What’s going on guys! It’s been a few days so I figured I’d drop in. After finishing the Hartford stretch, I went down into New Haven and thanks to Grateful, I was able to get a room and some okay pizza from Frank Pepe’s. I personally felt Sally’s was better when I went through later on and tried it in Fairfield.
We’re having unexpectedly hard luck with fire stations so it’s driving our expenditures through the roof with hotel stays. Thankfully here and there we’re getting some help. SE_CT let me crash at his place for a night, the aforementioned Grateful and his donation, and a few women who’d seen my story on the news in Connecticut had made some large donations. Both had been impacted by suicide. One had lost her husband, the other her fiance.
I strolled through Stamford and Greenwich and good lord, the cars (and dirty looks I received) in Greenwich. I’ve never in my life gone past a Ferrari dealership in person. I’m a poor. But in a mile or less stretch through Greenwich I Saw a Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Alfa Romeo dealership. I wish I had money. Lol.
Entering (or re-entering) the state of New York, I got an Airbnb from a woman named Wilma. She was an older Caribbean woman who said “Oh Lord you deserve a medal!” When we chatted about what I’m doing. I went from her place to a friend on the upper west side the last three nights. Leisa finished her own cross country trek earlier this year (she had to utilize rides from time to time to get back for her real job at the post office), but we randomly connected. Having a place in NYC to lay my head FOR FREE and get to do a little sightseeing was great.
Obviously having blown what would’ve been my “fun money” portion of funds for the walk attending the playoff run my sightseeing was limited. But luckily a friend purchased a Groupon for a night time bus tour and daytime cruise around the Statue of Liberty. I also made my way to Alexander Hamiltons grave (I’m a musical nerd so I had to pay my respects) and visited the WTC memorial.
I’ve been having some hip issues that have caused me some worry that the hardware in my SI joint may be failing, so I took two days off.
A couple of things about New York surprised me. First, being able to beat back negative preconceptions of an area based on growing up in a primarily Caucasian area. I was worried how a solo white dude walking through the Bronx and Harlem would be treated. No one said a word to me, except in Harlem myself and a couple guys hanging on a stoop stopped and chatted for about twenty minutes. It was crazy to me to think I had all this worry for nothing.
Today rather than backtrack and then retrace steps on the other side of the Hudson for 7 miles I walked 8 miles to the Staten Island Ferry, then rode that to Staten and walked another 9 miles or so to my seedy hotel room in Elizabeth, NJ.
Looking like rain and storms for tomorrow, followed by three days of heat advisory so that’s wonderful. But we should hit Trenton by Tuesday.
Im going to try to reach out to OSU wrestling alumni Reece Humphries on Instagram. We’ve chatted a bit, but it’d be cool if he could get the New Jersey RTC to help promote this, or let me take a crack at talking mental health and my journey(s) to his guys.
I do want to thank all of you that have supported both me on the first walk, and now us as a nonprofit on this walk. After today my food intake is going to be cut back severely, but there’s a likely early end/hiatus looming. We’re just not generating enough funding (and maybe I’m eating too normal). We’ve started a campaign to fundraise more with our current donors (some of you may already have that email) where we are just asking people to visit the donation site and chip in whatever they can monthly. If it’s $5 that’s fine! If we can get 300 people to contribute that we’d be doing fairly well. Facebook is also just absolutely wrecking us with their algorithm. It squashes our stuff so even people who follow don’t regularly see things. We have over 3,000 Facebook followers and I only see interacting from maybe the same 50 folks or so.
Im gonna keep going as long as I can. Maybe lightning will strike.
Love you guys!
-Joe
