Done!

Me standing in front of the White House after my fifteen meeting with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. Notice the books are missing. They are in the president’s hands.
As I write this in late February, I am working on a complete account of the once-in-a-lifetime meeting. So far it’s about ten pages long. Single-spaced. I’ll post when it’s ready, hopefully soon.
Also, I am waiting for the photos. I had my cell phone and Jen’s camera with me, but I was told explicitly to leave them in my pocket when I got into the White House. There was an official WH photographer snapping candids of the president and me. I’m not sure when his office will develop them and send them out. I’ve heard everything is done with print film so they must be developed the old-fashioned way. And I’ve also heard (from Jen’s aunt and cousin, who met President Obama a few years ago as part of a larger event) that it takes eight months to get pictures back. So hopefully I’ll have them by the summer, and I’ll be sure to post them here as soon as I do.
As always, thanks for reading and I’m very grateful for everyone who helped me on these walks in 2006, 2008, and 2011. Feel free to contact me at highwaytohill@yahoo.com, especially for information on how to walk across America . Up next : writing the book .

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Just feet away….

Thursday morning I woke up, dressed, and Jen and I walked the final mile to the southwest gate of the White House. We arrived around 11:15 for my 11:40 appointment. Jen snapped this final picture as I showed my ID and passed through the first security checkpoint.

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One last thing to do …

The night before I surrendered the books to President Obama, Jen and I found a small family-run print shop open late to photocopy all the messages which I had just collected in previous four weeks. The first three books, from 2008, had already been scanned by Curry Printing in Worcester.

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The Mad Hatter

(Note that some of these photos from DC aren’t exactly in chronological order).
Jen and I went to dinner at the Mad Hatter with her friend from college, Brad, and my friend from AmeriCorps NCCC, Nadine.

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Merry Christmas from Australia

A better picture of the Australian Embassy. Yes, the man on the surfboard is wearing a Santa hat.

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The Arc of the Moral Universe….

While I was walking over the past month, during the slow times I’d turn on MP3 player and listen to “The Bridge,” a biography of Barack Obama. According to author David Remnick this quote is one of Obama’s favorites. Serendipitously it’s one of the sayings engraved at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. It reads, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice – District of Columbia, 1968”
We didn’t see (or look for) the controversial self-aggrandizing quote, “I was a drum major for justice, peace and rightousness,” which will be soon be effaced and replaced.

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MLK and BJ

At the newly-opened Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial.

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NO, JEN, DON’T!!!

We need that memorial!

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Thank you Mary

Mary is the woman from Senator John Kerry’s office who put me in touch with the right person at the White House. If it wasn’t for Mary’s help, I probably would never have had the opportunity to meet the president and deliver the books of messages. I can’t say Thank You enough to her.

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Sightseeing in DC

Besides the Lincoln Memorial (one of my faves), Jen and I saw the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial (in the last few years I’ve gotten to know a man here in Worcester County who worked to make that monument a reality the early 80’s), the Martin Luther King Memorial (opened just the previous month), the Korean War Memorial, the foodtrucks in Farragut Square, and The National Geographic Museum.

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Jen

My girlfriend Jen flew from Boston to Baltimore and met me in Washington DC on Wednesday afternoon. I hadn’t seen her since I left Worcester on four weeks before. She had rented a room at the Beacon Hill on Rhode Island Ave, perfectly just a mile from the White House and a mile from Kate’s apartment. This is us in front of the Lincoln Memorial, one of my favorite spots in Washington.
I really can’t say enough about Jen. Throughout the walk, it was she who made sure I had a place to stay (especially while walking though storm-ravaged CT) and made sure I iced my ankle and made sure I was taking the correct streets through cities. It was Jen who made sure I had my suit and dress shoes and a new and fashionable (but not TOO fashionable) tie. And most importantly, it was Jen who made sure that I arrived at the White House at exactly 11:15 on Thursday morning. I’m pretty bad at being kn time, and she knew this was one of two events in my life that I didn’t want to be late for.
Yeah, I’m pretty lucky to have a pretty good girlfriend.

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Lisa

My friend Lisa, who lives in Cambridge, happened to be in DC the weekend I was there, so we met up for an afternoon and along with a few of her friends visited the special galleries at the Library of Congress. One of the exhibits was on satellite imagery (which she was interested in) and another was on editorial cartoons (which I was interested in). Washington has so much to see, which makes it one of my favorite cities.

