alike in that they are both monumental foreign policy blunders in which we became embroiled as a direct result of the most unscrupulous manipulation and lies. They are alike in that the longer we stay, the worse the blowback will be. They are alike in that - short of total annihilation of the populace that Kissinger seemed to favor and many of your acolytes espouse - they are conflicts that cannot be "won" through the use of military force. But to dip into your alternate universe and come up with the outrageous and completely unsupportable conclusion that had we "stayed the course" in Vietnam we could have salvaged an unsalvageable situation - and then to use this as a justification for continuing this mess in Iraq - is opportunism at its most desperate heights.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007:  Continuing where I left off last night, I've come up with a brilliant idea! What we need is a Truth in Legislation Act, much as we have truth in advertising and truth in lending regulations. Under this act, legislation would no longer be permitted to be given misleading labels, but must be titled according to what it actually would do. If this were enacted:

The No Child Left Behind legislation would be titled "Legislation to Discourage Diversity in Curricula and Further Disadvantage Schools Most in Need of Assistance".

The Clean Air Act would become "Legislation to Reduce Pollutant Restrictions".

The Patriot Act would be "Legislation to Drastically Increase the Ability of Government to Curtail Personal Freedoms and Subvert Constitutionally Guaranteed Rights In Order to Provide Citizens with a False Sense of Security Because We're So Frightened that We Can't Think Straight Right Now So Until We Get Our Act Together We'll Just Turn Our Country Into a Police State".

Over the course of my walk, and now that I've finished and am working on what direction we'll go in the future, I have had a number of people applaud my effort but express their opposition to my objectives. These folks usually state that their opposition arises from a fundamental difference in perspective and either suggest or state directly that they believe I approach my endeavor with a certain set of biases or assumptions which they feel are flawed.

It is certainly true that we all approach any given issue with a certain set of assumptions, and that those assumptions may well be flawed, thus producing an entire viewpoint that is skewed by our underlying faulty assumptions. For that reason I've spent some time re-examining my own set of prejudices which lead me to the actions in which I'm engaged. I've stated several of these before, but for the sake of clarity I wanted to revisit and collect them here today. So here are my personal foundational assumptions which lead me to where I am:

1. The American people (who collectively establish our national ethos) are a peace-loving people. We generally loathe war and see it primarily as a tool to right wrongs - and a tool only to be used when all other avenues available to right those wrongs have failed and show no further promise of success.

2. We are also a self-reliant people, and that self-reliance engenders both an attitude of and a desire for self-sufficiency; that is to say, we have no desire to acquire - through acts of aggression - either territory or resources that do not already belong to us. We view forceful acquisition of territory or resources as acts of thievery, which are incompatible with our national ethos.

3. We have a strong allegiance to our foundational doctrines, primarily as embedded in our Constitution. We strongly believe in the Constitutional declaration that all powers not specifically granted to the government by the Constitution are to remain powers of the states, which we interpret to mean that those powers remain within the hands of the people themselves. We are zealous in guarding against any encroachment by our government into areas of power or control that are not already the domain of government as defined in the Constitution.

4. We have no desire to build an empire. We seek to live in cooperation with other nations rather than to exert forceful control over them. To the extent that we do attempt to control the actions and attitudes of other nations, we have a strong preference for using such tools as diplomatic relationships and economic leverage to pursue our goals. We strongly reject the idea of imposing our nation's values or purposes on other nations by the use of military force as we believe that to do so would be completely contradictory to our sense of who we are. We honestly believe that our particular form of government is the most rational and workable form yet devised by humankind and that, by its merits, it will eventually become the form of government most preferred and pursued by other nations and peoples of the world.

5. We truly believe that every human life - foreign or domestic - has equal though immeasurable worth, and that government exists solely to promote the overall welfare of individuals - and thus society as whole - to the best of its ability. It is therefore not acceptable for government to favor the welfare of any one segment of society or group of individuals at the expense of other groups or individuals. It is also therefore reasonable to assume that as the members of the society become more successful at assuring the overall welfare of individuals through the personal incorporation and application of the American ethos, the control over people by their government should naturally diminish.

There you have it. These are the assumptions - as best I can express them - that inform my actions. When I talk of a noble ideal, an inner vision of what America is truly all about, these are the things that rest at the heart of that vision. I realize that some may call me naive. I prefer to believe that I am optimistic: I tend to assume the best of my fellow Americans until evidence clearly shows otherwise. The evidence I have accumulated over the course of my walk has strongly tended to support my optimistic assumptions. In addition, I think the action in which we're presently engaged in Iraq bears out my assumptions. Were we not peace-loving people, were we covetous of other nations' territory and resources enough to wage war to acquire them, the war in Iraq would have been an easy sell. But the fact that this is not our nature is the very fact that compelled our leadership to lie to us in order to move us to this action.

But perhaps my vision is not that shared by my neighbors; I am willing - if saddened - to admit that possibility. As long as I retain these principles as the basis of what I believe our nation to be I will work as I have been to promote this vision. If the time should come when I conclude that I have been mistaken and that my country does not hold these ideas as foundational and formative, I will have no other choice than to reassess my allegiance.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007:   My "days off" have been pretty busy. Lots of stuff related to our project, and lots of routine-of-living tossed in as well. I've spent too many hours in front of the computer, making contacts, updating the website and so forth. Still need to get to responding to all of you who have wished us well and I promise I'll do that soon. Jonna is confined to bed with a nasty bug that has had her miserable for the past two days. We're hoping she'll be over it soon. Mike, at the San Diego Union Tribune wrote a new article that appeared in today's paper about the completion of my walk, I have a line on a radio interview that is still in the works, did an interview this afternoon with the NPR radio station (KPBS) in San Diego, and have an appointment to meet with Congresswoman Matsui (CA 5th district) on Thursday. I'm continuing to work hot and heavy on legislative contacts and will let you know as those fall into place.

I got a call from the webmaster at Michael Moore's site today and discovered that dropping the link to our site was completely inadvertant - he was pressed for space one day and took it off, meaning to reactivate it the next day, but it didn't get done. We're now back up on Mr. Moore's site, which is great good news.

On the mundane side, I got the guys to the vet's yesterday to renew their heartworm pills. As usual, they behaved like perfect gentlemen. Then today I took them out to get their nails trimmed. The stairs at Jay's are hardwood and Finn in particular was having a terrible time negotiating them. Trimming their nails is one thing I just cannot do myself - I'm always afraid I'm going to cut too deep. We went to PetSmart and the girl there told me that since I didn't have their vaccination information with me they'd have to be muzzled during the nail clipping. I told her that wouldn't be a problem. But as we sat in the waiting room with several other dogs in the place going generally bananas and the guys sitting calmly beside me as we waited our turn, by the time they were ready to trim their nails, she realized that muzzles weren't going to be necessary for the guys. So they jumped up onto the table in turn, calmly stood while she clipped their nails, and we were finished.

I had inadvertantly left one name off the list of key legislators in my last post - Warner of VA. Again I want to emphasize that this is but the first of several initiatives we'll be exploring and would like your help as we do. Please don't think that this, or our personal meetings with legislators, is the sum total of our future efforts. I believe they are important, but they are only one aspect - and I believe they are worth exploring. We are, after all, very much about dialogue - and we are not about to give up on that.

