My apologies for no updates to this page in six weeks!

Too much has been happening away from the computer to update this as regularly and as well as I’d otherwise wish.

From the day we left the Coachella Valley and started our way out of California via Box Canyon, the desert experience has on many fronts proved both very challenging and very rewarding.

By the time I’d made it to Phoenix, I understood why following intuition had me beginning a walk across America over a thousand miles before I’d officially need to. A much shorter walk across America could have been started from Santa Monica or San Diego, from where it would be only about 2,500 miles to Jacksonville, Florida’s Atlantic shoreline. Having entered the Walk as anything but an outdoorsman, however, those first thousand+ miles from Vancouver built within me the toughness and determination that would be necessary to brave the challenges of the desert adventure, in addition to the many challenges which continue to await me west of the Mississippi.

I love meeting and staying with new people constantly, but at the same time, camping in the open desert seems never to come up short of being a truly soulful experience.

Pulling away my initial, pre-walk nine-month time frame for reaching Washington, D.C., was probably the best decision I’ve made so far. I’ve also decided to take a summer recess, in which I’ll likely return home, volunteer, meditate, harvest lavender, strategize the next chapters of the Walk, and probably throw in a summertime Vancouver-to-Vancouver walk (BC-WA) as well. The initial nine-month time frame will easily be doubled. That’s okay though– as I’ve created the space in my life at this time to allow for this. This fall, I’ll pick up from the exact street corner I decide to leave off at in June…

In Phoenix, I caught up with many great friends who once lived in Clark County. Brooke & Mike Shamhart and their seven-year-old daughter Olivia live in Peoria; I stayed with them for nine days. Brooke is a fifth grade teacher, and her class has been enthusiastically following me for months. They wrote to a great local shoe store and organized a gift certificate for top-notch new shoes for me. I met with them on Tuesday, March 30th, and spent the day with the class. This was perhaps the most rewarding day of the entire Walk. I’m now inspired to speak to more kids at more schools throughout the miles to come. Most of these talks will probably begin this fall, once the new school year gets underway.

I also stayed two nights with Brooke Santos & Hussam Moussa, and their cute little ball-of-wild-energy daughter Maryam. Before departing the area, Ben & Shae Cecka invited me in to spend three nights with them and their wonderful sons Jonathan and Joshua. Each of these excellent experiences definitely deserves its own blog, and I look fwd to taking the time to write them, down the road .

What makes me most happy upon leaving Phoenix, is that all three wives and all four kids met each other on the First Friday Art Walk, in central Phoenix. The wives hit it off well, the kids had lots of fun playing together, and I thorougly enjoyed the opportunity to be there with all three families at such a fantastic Phoenix art event. (Shae added enough delicious, home-made sandwiches to feed an army!) The wives are now friends with one another, and will likely meet up for this and more events. The truly tickling tie-in is that all three met each other as a result of their kind willingness to reach out and be of helpful assistance to someone else (me). Further proof that great rewards come to those who choose to volunteer time and energy to help others, expecting nothing in return…

I’m now slowly making my way through Tucson. Upon reaching Marana, on the outskirts of Tucson, I was to stay overnight with the Church family. Upon arriving, however, the fact that they’d just spent five years living fifteen minutes from me in Clark County made me feel so at home, and it was very easy to take them up on the offer to spend the rest of the weekend, three nights total, there. The “Church People” were great!!

Pulling out the Clark County piece, the same is true for the house I’m leaving this afternoon: I’ve spent three days with the Goldsmiths. Brenda is a Couchsurfing.org ambassador, the first I’ve met and stayed with. She and family are ultra-hospitable, and it became all-too-easy to stay extra nights here as well. Last night, the grandparents joined the fun and I made my burritos for them all!

Tucson has truly been a treat, and I haven’t even reached downtown yet.

Tonight and tomorrow I’ll stay with a twentysomething named Trevor, and I may stay with a trio of additional hosts before fully making my way out of Tucson as well. What a place– what an experience…

More great memories await…!!