I haven’t walked for the past two days on account of unfortunate circumstances.  On Friday, I was picked up from my walk to attend the memorial service for my Uncle Greg.  Upon arriving, I walked into the church to see what must have been over 200 people there to remember my uncle.  I was surprised to see so many at the time but I really should not have been.  Greg Rebensdorf was one of the most genuinely good people I have and will ever meet and I miss him everyday. So, to see so many people impacted by his passing and drop everything to come to his service shouldn’t have surprised me at all.

The memorial was nice, led by an amazing priest who knew how to mix sadness with smiles and laughter brought about by fond memories.  Afterwards, we had a “Celebration of Life” party.  It was held in a beautiful dining hall that Greg’s children decorated nearly top to bottom in Angels theme (his love for the Angels was probably only second to his kids :P).  We shared stories and a slide show, talked and drank, conversed and remembered.  Even though it was a sad day, we made it as happy as we could in remembering such a wonderful man.

I know the above probably isn’t why you chose to follow my blog but seeing as how my trip is dedicated to my uncle, I figured talking about him is the least I can do.  Love you, Uncle Greg.  Anyways, its getting hard to type through tears so I’ll move on to today’s walk.

This morning, after 2 days off I set off to walk towards my first set of mountains.  I wasn’t 100 feet out the door before I was stopped by a young homeless man.  I believe he said his name was RC (maybe Archie?).  He saw my big hiking backpack on my back and stopped me.  He wanted to know where I was going with a backpack like that on, especially since I was smack in the middle of Ontario, nowhere near nature.  This was my first official stranger to ask me what I was doing and it made me really happy for some reason.  The exchange went something like this:

RC: Where you goin?

Me: I’m walking to New York.

RC: No you’re not.

Me: Yeah, I am

RC: You can’t just fuckin’ do that!

Me: Well I’m certainly gonna try.

After a few questions about details he leaves me with the best thing he could say:

“Man, sorry I keep asking you all these questions, you just look like you’re in the same business as me.”  Official Hobo Status: Achieved

Made it a little over 10 miles and my feet hurt the least at the end of the day of any day so far.  BTW in case nobody has noticed, I update the total amount of steps taken at the bottom of the blog each day.