I got another hate mail yesterday, this one from someone who is hoping fervently that I starve to death. Maybe it's the same guy who early on expressed the desire that I get run over by a Greyhound bus during my walk. Since that didn't happen, maybe he's decided to opt for starvation instead. Not that I want to burst his little bubble, but that's not likely to happen. Matter of fact, now that I've finished this part of the walk and until I hit the road again, I'm going to have to be careful not to accumulate excess baggage. Without the daily 17 miles it would be way too easy to acquire a brand new layer of, um, insulation.

I still have some pictures from the last section of my walk that I want to get to Duncan so they can be posted in the Journal - should be able to get to that in the next couple of days. Jonna and I happened upon an extremely interesting PBS show the other night - recorded back in 1983. It was a forum of a number of legislators, as well as governors of various states and other political figures. Two legislators I remember specifically were Moynihan and Hatch. The moderator was presenting a number of hypothetical situations which had Constitutional implications and the forum members were discussing the ramifications of each scenario.

One hypothetical the moderator presented was that he was the president and was deeply concerned about the quality of education in our country. He therefore was proposing a program that would give every teacher in the country a $5,000 raise, but the receipt of the raise was contingent upon (a) results - measured by standardized tests, and (b) a federally mandated minimum curriculum (stop me if you've heard this one before). The reason we found it intensely interesting is that every single person in the forum flat-out rejected it as a terrible proposal - for a variety of reasons, some of them having to do with local control over what is to be taught in local schools, some having to do with the potential problems of "teaching to the test" - and many other reasons. They were very clear about rejecting such a program and their reasons were solid. And we sat there wondering what in the world happened over the span of twenty years that permitted some of these very same legislators to blithely go along with the very same program.

One factor, I'm sure, is image. We see it happening all the time. Sunday we watched a show where some yahoo was attacking Clinton by tossing out a laundry list of "She voted for this...she didn't vote for that...etc." It is such a deceitful tactic. Don't tell me what a legislator voted for or against - tell me why. It is this sort of tactic that prevents legislators from opposing something called No Child Left Behind. It's all very Orwellian. Put together a piece of legislation that actually reduces the requirements imposed on industries in regard to air pollution, but call it the Clean Air Act - then castigate legislators who vote against something called the Clean Air Act. It's time, ladies and gentlemen, to realize how cynically you are being manipulated - and to call people on this sort of manipulation whenever and wherever they do it. That's my rant for this evening.

Saturday, August 18, 2007 (Late): Getting down to business: I'm going to take tomorrow completely off to unwind and let my heels grow some new skin. In the meantime, I wanted to put the first of our ideas out there. This will certainly not be our only new route, but it will be a beginning that we believe has significant potential.

After our meeting with Senator Durbin's aide yesterday, Jonna sat on a bench beside the Hart building and contemplated a growing realization: as vast and populous as our nation is, and as overwhelming as the whole machinery of government often seems, when you get right down to it there is a very small group of people who have tremendous power to effect change - and there is an even smaller subgroup of that group that has nearly incredible power. I'm talking about those senators who, while being elected from a Republican base, still seem to have a grasp of the importance of placing our nation's welfare above their partisan loyalties and are willing and able to shift their vote when they know it is the right thing to do. These few senators have the capability of tipping the balance in the Senate and passing legislation that will help restore sanity in our governance. While their votes would not "veto-proof" the Senate, if they are willing to shift on significant matters they may well provide the impetus for others to stand up to this administration and spur the changes that need to happen. Thanks to Senator Durbin's aide Chris, I wanted to provide you with a short list of the most promising senators tonight. They are:

Collins - ME

Snowe - ME

Brownback - KS

Lugar - IN

Voinovich - OH

McConnell - KY

These are the members of the Senate that need to hear from us, repeatedly and clearly. It isn't always easy to get an email through to a Senator in a state other than your own, but creative minds can find ways to do it. Jonna and I will be trying to arrange meetings with all of them very soon, but each and every one of you can - and should - actively participate as well. Email them. Write to them. Call them. If you want to use rationale along the lines of our petition, that's just fine, but speak from your heart and your head as well. Some suggestions off the top of my head: Always be respectful. Don't be afraid to let them know that you are aware of the tremendous power they have to change things. Call upon their sense of true patriotism - their loyalty to country over party, to Constitution over office. Focus on positives. I think you get the idea.

For those of you on listserves or blogs or other vehicles to contact others, please put this suggestion out to those you're in contact with - spread the word. That's it - I'm on vacation for tomorrow.

Saturday, August 18, 2007: One year ago today I said to my wife, "I think I need to do this." I confess that her initial reaction, as well as mine, was at least partly one of fear. We have both been around long enough to understand that when an idea this implausible, this impractical comes to visit it is probably not a foolish fantasy fueled by last night's pizza, but is far more likely the child of a stirring of the soul. At that moment, we both understood that our lives were about to change.

Three hundred and sixty-five days, three thousand one hundred and eighty-five miles and one continent later, we walked together, followed only by our two trusting dogs, eastward across the Mall - past the Lincoln Memorial, aside the reflecting pool, by the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial and through the parched grass toward the Capitol building. Jonna carried a document with her that I had forged the last time the earth was in this position in its orbit, and as we had circled the sun that document had accumulated the signatures of thousands upon thousands of our fellow travelers. We climbed the steps of the Capitol. No one was there to receive our document; we did not expect otherwise. That will be for a future time.

But there were tears in our eyes, as there were that first day a year ago. Back then, the tears were spurred by the daunting thought of what lay ahead of us; now they came as we looked back over what lay behind us. We had done it.

There were no television cameras there to record the moment, no reporters to ask inane questions about how we felt or about my shoes. Just flocks of tourists on a beautiful late Saturday morning, completely unaware of what we had just accomplished.

What had we just accomplished? After all, the media has pretty much decided to ignore us. I readily admit that we tried to get their attention, but we learned that the old adage "you gotta have a gimmick" is no longer exactly accurate - the adage has now become "you gotta be a gimmick". A man walking across the country in an effort to lose weight is ludicrous; a man walking across the country to revive a republic is not. As a result, we did not get a moment on the national stage; relatively few people ever discovered that we existed.

But we never pinned our hope to notoriety; we never made the attraction of a spotlight either our purpose or our goal. Our goal was to walk to Washington, D.C. I have. Our goal was to presnt our petition to any legislators we can reach. We shall. We have done that. But we have done more.

I read back through the emails we've received over the past year and I find over and over and over again what we have accomplished - and my heart is full to overflowing. We have been a kindred spirit to those who felt completely alone. We have empowered those who felt powerless. We have motivated those who had given up. We have inspired those who had lost all hope. We have even at times brought a bit of laughter to people who have found very little to laugh about lately. And we have made countless new friends and reached out to touch countless of our neighbors. Jonna and I sat at one point today on a park bench along the Mall and talked about the could-have-beens. Had we not had the audacity to continue to believe that we can make a difference we would have spent that past year back in San Diego working the year away, perhaps going away for a weekend once in a while, and continually frustrated by what is happening to our nation. Had we not had the brazen nerve to sell pretty much everything we owned and launch ourselves across the country in a 24 year old camper and a couple of pairs of sneakers, we may have met a few new people, may have participated in a few protests, but would have grown angrier and angrier over the continuing abuses foisted upon our nation by those who have completely abandoned America's grand vision. It was not at all difficult to realize that we made the right decision. Even if no one else has been inspired - we have. We now know that not just a few, but by far most of our fellow citizens remember America - and want her back. We know that our vision is not the uncommon one, but is the one that the great majority of our neighbors share. We know that the power to change the world is still there, resting very, very close beneath the surface...and inexorably transforming from resting to restive. We know that a change is coming - and it is coming soon.