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Vaughn

I arrived in Washington on Tuesday night, pretty much as I had scheduled, and had set aside all of Wednesday to complete some errands before I handed the books over to the president on Thursday morning.
This is a pretty cool story… my first stop on Wednesday was at the headquarters of the Corporation of National and Community Service. The new Director of the National Civilian Community Corps, which was part of the CNCS, had heard of my walk and learned I was a NCCC alumnus from 2001. She invited me to the office to meet the staff and film a short video clip. I took a taxi to the building on New York Ave, got on the elevator, and when the doors opened, I heard some men talking in the hallway. For a second I thought, Man, that voice is familiar… and when I turned the corner there was my old NCCC Unit Leader (equivalent to my boss’ boss). I hadn’t seen Vaughn in ten years and one month – our last day on campus in Denver was November 2, 2001. Normally he’s based in Colorado, but coincidently he just happened to be in Washington and at the office the day I came by. AmeriCorps roots run deep, it was really good to see a friendly face there.

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On hiking poles

When I walked across country in 08, I didn’t think of using hiking poles until fellow cross-country walker Jodi Beth Harrington recommended them. I purchased a set of aluminum (?) telescoping sticks in Virginia, lost them in Connecticut, and borrowed a pair from Couchsurfers Matt and Lauren which carried me into Boston. It took me about one day to get used to walking with them, but once I was accustomed to coordinating my arms and hands with my feet and legs, the poles really helped to both establish rhythm and take the strain off the knees and hips. The only downside (especially in winter) was to do anything – take a photo, hand someone the book, send a text message, the poles I had to put the poles down, take off my mitts, take out the phone or book, then, when I was ready to move on, put the phone or book back, put on my mitts, pick up the poles, etc. The poles were helpful but not convenient.
Anyways, during this walk I chose to walk with poles again, and used one pair from Boston to DC. After a month of pounding pavement they were in pretty rough shape. One pole couldn’t collapse like it should, and since I couldn’t fly with them extended, I asked Kate to drop them in her trash for me. Before she did, though, I took this photo of the pole tip. When they were new, the rubber covering extended to the tip of my thumb. After 450 miles the rubber had worn down to this stub. Even the metal which made up the pole itself was filing down. Had I kept walking eventually I would have needed longer arms – hahaha.
But seriously, if 450 miles of constant thudding against concrete did this to rubber and metal, I wonder what 4700 miles did to my ankles, knees, hips and back.

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FINISHED!!!

Tuesday night, November 29th, I crossed into Washington DC. I hiked by the National Shrine, Howard University, and to the U-Street Corridor, where I stayed with Kate, a friend from AmeriCorps. It was meaningful to see her again, as she and I went together to President Obama’s Inauguration three years earlier. We ordered pizza and hung out with her friends Anne and Kristen.

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College Park, Maryland

Teusday afternoon, just a few hours from the Washington line. This is my last photo from the road.

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George Washington Was Here

George Washington, Couch Surfer Extraordinaire.

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Jon

Jon writes a note to President Obama on Highway 1 near Laurel. This is one of the last messages I collected before meeting the president

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Construction 2

About a mile south of that last photo, I walked past this residential development being built.

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Construction I

Despite the economic turndown, on this walk in Nov ’11 I didn’t see evidence that construction was slowing down. If anything, I noticed a lot of new buildings going up and new businesses opening up. Here’s a new project being completed in Southern Maryland.

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Elkridge, MD

Elkridge, MD (not to be confused with Elkton, MD).
From here I’m about 30 miles from the White House.

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Sunrise Over Wal-Mart

Leighton has to go into work pretty early, so I was on the road before sunrise. This was the last week of November so the sun rose late and set early, anyways, whi almost always left me walking in the dark more than I would have liked.
Gettin up early was tough, too, not only because I’m not a morning person but because my ankle was getting worse. After the ibuprofin kicked in it wasn’t so bad, but for the first hour – the first two or three miles – I loped along the side of the road like I was a paid extra late to the filming of a zombie movie.

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Leighton and Melissa

Sunday and Monday nights I stayed with my friend Melissa and her husband Leighton and their daughter O. I’ve known Melissa since working at a Boy Scout Camp in Idaho in the summer of 1995 and we hadn’t seen eachother since the summer of 2001. It was nice to be able to spend time with her and get to know her husband and daughter better. O’s a pretty funny kid, and Monday and Tuesday morning Leighton and I “carpooled” together – he dropped me off at my starting point during his drive to Fort Meade. Again, another old friend I’m grateful I had the opportunity to meet during this trip.

