The Great American Journey

GAP WALK JOURNALS - VII

Sunday - September 7,  2008   Day 186   0.0 miles

Total Connecticut miles - 148.2    Walking Days - 93

Washington D.C. miles - 4.6   Cumulative miles 1672.2

Today we attended the Noroton Presbyterian Church of Darien,
CT.  Loved the pastor’s sermon on Joseph - five more messages
on Joseph are to follow. Joseph is one of my favorite people in
the Bible, as he is this pastor’s also. Too bad we won’t be
around for the other five.

We were introduced in the church service, and talked with
several afterwards. I’ll be adding this church to our prayer list.
During the summer they have an 8 a m service at the beach
every Sunday, then a 10 a m service in the sanctuary. It would
have been fun to go to the beach one, but we didn’t have enough
information ahead of time.

After church we went looking for a good place to eat our
Sunday lunch, and after checking out a couple of others we
decided to go back to the Pasta Fair where we ate Friday night.
It had such delicious pastas, with such a variety of sauces, etc.
that we figured we couldn’t really go wrong with this one. And,
of course, we brought half back to our room to enjoy tomorrow
night.

We changed clothes, then went to look for a place to get to the
beach. Norma has to see the Atlantic Ocean up close before she
leaves. We’d get pretty close, but then find out we couldn’t go
any further because the beaches here are mostly private. Even
the one where the church service was held has to be paid for -
though if you went to the church service there it was free entry.

I finally spotted a visitor center and stopped to ask about public
beaches. One that is usually open that he said was really nice
was closed today for a big Oyster Festival going on there - I
guess you had to pay for that. That was scheduled for yesterday,
but due to the Tropical Storm Hanna that hit the area then it was
postponed to today. The docent then copied some maps for me
and highlighted a couple of beaches we could get to. There
really are very few open to the public.

By the time we got away from there we realized it was getting
late and we needed to get laundry done. So in the end we didn’t
get to these beaches, but there will be more opportunities this
next week to get to other beaches.

Back to Darien - we had gone as far as Norwalk, CT - to
Starbucks for drinks to take with us to the laundry. I asked a
couple in the Starbucks parking lot about a coin laundry, and the
gal was able to tell me about one just around the corner. It was
great. Norma and I sat and talked about this week while our
laundry went through its cycles.

Tomorrow I finish walking in New York - I have only around
sixteen miles left to do. When I start walking again in a couple
of weeks with Bonny as my driver I’ll be starting in Philadelphia
since I already did the whole section between Philadelphia and
The Bronx.

After tomorrow Norma and I will take the rest of this week to do
some touring since I am ahead of schedule, and Norma has
never been on the east coast before. So Tuesday we will leave
here and head for Washington D. C. to take a tour of the city.
Thursday we’ll go back north to Philadelphia area to see the
Liberty Bell and tour that area. I will also take advantage of this
opportunity to do some praying in these strategic areas.

Then to Newark, NJ where Norma leaves for home on Sunday
the 14th.  I’ll stay in Newark and prepare for some presentations
I’ll be doing in New Jersey later that week. Also Dave comes
into the Newark airport on the 17th, so I’ll be in the right area to
get to the airport for both Norma and Dave.

When our dryer was almost finished, a lady asked if we had ever
experienced anything like she was experiencing with one of the
washers. It was stuck on one of the cycles at 10 minutes, and
nothing she did seemed to clear it up. Norma and I went to work
trying different things, and looking for someone to call. The
place has an attendant every day except Sundays, but no
emergency number to call. We tried calling the number in the
phone book, but it only rang at the laundromat itself.

Finally with the help of another couple we did manage to get it
to move on to finish the cycle. Toni was a delightful lady who
had her son’s football uniform stuck in a washing machine - a
uniform he had to have the next day.  We had a good time
sharing with her, and she was so sweet. I did get her picture.

Back to our room to put things away, make phone calls, respond
to e-mails and do the journal. Now I’m gonna have my popcorn
and relax for what’s left of the evening.