As we began to climb the steps of the Capitol I asked Jonna how she felt. "Incomplete," she replied. I understood her. Not disappointed. Not frustrated. Not exhausted. But incomplete. There is more for us to do, and we are glad of that. My walk will be our calling card. It provides us, at the least, with a foundation of legitimacy - while some may attempt to argue with our reasoning or our insight, no one can question the sincerity of our actions. And if I can walk three thousand miles to arrive alone save my soulmate and my dogs, no one will be able to dismiss our further efforts by pretending that all we're after is publicity. Whatever path lies ahead of us will become clearer over the next month, and wherever it leads, my walk across the nation will have been the prelude to what follows.

Three thousand one hundred and eighty-five miles. A helluva prelude, don't you think?

Friday, August 17, 2007: The last full day of the walk turned out to be one of the longest as well. Jay dropped us off at the Hart office building at 9:30 - way early, but we wanted the time to mentally prepare ourselves for our meeting with Senator Durbin's aide, Chris. We had made the decision (jonna's idea) that in our meetings with people in D.C. I would be in suit and tie and Jonna would be dressed likewise. While there may have been a certain "flavor" afforded by dressing the same way I have for the walk, we wanted nothing to stand in the way of being taken seriosuly.

We cased the joint for a while, Jonna had her requisite coffee in the cafeteria, and at the appropriate time we went up to Senator Durbin's office. To quickly summarize, our meeting went exceedingly well. Chris was familiar with who we were, and although our meeting only lasted fifteen minutes we were able to share much in conversation. Chris offered us some tips, some names, and himself as a reference when we make further contacts. More on all of that later. Jonna and I left feeling very good about our first contact.

We stopped by the offices of Senators Feinstein and Boxer, our California people, before we left to request appointments, and I think we made some headway there. Our work done at the Hart building, we began walking to Jay's office. I needed to buy a pair of dress shoes for the occasion, and in about a dozen blocks they managed to do what three thousand miles of walking hadn't - they rubbed both of my heels raw. We met up with Jay and he took us back to the house where we decompressed for a bit. Jonna and I wrapped and taped my heels and ankles and we were off to resume the walk.

Traffic was a nightmare, and we needed to drive the route before walking it so Jonna would know where she could pull off to wait for me at each leg. On top of the traffic, there was construction going on along route 7, so it was after five o'clock before I even began walking. After the first leg, Marie, and Gary and his family met us in Falls Church. They've both been trying for the past couple of days and both managed to track us down during our first rest stop at the CVS pharmacy in Falls Church. We all got to know each other, then Marie, who is going on vacation tomorrow, had to leave, while Gary and his son, David, joined me on the walk.

It was a treacherous stretch with plenty of traffic and way less than plenty of shoulder. Gary and David walked with me right up to the western edge of Arlington cemetery. Jonna and I had driven ahead to see what the best route would be around Arlington cemetery, but it was extremely confusing. We then got what I think was a very good idea. We ended the walk today at the western edge of the cemetery and will begin it tomorrow - for the finish of my walk - at the eastern edge as planned. Then, some time in the near future while we're here in D.C. I want to plan a silent memorial walk through Arlington cemetery itself, from west to east. I'll do this as a remembrance for those of our military killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and it will be the final link to complete my unbroken walk from San Diego to Washington, D.C. I think it will be appropriate.

So tomorrow morning, as planned, we'll be leaving from the east end of Arlington cemetery at 10 a.m. Also, for the very first time in my walk, Jonna and the guys will be walking with me for this leg. I'm looking forward to it.

We have received several donations over the past few days and are extremely grateful that folks are still hanging in there with us. Now that I have a real high speed interent connection again I'll be sending out my personal thanks as soon as I get a chance and also answering other emails that have had to wait during this last, very hectic week or so. Please stay tuned. We got some very good ideas today of things we can do - and in which you can join us - that may truly have a powerful impact. I will be sharing specifics on these ideas within the next day or two. But right now it is very late and tomorrow, while not a long walk, will probably be a very emotionally draining day for us, so I really do need to get some rest.

Thursday, August 16, 2007: Late morning thunderstorms had us worried whether we'd be able to do anything at all today, but they passed through, and while we got a later start than usual I also walked longer than usual, so we made it to just inside the beltway - at the junction of I 497 and route 7. The last couple of miles I even had sidewalk - what a wonderful invention! A news crew from D.C.'s Fox station (channel 5) joined us about midway through the walk and spent a considerable amount of time with us. Their report will be on this evening and we're now at our son's house in Alexandria, so we'll be able to watch it. I sort of wore myself out today, trying to make as much mileage as I could so tomorrow's walk wouldn't be excessive, and this evening we came up with a plan for tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007:  We got an earlier than usual start out of Hillsboro and began slogging out the miles down very busy - and sometimes very narrow-shouldered - route 9 and 7 this morning. I've been disappointed that for the past couple of weeks I've been having more trouble than I've had at any time since the very beginning of my walk. The only reason I can think for it at this point is that my two pair of shoes, which have served me so well over three thousand miles now, are finally breaking down on me. They still don't look too bad, but I'm guessing that structurally they've probably had it. I'll get a couple more days out of them, though.

We stopped for a late lunch in Leeburg today where Scott - a friend of John's back in San Diego - caught up with us. We shared some good conversation and he took some video for John and I made out a postcard for him as well. Before parting, Scott gave us a nice donation, which was greatly appreciated. And spoeaking of donations...

Things have dried up drastically out there. Obviously, we're going to make it to D.C. now, but there is much to do after that. We'll be working the city, trying to meet with as many legislators as we can. Our first potential meeting, with a staffer from Senator Durbin's office, is now in the puzzlement stage - I called the number and asked for the person I was told to ask for, but was treated as though I was calling from Mars. I left the person a voice mail, but that's as far as I got. The upshot is that we still desperately need your help trying to line up meetings with our legislators. And yes, we're still greatly in need of donations. We will make it to D.C. just in time - that is to say flat broke. But we'll still need to sustain ourselves, and when we move our effort onward, if what we're planning right now can come to pass, it will mean getting Jonna and the guys back to Hannibal with Nessie as I continue walking and speaking. That will take resources we do not presently have. So please don't forget about us, and I promise that I'll continue to keep the Journal going and let everyone know what is going on and what progress we're able to make.

Tonight we're tucked away beside my cousin Aaron's house near the Dulles airport. He and his wife Ava treated us to a great Italian dinner and we're both thoroughly exhausted, but they even have a real bed for us to sleep in tonight. I made enough miles today that I've only got about 30 left to cover over the next two days. If the weather holds and despite the sore feet, I may try to knock off about two thirds of that tomorrow so that I only have about ten to cover on the last day. Enough for tonight - time to get some rest.