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The Gang at Dunkins

I ended Sunday’s walk at a Dunkin Donuts in South Baltimore. While I was waiting for Leighton to pick me up, I started chatting with this group of coffee shop political analysts. You can always find the best politcal analysts in coffee shops, there should be a TV show called The Coffee Shop Factor or Meet the Coffee Shop.
That’s me in the background, holding up a copy of Jean Marbella’s column on yours truly which ran that morning in the Baltimore Sun.
In case you’re wondering, Bob is assuredly not an Obama supporter.

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Washington Boulevard

On Washington Boulevard I met Derrick, Michael and Antonio, who were stoked to write their message to President Obama. They also bought me a Coke for the road.

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Leaving Baltimore

After I left the Occupy Baltimore camp, I continued west past Camden Yards. There I met Jess and Matt. They were suffering pretty badly by the economic downturn and included their story in my book.

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Occupy Baltimore Pt 4

Occupier Kyle jots down a few thoughts for President Obama.

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Occupy Baltimore Pt 3

Being a relatively warm Sunday, I wasn’t the only tourist to the Occupy encampment. Here an Occupier debates a passerby as a small audience listens in. Baltimore was my fourth Occupy Camp, besides Hartford, Wall Street and Trenton, and (excluding Trenton) I’ve been impressed by the level of civility, openness, and discourse.
My sophomore year at Northeastern I took a course called Classical Social Thought. The class was required for all Sociology majors. The professor was a diehard liberal named Elliot Krause, a megaphone-toting firebrand in the 60s and when I had him in the 90’s, just a few years from retirement. We read selections from Weber and Durkheim, which I can barely remember (something about organizations?) but Krause’s passion was Karl Marx. He didn’t just teach the Communist Manifesto, but he came up with example after example after example. Energy companies, Native American rights, pollution, everything could be boiled down to the wealthy and powerful taking advantage of the poor and meek (I remember one of his favorite themes was pointing out media wasn’t liberal ENOUGH).
I wouldn’t say Professor Krause was a professor who changed my life, but at 20 years old, he definitely changed the way I looked at life. Looking back, he was one of my favorite professors because he was so passionate about what he taught, and it’s interesting to see echoes of that class freely resounding around the country (and around the Internet) 15 years later.

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Occupy Baltimore Pt 2

At Occupy Baltimore, Todd and April take a minute from changing the world (and knitting warm hats) to write their letters to President Obama.

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Occupy Baltimore

I was behind schedule and the sun was starting to go low as I came through downtown Baltimore, but I knew I had to stop when I found myself passing by the Occupy Baltimore encampment along the Inner Harbor on East Pratt Street.
On my walks, I found it was almost impossible to budget time to collect messages, like I’m going to stay here at this senior center for twenty minutes, or I’ll stop at this Tea Party rally until 1:00, because I never knew who I was going to meet or what kind of stories I’d hear. Some people wrote just a few lines to the president, but others scribed two or three pages and I never rushed them.

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Pratt Street Power Plant

The Pratt Street Power Plant, built between 1900 and 1909. It provided electricity to residents and power supply for the railcars in the first half of the 20th century. Now it hosts a selection of restaurants and shops.

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The Phoenix Shot Tower

The Phoenix Shot Tower on East Lombard Street. This tower was used for creating shot pellets and cannon balls from 1828, through the Civil War, to 1892. Molten lead was dripped from a sieve at top of the tower, naturally rounded as it fell 234 feet, and landed in tank of water where it solidified. At one time Baltimore had three of these towers churning out lead ammunition.

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Bricks ….

… Built the 234 foot Phoenix Shot Tower.

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Bricks ….

More than one million of them ….

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The Greatest City in America

A park bench near the Phoenix Shot Tower. Getting closer to downtown Baltimore.

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Baltimore Skyline

Approaching Baltimore from the north. It was Sunday afternoon and I was about 48 hours from finishing in Washington DC.

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They’re in the Band

Matt and TK were driving to a gig when they saw the sign on my backpack and stopped to see what’s up.

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From Muppet Labs … Will Obama be re-elected?

From Muppet Labs, Where the Future is Being Made Today. (Wait… isn’t that the corporate slogan of Google? Hahaha…)
Just a few blocks away from here I passed a large group of Baltimoreans standing in lines in an empty parking lot. A company or organization (the people I spoke with weren’t sure who it was exactly) was giving away free cell phones. While I stood with them, about 40-50 African Americans, I introduced myself and told them what I was doing. Of that entire group from this economically depressed northern Baltimore neighborhood, the only person who wanted to write a message to the president was a middle-aged white woman who remembered reading my story from 08. But since I left Boston, I met a surprising number of people who were reluctant or outright refused to write a message to the president. Also that day I met a gentleman who was bicycling up the East Coast. He had canvassed door to door for Obama in Florida in 2008, but when I gave him the book and pen to write his message to his man three years later, he held up his palm with an “Er, I prefer not.” I’m no political analyst, but the nu?ber of people I witnesses who feel like they want to distance themselves from Obama may not bode well for his re-election bid.

