Spending two nights with John & Jodi Altendorf, in Corvallis, Oregon, was the first time I began to feel that walking across America in just nine months could be far too fast a pace. I hadn’t met the Altendorfs in person before arriving to Corvallis. I’d found and contacted them via the travelers’ social networking site Couchsurfing.org, and asked if they wouldn’t mind hosting me as I made my way through town. They invited me in with open arms and open hearts; they had been enthusiastically been awaiting my arrival for weeks. I first met them on the north side of town, just shy of downtown. They live a few miles west of town, so they agreed to play a support driver role for me back and forth to the point at which I’d left off. A recently retired couple with three kids of their own, we hit it off really well that evening over their delicious home-cooked vegetarian spaghetti dinner. I’d learned that John, a pole vaulter during his college years, had picked the practice back up in recent years, and he currently holds the world record at the master’s level, age class 60-64, at over 13 feet! John & Jodi took me to meet Mayor Charlie Tomlinson and the local newspaper, the Corvallis Gazette Times, the following morning, before hitting the road.

Knowing that storms were coming, and that my super-comfortable running shoes were anything but waterproof, John engineered some waterproof covers for my shoes that would end up being a great help to me amid some of the very wet miles ahead. For the first time during these early days of the Walk, the Altendorfs offered me a support-driver type role: after spending the first night with them, they would allow me to walk as far as I could, south of Corvallis, till early evening. They then would pick me up, and return me to the very same spot the following morning, so that I could both spend another night at their place, and connect all of my steps. I happily took them up on their offer, and am so grateful that I did. I learned the important early lesson that spending more than just a single night with any given host can tremendously enrich the experience of connecting with fascinating new people in new places!! I truly look forward to returning to visit John & Jodi again someday!