P.S. Just a quick comment on today's news. I see that our administration has now categorized Iran's military as a terrorist organization. Pretty neat little gimmick, isn't it? First, declare war against an abstract. Then, whenever you want to set your sights on a new target, just classify it as part of that abstract and - Bingo! - brand new war without all the fuss and bother of having to justify it anew. How cynical are we going to allow these people to get?

Tuesday, August 14, 2007: Route 9 is a very heavily traveled road, but most of this section at least has a decent shoulder so walking wasn't too bad. I've been having an unusual amount of difficulty with my feet for the past few days - almost like they know we're near the end and want to surrender just a bit too early. However, with the schedule I've set and the distance I was able to make today, I can be easy on the for nthe next few days and still make it to our destination by Friday.

At the end of our next to last leg this afternoon Jonna pulled Nessie up at a corner in Hillsboro, Virginia. As she waited for me there, some people pulled in and began setting up a produce stand. She got into a conversation with Bob, a member of the group which turns out to be a communal group here in Hillsboro, and wound up with an invitation to stay the evening which, of course, we accepted. These folks, like the Spring Valley community we stayed with in Pennsylvania, are dedicated to living together after the example of the first century Christian church. After I finished my last leg for the day we returned and they provided dinner for us and and are hosting us in a cozy little guest cottage they reserve specifically for visitors, so we'll have a real bed to sleep on tonight. Very nice.

Monday, August 13, 2007: We had warm temperatures today but the humidity was lower than it has been, so it wasn't too bad of a walking day. I made just under eighteen miles and probably won't do any more than that on any of the remaining days of the walk. Bill and his friend Larry from Martinsburg caught up to us during a break at about the halfway mark today and we had a good talk. Bill had offered us a driveway for the evening and we gratefully accepted.

I've been walking route 9 out of Martinsburg to Charles Town which is a very busy road, so it wasn't a particularly enjoyable walking day. On top of that, I'm worried tonight that I may have bruised my left heel somehow today and am hoping it will feel better by morning. After making it to the intersection of routes 9 and 51 in Charles Town we backtracked to Bill's place south of Martinsburg, where we encountered not only Bill, but a group of very friendly neighbors as well. Bill and Anita fixed up a dinner plate for us, Ed plugged us in out on the driveway, and we went across the street to Jack and Marge's and enjoyed their company and a bowl of ice cream - then back to Nessie to settle in for the evening.

As close as we're getting now, it's time for me to try to be as specific as I can about my remainign route and my expectations for the next few days in case anyone wants to come out and join us as we make these last few miles into D.C. Trouble is, I don't have a very good map and can only guess at distances. That said, I think we'll probably be just a little short of Leesburg by the end of the day tomorrow, staying on route 9. Wednesday should see us through Leesburg and out the other end, moving onto route 7. After that, it looks like we'll be following route 7 right into the D.C. area and it will probably take two more days, which means our expected arrival date would be August 17th. That is incredibly coincidental, since the idea to do this came to me on August 18th of last year, which means from idea to completion will wind up being exactly one year. Amazing. Of course, if it rains any day between now and then we'll have to add a day, but that's still really amazing.

What's next? We really don't know, because a lot will depend on how things unfold over the next month. But I can tell you that among other things we're discussing, right now the top of the list is that I may well continue walking. We're still in the early thinking stages on this, but here's an idea of what we have in mind:

The bipedal members of the clan all had a good time as well, catching up on events and just plain passing the day together. I had printed out some eight by tens of the pictures I took of the Camp the previous evening and they became the source of many fond reminscences of good times past. Everyone ate way too much and laughed a good deal and Jonna discovered that her spouse's - um - slightly skewed perception of reality in general and occasionally caustic wit are not acquired traits but rather deeply entrenched in the genetic material which he shares magnanimously with pretty much everyone else in attendance at the conclave.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous - the kind of day that would have been great for a walk...but while the walk is the thing, it is not everything, so it was nice to share the beautiful day with the rest of my tightly twisted but rather loosely wrapped family tree.

When the rest of the clan made their individual ways home as the evening rolled on, we wound up with Barb and her daughter Cheri as night-time found us sitting in the living room, still swapping tales. Before we finally retired to Nessie, Jonna and I discovered the sad truth of something we have been suspecting for some time now - late night pizza is no longer our friend. It may look innocent enough sitting there clad it its crisp pepperoni, but it took both of us more than one dose of antacid to counteract its nefarious after-effects.

Barb treated us all t breakfast in the morning then, after a quick trip to the supermarket so Jonna could stock up on mint gingerale, which I believe is a local phenomenon, we were back on the road to resume the walk. With the resultant late start I only made only a bit under twelve miles today, but that brought me to the west end of Martinsburg, which is where we figured to be by the end of the day. We're now less than a hundred miles from D.C. We found a reasonable RV park to plug in and decompress from a very busy but very welcome weekend and are tucked in for the evening.

I'd like to ask everyone's assistance once again. Please call or email whatever senators and representatives you can contact and request on our behalf that they meet with us once we arrive. Even allowing for inclement weather we should be there no later than the 20th and we want to try to see as many of our elected officials as we can during the month we'll be spending in the Capitol. Your call or your email could make the difference for us. It is only with your help that Jonna and I have been able to remain together for the last several months, and we are truly grateful for all you've done. We hope you will continue to be our advocates as we now move from the journey to the effort to present our case.

Friday, August 10, 2007: It's been a busy day today and delightful in so many ways...where do I begin? Well, the single un-delightful part was that the humidity was still right off the scale and I spent most of the day soaked. Matter of fact, I had an interview mid-day with a reporter out of Hagerstown and I had to change into a different shirt before she arrived because I was literally dripping. Erin, the reporter from the NBC station in Hagerstown, caught up with me right at the edge of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, then preceded me into town to catch up with Jonna. She was very nice and I think it went quite well. Shortly after she finished, we got a call from Senator Dick Durbin's office. The man who called (didn't catch his name) said that Senator Durbin would not be able to meet with me personally, but gave me the name and number for one of his staff members who would meet with me when I arrive in Washington. This is our very first official Washington contact, so Jonna and I were both delighted.

At Berkeley Springs I turned southeast on route 9 toward Martinsburg. Still tremendously humid, but the walk was wonderful - it is so much like the area where I grew up around Johnstown, and the sights and smells and feel of the place took me right back to some cherished times gallavanting around the woods and hills of Pennsylvania. At the end of my next-to-last walking leg they were considerate enough to construct a beautiful roadside rest area for Jonna to pull into. Apparently it is the site of an old sawmill that provided wood for some of George Washington's houses. When I caught up, Jonna led me back a short path through the woods to an idyllic little creek where she soaked her feet for a while and I went off taking pictures of butterflies. There were tons of them flitting around some tall hyacinth-like pale lilac flowers. As I was taking pictures I nearly stepped on a painted turtle lazing on the rocks beside the stream, so I got a couple of him as well, tucked away in his shell and patiently waiting for me to clear out. I doubt that I'll have enough of a connection to get pictures to Duncan tonight, but will try soon - some of the butterfly pictures came out beautifully.

