The Great American Journey

GAP WALK JOURNALS - VII

Saturday - September 13,  2008     Day 192   0.0 miles

Total New York miles - 33.2        Walking Days - 94

Washington D.C. miles - 4.6   Cumulative miles 1688.8

This morning I slept in. Actually when I got up and went into
the bathroom to get ready for the day I was sure it was about
5:30, but when I looked at my watch a few minutes later it was
7:15. Where that hour and forty-five minutes went I’m not sure,
but I had to conclude I had misread the time before I went in
since I had only been in there a couple of minutes.

Norma laughed when I told her, and she said that I had been
sleeping so peacefully she knew I must need the sleep, so she let
me sleep. That was good. I did indeed need it. But it also gave
us a little later start.

When we left the motel in Bensalem, PA we drove to Starbucks,
then on Hwy. 132 to Hwy. 532 to Washington’s Crossing where
George Washington crossed the Delaware River during the
Revolutionary War. There we got out and took a few pictures
then continued on our way. That whole stretch of Hwy. 532 was
a part of what I had walked when Russ was with me. It was
while I was walking over the Delaware River on the very narrow
bridge back in early July that I met a newspaper reporter who
just happened to be there taking pictures. He did a short story
about the walk with a picture of me for the local Bucks County
newspaper.

When we left there we turned onto Hwy. 29 to go to the coast of
New Jersey so Norma could see the Atlantic Ocean close up.
We went through Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright where we
ate lunch at a Sea Gull Restaurant overlooking the beach.

The restaurant is all upstairs, and I had first gone into a section
of the restaurant that was reserved for a private party.  I walked
up to a couple of men and asked if this was a private party (the
sign hadn’t been too clear) or if it was open to anyone. One of
the men smiled and said, “Well, have you done anything special
that would give you a reason to join us?” Now I couldn’t miss
an opportunity like that, so I told them what I was doing and
gave them each one of my cards. They then asked a lot of
questions, and were really delightful to visit with. The daughter
of one of them walked up, and I got a picture of the three of
them. Then I left them to their Company Picnic, and went back
down to where Norma was waiting.

We went over to the main part of the restaurant and had our
lunch. After eating we drove on to Sandy Hook which took us
out to a Coast Guard Station with some displays and a museum.
We didn’t have time to get out and look around, but we saw
some stuff just by driving through.

Then we headed northwest where we finally got a motel room in
the town of Parsippany, NJ. After getting our room we went to
eat and buy a few groceries, then back to the room where I
downloaded my pictures and got them ready to copy onto a CD
for Norma. It was almost midnight when I finished, so I left the
copying until morning. I was really tired again.