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Crack Kills

Sometimes I get funny walking by myself.

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Baltimore!

It seemed like I had been in Baltimore County forever, but on Sunday afternoon I finally reached the Baltimore City limits.

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Pastor Jenn

As I walked through Baltimore, I stayed with my friend Jenn, who is a pastor at a Presbyterian Church. When I stayed with her and her family in 08, it was during the week, but on this walk I was there on a Saturday night, so I got to see her deliver service on Sunday morning. It was kind of cool to see someone I knew personally stand in front of a congregation, deliver the sermon, and be regarded as the spiritual leader of the community. Later she introduced me to her congregation and I collected a few more letters, and afterwsrds her husband, JT, drove me back to the Happy Day Diner in Rosedale, where I left off the previous night.

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WTF?

Crosswalk painters have feelings, too.

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The Gnome isn’t home

My gnome wanted to stay, until he saw the creepo gnome lying down and staring at him. We were outta there.

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The Gnome is Home

My friend Kristy gave me a pocket garden gnome to carry with me on my travels. You may have noticed him in a few of these photos, he’s the gnome in the red hat. He lived a life of solitude in a side flap of backpack, until we came across this village of gnomes occupying a landscaping store in Central Maryland.

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Masjid Al-Falaah

While I was hiking on Philadelphia Road in Abingdon, I passed a church group holding selling plates of food at a cookout. I was a might peckish after walking from Havre de Grace, so I stopped in to fill up my belly (and my book.) The church group was a Masjid (mosque) Al-Falaah. I chipped in for a hot meal and a can of Coke, introduced myself and explained I was going to meet President Obama. Everyone there was welcoming and I collected some pretty good messages. One man was a registered Republican who canvassed for Obama in ’08, another man operated a carpet company in New Jersey and offered me a place to stay next time I came through. The teenagers in the background, who were talking about applying to colleges, “spread their culture through funny videos” and invited President Obama to check them out (www.youtube.com/rwnlpwnl)

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The Pre-Declaration of Indepence

I learned there was a tertiary road paralleling my road, so after Aberdeen I walked a little out of my way to reach it. Highway 7, Philadelphia Road, is a nice rural byway which offered an afternoon’s repieve from the four lane monotony of Highway 40. Along the way I passed these two markers, which notes the site of the signing of the first pre-Declaration of Independence. The plaque on the stone lists the members of the committee who signed their names, and the standing sign reads: “Bush Declaration – Harford Town – County seat of Harford County from its origin March, 1774, until March, 1783. Here the first Declaration of Independence ever adopted by an organized body of men duly elected by the people was proclaimed on March 22, 1775.”

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Dear Mr. President

An Iraq War veteran writes his letter to President Obama.

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Aberdeen, MD

Aberdeen, MD, home of one of my heroes, “Cal Ripken, Jr. Cal Ripken played for the Baltimore Orioles for 21 years and never missed a single day. His 2,632-game attendance is a Major League record and eraned him the nickname “Iron Man.”
I also like this town because it reminds me of that Simpsons episode when Groundskeeper Willie wakes up, shouts “Go Aberdeen!” and falls back to sleep again.

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Golden Corral

I knew I was heading in the right direction when I began seeing Golden Corrals. Mmmmmmm….

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The Price of Gas, 2008 versus 2011

When I collected messages in 2008, one of the most popular topics across the country was the price of gas. As prices approached $4/gallon, Americans from California to Alabama pled for the president to dom something to relieve the pressure on their pocketbooks. “It’s getting so bad I can’t afford to drive to work,” said one woman.
I saw prices peak in September of 08. I was walking through northern Alabama just weeks after Hurricane Ivan had disrupted the supply line. I saw cars waiting in long queues, gas stations impose gallon limits, and pumps run clean out. Then, it seemed almost overnight, folks stopped writing about gas. Words like “Bailout” and “TARP” were taking over the headlines, and people began to realize there was something big going on with the economy.
Anyways, the gas prices fell that autumn (like they usually do) and stayed relatively low for the next few summers. I snapped this photo of petrol prices in Maryland in November ’11. While gas prices were such a hot topic in ’08, I took exactly zero messages on this topic in ’11.

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