We began fairly early and I put in only an average day because we wanted to head up to Johnstown this evening for the reunion tomorrow. When I planned the route I didn't realize it would take me right through Pleasantville. I have some 'splainin' to do here. I think the hands-down highlight of my youth was The Camp. The Camp was our family's name for a 209 acre tract of virgin Allegheny forest owned by my grandfather. It was basically a long valley and the hillsides that surrounded it. In the center of the valley, a couple of miles up a red dirt road from the nearest other living soul, sat a fairly small two story house - The Camp. It had electricity, but no indoor plumbing or running water until I was around ten or so, when they were added. Heat was from an oil burner in the living room and a big old wood stove in the kitchen. There was a spring house a few steps outside the side door, and the small tillable acreage in the valley was usually planted in corn every year. Across the narrow valley, on the other side of the cornfield and hugging the side of the rising mountain ran a small creek. Much of each of my summers was spent at the Camp - along with my siblings, all our cousins and uncles and aunts. It was the source of the fondest memories for every one of us. I was broken hearted when, while I was serving in the Air Force in the late sixties and early seventies, I learned that my grandfather had sold the Camp.

The Camp was located just a few miles northwest of Pleasantville, outside of a little town called Lovely (no, I'm not kidding). The last time I came back to Johnstown a few years ago I went out to take a look at the Camp to see how it was faring. I was greatly distressed when I couldn't find it. So, since Jonna has heard many stories of the Camp and I wanted to try to find it again, we took a little detour at Pleasantville.

It wasn't long before I discovered the mistake I made last time I tried to find it. I knew it was not too far past Lovely, and you had to pass by a little frame church on one side of the road and the cemetery of that church on the other - then the turn up the red dirt road would be off your right. But last time I was out, I drove by the Church at Lovely (that's its name) - and there was no cemetery opposite it. Naturally, I was unable to find the turn. This time, I saw the Church at Lovely again, but decided to continue up the road. Sure enough, not more than a mile later, there was a turn to the left and there sat the Mount Union United Methodist Church - a small, white frame church - and a cemetery across the road from it. I had turned at the wrong church before.

Past the cemetery was the road to the right. I wasn't too sure it was wide enough for Nessie, but it proved to be no problem. There were a few more dwellings at the junction than there were nearly fifty years ago, but the Camp sits back another couple of miles - still all by itself. I was more than pleased to discover that whoever owns it now has taken very good care of it. In fact, they've dug a nice pond across the road where the cornfield used to be and farther down the road have built some play equipment and a picnic area up on the side of the hill across the creek. Other than that - and the fact that the little pine tree that sat in the front yard is now sixty feet high - very little has changed. The Camp has been sided, the front steps are gone and a railing has been built around the porch, bt it's still very much the Camp of my memories - and sometimes my dreams.

No one was about, so the guys chased each other merrily for a while in the field across the road and Jonna and I had the opportunity for a leisurely inspection. The old spring house is still there, and I'm sure the spring still flows. We could peek into the kitchen, and I wasn't surprised to see that the old wood burning stove has given way to modernization, but the low stone wall by the road, where we lit our black snakes and cherry bombs around the fourth of July every year, still stands humbly defining the front of the lawn. Although it's a part of me that I'll only ever be able to reclaim in warm memories, it is good to see that it is still standing and still cared for. And I can only hope that new generations of children are still forming their own cherished memories there. I believe they are.

We said goodbye to the Camp, Nessie chugged up Pleasantville Mountain and we made it to Barb's by late evening. We sat on the front porch and chewed a bit more fat until too late, then retired to Nessie, where Jonna is alternating between sleeping and reading and I'm trying to catch up on things. The humid day turned into a beautiful and cool evening and we're both looking forward to tomorrow.

Thursday, August 9, 2007: The past couple of days have been a pastiche of byways interrupted by the occasional brief but hearty thunderstorm, but through it all I've managed to make respectable if not impressive mileage, and we now find ourselves in Hancock, ready to turn south into West Virginia. It hasn't been without confusion and occasional setback - the route here sort of morphs from alternate 40 to route 144 to scenic 40...and back again. Midway through today, we encountered one of those you-can't-get-there-from-here moments: we were following what we thought was route 144 (I still don't know whether it was). While the road was narrow and almost devoid of shoulder, there wasn't much traffic at all - and it was a beautiful walk. Jonna had gone on ahead, until she came to a confusing crossroads where she waited for me to catch up. When I arrived, I couldn't make out the route any better than she, as the map didn't even indicate there was supposed to be any crossroads there. When we stopped to ask how to continue toward Hancock without getting on the freeway, the man we asked said we couldn't - there was a tunnel just ahead of us (Bill's Tunnel it's called - I kid you not) that was definitely too low for Nessie to navigate. So out to the freeway we went. We found route 144/scenic 40 farther down and backtracked approximately the appropriate distance to resume walking, but we never did quite figure out how all these roads mesh together along route 68 - if they do. At least the confusing section is at an end and we should have no trouble with the route the rest of the way.

We find ourselves back at the same RV park tonight we were at last night - and we have zero cell phone reception and thus no internet connections again tonight. While we were on the road today I did plug the computer in using a little power inverter and Nessie's cigarette lighter, and was able to check emails and such briefly, but I hadn't prepared a journal entry and this one is going to have to wait until I can do the same tomorrow.

My walk today was split down the middle by one of the short but violent thunderstorms I mentioned. Fortunately, it came when I was with Jonna between walking legs and doing the online stuff, which I have to do in the passenger seat with the computer in my lap because I'm plugged into the cigarette lighter. When the thunder started booming, Finn did his best to crawl into my lap along with the computer, but had to settle for the space beside me on the floor as I reassured him and scritched his ears with one hand while navigating the internet with the other. The storm freshened the air nicely for a while and, although we're well north of the Smokey Mountains, left a wonderful demonstration in its wake of how those mountains got their name. Wisps of clouds wafted vertically out of the valleys to join the passing layer above creating a beautiful panorama.

The stretch of 144 and Willow Road back to the RV park is most curious - and quite disturbing. Along this lush section nearly every telephone pole was emblazoned with a "Posted - No Trespassing" poster - and at least ninety-five percent of the homes along this stretch are abandoned. Most of them, of course, were in a terrible state, but there were several that looked like they could be readily habitable. Jonna and I conjectured on the nature of this strange phenomenon, but the best we could do was to surmise that either a corporation or the government had purchased all of this land and forced the residents out. When I asked the lady at the RV park, though, she seemed certain that all the property was owned by one private party and they just decided to empty it. Whatever the explanation, it is certainly a strange sight, and the Posted notices on every telephone pole certainly make one feel far less than welcome.

We continue to try to plan life after D.C. and I think we're coming up with some very good ideas - if we will be able to carry them out. So much is still up in the air at this point that I really can't say anything definite, but we don't plan to vanish into the woodwork once my walk is complete. There is still lots of work to do.

One last note that I want to add to the Contact page - if you're trying to get in touch with us, please, please, PLEASE DO NOT leave us a voice mail! For some reason, our phones do not always tell us we have voice mails, and the other day, when we finally got a message saying we had 9 voice mails, some of them were as much as two weeks old! I always have my phone with me, so if you don't get me it's because I'm in a bad coverage area at that moment. Try again in a while or send us an email, but don't leave a voice mail. In the last batch, there was a woman from College Park who called - her message was scrambled so I couldn't get either number or name, but if she's still following our progress, please try me again. There was also a man who told us about a canal system from Hancock on south - same case - couldn't catch number or name, but thanks for the info.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007:   I slogged out another decent mileage day in ultra humidity today, and made it to about 6 miles east of Cumberland. It was certainly not an enjoyable day - I was soaked all day long, Jonna and I got separated for a while, and last night was pretty miserable as well. We had spent the night in a WalMart parking lot which means no electricty and thus no air conditioner, and the hoped for cooling off after sundown never happened. Instead, it just got more humid and foggier. Jonna in particular was thoroughly spooked by the fog. Not able to get to sleep, we watched as it rolled through the parking lot, successively consuming the shopping cart corrals as it boxed us in. It was so thick that it began forming fat droplets on Nessie's window screens, which slowly grew and merged, finally rolling down over the mesh. Then, when visibility plunged to near zero, someone started up some sort of parking lot maintenance vehicle, which wailed an eerie whine as it circled invisibly around us. I think she was ready to pull out the wolfbane. The fog was so oppressive that I do believe if I had gone outside and spit, it would have tipped the humidity over a hundred percent and I would have started a rainstorm. Maybe I should have tried it.

At the end of the walk today we discovered an RV park just up the road from the state park we stayed at the other night - and it's cheaper. So that's where we are this evening - with electricity to cool us down.

I have to confess that, with website traffic down to less than half what it was due to our disappearance from Michael Moore's site, and donations also down to nearly nothing, and no contacts lined up as yet for D.C . and precious little to indicate that more than a handful of people even know we're alive it's gets pretty daunting at times. We begin to wonder whether what we're doing will even make a tiny dent, whether any of it has been worth it. And then we get a letter like this:

Now we know we've done something worthwhile. Maybe we can't inspire much here at home, but we've lit a fire halfway around the world, and it feels good.

And speaking of lighting a fire...over the past many months I've heard a number of people liken Mr. Bush to Nero - fiddling while Rome burns. I've recently had to rethink that analogy. I just read that our Democratic-majority Congress - remember, the Congress that was supposed to get us out of Iraq and end this nonsense? - has now passed legislation not only continuing the administration's ability to spy on our own citizens, but actually vastly expanding the capability to do so. The sound you just heard was that of our jaws dropping. There have been any number of times over the course of the past nine months when I've had to do a reality check: are things really not as bad as I perceive them to be? Are we not in as much danger of losing our entire form of government as I fear? Are we just a couple of delusional alarmists? After careful consideration each time, the answer still comes back - no, we're not alarmists. Our nation really is in peril...and not from terrorists. Some time in the past couple of weeks we had a chance to watch some of the beltway pundits holding forth on the war, and one of them said, "Well, the nation isn't in the same place it was during the 70s" - meaning to imply that things aren't as bad as they were then. Jonna and I both started at the cavalier comment, because we realize that indeed, things aren't as bad as they were in the 70s - they're much, much worse. Had the rest of our elected leadership rolled over and played dead in the 70s and allowed Nixon to continue his egregious behavior and construct an intricate system of legislation and executive privilege that served to place him above the law, we might have been in as bad a situation as we are today. But the rest of our elected leaders understood the dangers to our entire system of government posed by an out-of-control executive and quickly and wisely pulled the plug.

We seem to have no such desire to preserve the republic on the part of our legislators today. Preserving their own party - or worse, their own individual career - seems to be about as far as they can see. They're busy nattering on at their own little picnic, fussing about the ants...while the elephants are stomping them into the ground (and I don't mean that as a partisan slam). The machinery that is inexorably dissolving our very foundation is resolutely rolling along while not a single one of them seems to have the courage to throw the wrench that will bring it to a halt. There are countless times through history where this has happened - where nobody wanted to be labeled an "alarmist" or "unpatriotic" - and thus nobody brought the wretched mess to a halt - I'll let you look them up yourselves and see what happens when this sort of situation presents itself.

But having said that, it is not even our legislators that shock me most. No, not even the media. It is us. We are sitting back and expecting that this will all work itself out. We are entrenched in our own little lives, working like hell to make the mortgage payments and get our kids through school. Unwinding each evening in front of American Idol or the Simpsons. Convinced now that there's nothing we can do about it anyway. No, it is not Mr. Bush who is Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. It is us. Mr. Bush is the arsonist.

Finally tonight, I wanted to share a story I neglected to relate from our trip to Williamsburg. I mentioned that Jonna had been reading the American Girl books to Katelyn as we traveled and they had just finished the Felicity series, which was set in Williamsburg just prior to the Revolutionary War. I also mentioned how Katelyn gets thoroughly "into" stories. One of the conflict elements presented in the Felicity stories is the matter of the tax on tea and how that wound up being central to the political situation of the time: Felicity's father refused to sell tea in his shop and was thus labeled a patriot, whereas his good loyalist neighbors continued to sell tea. Being a patriot was not yet considered either a fashionable or practical thing, and his refusal to sell tea cost Felicity's father a considerable amount of business.

By the time we arrived in Williamsburg, Jonna had found a long dress for Katelyn in a thrift shop as well as some plain shoes and a bonnet so, while you can rent period outfits for both children and adults in Williamsburg, Katelyn was already dressed for the part and actually looked more authentic than the rent-a-costume folks. The shopkeepers and other people working at Williamsburg maintain the character of both place and period - speaking to you as though both they and you are in 18th century America, and Katelyn received many compliments on her attire. We hadn't been there long when we decided to visit one of the shops lining the lawn in front of the Governor's palace. As we casually examined the shop's wares, I nudged Katelyn and whispered, "Look over there." I motioned toward a counter beside her that was lined with chocolates, candies, coffee...and tea. She glanced over the wares until she came to the tea. Suddenly, in a loud and quite offended exclamation, she announced, "They're selling tea!" She then tilted her nose skyward, thrust out her chin, and declared, "Well, I will NOT buy anything from a shop that is selling tea!" - and resolutely stomped out the front door. The shopkeeper went wide-eyed at her sudden outburst - then broke into hearty laughter. Katelyn had just one-upped the whole period-immersion ambience.

Perhaps it is time for us to immerse ourselves as fully in our contemporary story as Katelyn did in Felicity's. Perhaps, with resolve and clarity, it is time for us to announce that we're not buying it anymore, either.

Monday, August 6, 2007:  This won't be a long entry again tonight - we're in a WalMart parking lot again for the evening to conserve funds, which means we're running on battery power, and battery power has been pretty weak with the coach battery not holding out for more than about 24 hours between plug-ins. I was more than happy today that I managed just a wee bit over 16 miles, and that while I was being very careful about my left ankle. I made it from the west side of Grantsville to the easy side of Frostburg and should be walking through Cumberland tomorrow if the weather holds. Thank heavens it wasn't too hot today, because it was ridiculously humid and I wouldn't have been able to do anywhere near as well as I did if I had heat to contend with as well. As it was, I was thoroughly soaked every time I caught up to Nessie.

The Casselman River bridge, built in 1813.  The largest single-span stone bridge in the country at the time it was built.  It carried traffic along the National Pike for 140 years.

Jonna and I are still trying to decide what will happen after I reach D.C. - or I should say after the middle of September, since we plan to stay there knosking on doors until then. It's hard to make plans when absolutely nothing is certain yet, but no matter what happens over the next month we have some ideas that I think are worth pursuing. Stay tuned.

Saturday, August 4, 2007: Since we knew it wasn't going to be a walking day we got a chance to sleep in late - and we took advantage of it. We didn't get out of Accident until a little after noon and chugged on ahead to Cumberland where we figured there was a WalMart. There was, and we settled ourselves into the parking lot for the day.

Jonna remains hesitant to use the generator, since that's what we were doing every time in the past when our power converter bit the dust, which means we're running off battery power tonight and conserving that, as our coach battery doesn't seem to be holding a charge very well. Tomorrow we'll have to find a place to plug in again to recharge batteries, but there's supposed to be a state park just east of Cumberland with electrical service, so we'll check that out.

It's pretty obvious I won't be able to resume walking yet tomorrow. The swelling's mostly gone in my ankle, but there's still a decent amount of pain and I don't want to push it. I'm hoping that with another full day's rest it will be in shape to resume walking.

Nothing much else to report today - the website traffic is still way down. I have a couple of potential contacts on the road ahead, but can't do much with them until I get back on the move. My internet connectivity seems to be continually deteriorating. Even when I'm in a good signal strength area, like tonight, it's all I can do to get online and get the journal out. So if you haven't heard from me it isn't because I'm ignoring you - it's just that I can't get the signal to hold long enough to get emails out. Sorry.

Another irony - I checked my total miles last night and discovered that I messed up my ankle exactly 1.8 miles after passing the 3,000 mile mark. Three thousand miles. Incredible. Not many to go.

Friday, August 3, 2007:  The old adage says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Today I discovered that this adage has a corollary: a journey of three thousand miles gets sidetracked by a single step. I guess I really can't complain. I did some rough figuring tonight and it seems that I've taken roughly five million-plus steps so far along this journey - hard to imagine, isn't it? It seems only reasonable that sooner or later one of them would have to be a bad one. Today, somewhere just short of three thousand miles, I took that step. It wasn't anything spectacular - I just stepped wrong or my weight came down wrong or who knows, but I twisted my ankle. I was nearly done for the day - right in front of an old two story log cabin that was probably a tavern along the national pike, sitting on property once owned by Thomas Jefferson (I wonder if I can sue Tom? Nah.) and just west of Grantsville when it happened. Hurt like the dickens. Still does. Fortunately, I was just coming off the shoulder to where Jonna had parked to wait for me at the end of a walking leg. I didn't fall, but I sat down rather quickly. Jonna saw it happen and rushed over right away. She got me back to Nessie and we carefully took a look at it. My left ankle was already about half again the size it should be, but we don't think anything's broken...just messed up. Naturally, that was the end of the walk for today - and probably for the next couple of days. We're applying ice and care and the swelling is beginning to go down, but I'm certain it's going to be at least another day before I can get back on it again.

It set me to contemplating the question: if something like this is going to happen, when would be the best time for it to happen? I guess there isn't much of a better time than this, although being so close to our goal and having yet another delay is frustrating. If it had happened early on I'd have been worried about it and fussing with it for months. I only have a couple of hundred miles to go at the most, so even if I have to hobble a bit for a while I can still do that. Oh well.

So we began lookng for an RV park with electrical hookups. As I've mentioned, they seem to be few and far between around here, but we finally found one. Now you're really not going to believe this part because it is entirely too precious, but we finally located an RV park in - are you ready for this? - Accident, Maryland. That's right, there's a town called Accident, and that's where we're staying tonight, right after I had my...oh, never mind. But I can assure you that we won't be staying here a second night. It's a plain old vanilla RV park - nothing special about it at all, but it has set a record for the most expensive single night stay at a park for the entire trip - more than many motels we've stayed at. We didn't have any choice tonight, because I had to get off the road and tend to a battered appendage, but we'll do a parking lot tomorrow if we have to rather than pay what they're asking for this place.

Prior to the unfortunate incident I had the opportunity to introduce Jonna to one of my favorite childhood wonders. Several of the hills I've been climbing up and down lately have been lined along the shoulder with a particular very pretty wildflower. They grow about a foot and a half to two feet tall and are very dainty, thin-stemmed things. The flowers are small, sort of trumpet shaped things blending from dark orange on the outside of the petals to light yellow at the pointed end - but none of that is the wondrous part. They produce little seed pods, usually not more than a third of an inch long. The pods look sort of like a straight green bean, cylindrical and pointed at both ends. They hang from the plant on a slender, pale green stem and are a translucent, yellowish-green. When the pods get ripe they fatten up and become almost transparent - you can see the little seeds inside. And here's the wondrous part - if you come across a pod at the appropriate age of ripeness and you reach out and touch it, the pod will suddenly burst apart and throw its seeds out. I don't know what the proper name for this wildflower is, but as a kid growing up in Pennsylvania we called them Touch-me-nots. They tend to grow along the edges of roadways and the areas where meadows meet forest, and my cousins and I spent many hours as young boys wandering along the dirt road that led to my grandfather's "camp" looking for ripe Touch-me-not pods. If we found particularly promising specimens we'd carefully try to pluck the stems to carry them back to the camp with us. Some of them were so ripe that just the vibration of trying to pluck them would cause them to pop, but we always looked for ones that we could take back and, with just the slightest touch of a finger to the side of the plump pod, caused the silent little explosion that instantly caused the pod to transform into curleycued shards while sending its seed cargo flying.

It must be early in the Touch-me-not season because, while the roadside was speckled with countless bright little blossoms there were very few seed pods to be found. I finally found a promising looking one, carefully plucked the stem and carried it the rest of the way to Nessie making sure not to touch the pod, wondering if it was ripe enough to do its little magic trick for Jonna. When I caught up to Nessie, I opened the door and told Jonna, "I have something quite wonderful to show you," as I held up the tiny pod by its slender stem.

"What is it?" she asked as she held out her hand and I gently laid the pod in her palm. It didn't burst. "You'll see," I promised. She took a finger and gently touched the pod resting in the palm of her hand - and it did its magic. The little pod burst from the slight pressure of her finger, sending the seeds flying and leaving a few curls of the spent pod lying in her palm. She started at the surprise, then smiled and said, "What in the world?..." as she examined the remains of the spent little seed pod. So I told her all about Touch-me-nots. I hope I find more.

Thursday, August 2, 2007:  I could spend many hours writing about the truly wonderful people of the Spring Valley community in Farmington - and perhaps I will at some time. Unlike the stereotypical community of this sort, they do not in any way shun the outside world, but rather are deeply and sincerely concerned about the world. They do not shun either society or technology - but be prepared to give up your television. They will bring a TV in if there is a specific national or international circumstance where it can serve their need for information, but they do not normally have TV. They do have and use internet capabilities. They actively seek and welcome new members to the community but I do not believe they proselytize. Members of the community circulate internationally to other communities - teenagers in particular often go to other communities in the United States or England or Australia. One of the reasons for this is to ensure that they do not become insulated or isolated. Suffice it to say that if any of you are wondering about or looking for the experience of a genuine communal pacifist group that is open and welcoming and has both head and heart in the right place, I know of no better place or wiser structure than this. Take route 40 to Farmington. Turn north on route 381 and within a couple of blocks you will see the Spring Valley sign off your right. Pay them a visit. You will be welcome.

We were treated to breakfast by another family of Spring Valley and, laden with a box of fresh produce and a donation to our walk, we said our goodbyes and motored up to Johnstown. Our first stop was to visit my mother. She had undergone some critical surgery a few months ago, but looked remarkably well. I'm not completely sure she knew who we were, as our conversation wandered randomly through the past five or six decades. One moment she was talking about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, where her sister Ruth lives; the next she was talking about my brother Tracy being in Ohio and on his way to Kentucky. Tracy was killed in a car accident four years ago. We were gratified to see that she is being very well cared for and - quite possibly as a result of her deteriorating state of awareness - happier, I think, than she has been in a long, long time.

One of the women of the Spring Valley community shows Jonna her pet quail.

After leaving mother, we drove to my uncle William and aunt Waive's place. They were both surprised and delighted to see us and we spent several hours just catching up. Lots of wonderful memories shared. Uncle William and aunt Waive are delightful people and have not lost one bit of their sense of humor or quick wit. While we were there we had a good old-fashioned Pennsylvania type thunderstorm visit us - lots of dramatic booming and crashing, a bit of intense rain, then it all blows over and the air is fresh and clean in its wake. When we moved out of Pennsylvania onto the plains of Ohio and later Illinois, this is one of the things I dearly missed. In Johnstown you can sit on your front porch and watch a regular frog-drowner of a thunderstorm in all its glory, because the surrounding mountains dictate that the rain falls striaght down. In buckets, maybe, but straight down. On the plains the thunderstorms come in sideways as the violent winds invariably accompany them - and you'd need a lightning rod and scuba gear if you were foolish enough to try to sit out on your porch while one was going on.

The picture of the Spring Valley community garden I took before we met the people there.

We went from Uncle William and aunt Waive's to drop in on Barb, Tracy's wife. Barb's mother came across the street to join us and we sat on the porch and once again caught up on a few years. I discovered that there is a family reunion - our third - planned for August 11th, and Barb ordered us in no uncertain terms to be there, promising to come down and scrape me off the road if necessary to haul me back in front of the kinfolk. So we will have one more day off the walk right near the end as we turn Nessie back to Johnstown for our family reunion. Not that Barb had to threaten us at all - it will be delightful to see everyone again.

The Searight Tollhouse east of Uniontown, PA.  I confess to altering the picture to remove power lines.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007: A day that began in deep worry and concern wound up becoming one of the most delightful days of our entire trip so far. We woke up this morning at Tub Run and set about the usual process of preparing to hit the road and resume my walk. When we had finished the process of converting our bedroom back into our living room, having a bit of breakfast, taking the guys out for their morning break, battening everything down once again and so forth, I climbed into the driver's seat and fired up Nessie. Much to my dismay, there on the dash below the speedometer, a big, red BRAKE glared out at me. I checked immediately to see if I had accidentally pressed the emergency brake down. I had not. I pumped the brakes a couple of times. The light did not go out. I tentatively moved Nessie forward a bit, then applied the brakes. She stopped well enough, but the brakes felt very mushy and the pedal went nearly to the floor. This was not good.

It was obvious that the very first thing we would have to do would be to get this checked out. Fortunately, our campsite was down by the lake, which meant the road back to the main highway was all uphill. That was good. But in order to proceed eastbound the first thing we would have to do would be negotiate a rather impressive downhill grade. This was also not good - and not acceptable. So we slowly drove out to route 40 and turned westbound, where we knew the road was uphill back into Farmington, where we hoped to find a garage of some sort.

A few miles down the road we came to a gas station flanked on one side by a restaurant and on the other by a small garage. I pulled into the garage while Jonna, whose breakfast had consisted primarily of a cup of coffee - most of which had leaked out the bottom of the cup - elected to grab a bite to eat at the restaurant while she waited for me.

Meanwhile, just as I pulled in to the garage, the phone rang. The gentleman on the line identified himself as Tim, from Farmington. He wanted to know when we'd be passing through Farmington. I told him that I had just walked through yesterday, but was back in town to have our brakes checked. He wanted to know if we'd be interested in talking to a group of people about my walk and, as always, I said sure. I told him where I was and he said he'd be down to meet us in a few minutes.

To our immense relief it turned out that the only thing apparently wrong with our brakes was that the fluid level had not been checked in so long that there was very little left. The mechanic filled the brake fluid, checked for leaks and charged us two bucks. That's the cheapest I've gotten out of a garage in many, many moons. I thanked him profusely and went to join Jonna at the restaurant, noticing that the brake pressure had returned to firm and normal.

Just as Jonna finished breakfast and we returned to Nessie, Tim pulled up and introduced himself. Tim is a member of a pacifist group that began in Germany shortly after World War I. He gave a brief history of the group, which remained in Germany until the SS kicked them out shortly before World War II. From Germany, they relocated to England, then to Paraguay, and eventually to the United States. Their group now has five or six branches in the United States as well as several in other countries. They live a communal life modeled directly on the first century Christian Church - all property is held in common and shared by all members, and all members contribute their work toward the functioning of the group.

Tim led us a few more miles back into Farmington and into their community. By the most serendipitous chance, as I walked by the community yesterday I was taken by a particular scene that opened from route 40 onto a wooden bridge across a creek bordered on either side by fields of flowers and framed by lush forest - and I took a picture. I'll get it to Duncan when I can. We spent the early afternoon in a tour of the grounds conducted by Tim. They raise their own produce in carefully tended fields and their main source of outside commerce is the production of wooden furniture and toys for schools. We joined the men and women at the mill for tea and talked briefly about our walk. Tim took us through the fields of corn, tomoatoes, broccolli, beans, lettuce and just about every other thing you can imagine. We watched the young children take their swimming lessons in the pond - they must all learn to swim as part of their education. The children are schooled in the community up to eighth grade, when they attend public high school. If for any reason a child does not adjust well to public school, they return to the community and are privately schooled to graduation.

Part of the afternoon was spent in Tim and his wife Martha's apartment in one of the communal homes. We talked at great length about our families and got to meet many of their own children. After a wonderful dinner that included sweet corn that needed neither butter nor salt and a fantastic rhubarb cobbler (we haven't had rhubarb in ages!), we were invited to speak to the young people of the community.

A circle of benches was assembled on one of the lawns and they brought a fire pit into the center and got a cozy blaze going. Jonna and I took turns talking and answering questions for at least a couple of hours - and there were many of the adults there as well as the teenage members of the community. It was a truly great experience. Many thoughtful questions were asked and we had the rare opportunity to outline some of our thoughts and ideas in much greater detail than usual. We were genuinely impressed by the sincerity and the unaffected nature of the young people - they exhibited genuine concern and no reticence about thinking and conversing intelligently about our mission and the state in which our country now finds itself. Toward the end, the young people gave an impromptu concert - the people of the community love to sing, and they do it exceedingly well. Most of the songs were not familiar to us, but the harmonies were clear and beautiful.

I think a great percentage of the members of the community came around at one point or another during the day to introduce themselves, shake our hands and wish us well. We passed the petition around and collected many new and enthusiastic signers. All in all it turned out to be a wonderful day and I think we have made a whole new group of friends. This is the sort of thing our walk is all about in the first place, and it was a delightful experience, particularly as we draw so close to our goal.