Charleston, WV

I would like to start by apologizing for taking so long to update my blog. It has been a bit crazy and I have not known what to write. Let us start by saying as some of you know that I made business cards while in Moorhead and I was given a major discount on them. When I left Moorhead I started hiking and I stayed in under a shelter that was just outside Olive Hill. That morning I got up and a guy that I met in Moore head called me and wanted to come pick me up because there was a storm coming at that time he was planning on joining me. So he took me to Grayson, that same storm ended up flooding his house so he was unable to join me. I stayed with him in Grayson while we tried to find out whether or not he was going to be able to join me.

When I left Grayson on Monday afternoon, May 10, I was hiking along and I had a few people that would stop and offer me food or some money. That night a lady pulled up in her truck and offered me dinner. I accepted and I loaded my cart into her truck. We went to her house where I played kickball with her son and two people that were staying with them due to the flood. We ate I ended sleeping on their couch and the whole family was just real nice and opened whatever they had to me.

I left there and started towards Ashland. On the way to Ashland I had about 8 people stop and bring me McDonalds the last two I declined because they don’t save well and I just could not eat them anymore. That night a gentleman stopped and asked me what I was doing and he ended up taking to the Salvation Army in Ashland that night. The next morning I got up and I walked to a PNC bank where I deposited $81.25 for FMSC making the total collected about $161.25. shortly after that I crossed into West Virginia into a little town called Kenova where I passed a barber shop and the barber wanted to know what I was doing and I told him I actually sat down and talked to him for about 30 minutes then he tells me to go down the street to a bar-b-que joint and that it was all on him whatever I wanted. So I ate there then I got back on the road. I got drenched while trying to get to the store where I was buying a decent rain suit. I also determined that WV is just like on big city because all the cities here you leave and enter one at the same time. I went from Kenova to Ceredo by going under a bridge, I completely missed the fact that I went through a city called west moorland I don’t know when I entered Huntington where I stayed at a mission for the night and when I left there I entered Barboursville. And all that was without seeing more than two miles of “country” combined.
While I was at the mission I met several homeless guys that just thought that what I was doing was cool and they kind of took me under their wings for the night made sure no one messed with me or my stuff it was pretty cool. The next morning when I left, I had the WSAZ news run me down for an interview around 2:00 it was the local NBC. That night when I decided that it was time for me to find a place to lay my head down for the night I did the usual where I started knocking on doors and asking to stay in someone’s front yard for the night and up to this point I had not been told no by anyone. Well the first place I asked the guy did not own the place so he could not give me permission to stay, the second place no one was home, the third place had kids and did not want a stranger camping in his yard, and the fourth guys said something about being Jewish and demanded that I leave his land immediately. By this time I had begun to doubt my mission and just at that time a truck pulls up in front of me and offers to put me up in a Hampton Inn. Now aint that great but that is not the end of it. Matt (the driver) and Granny (his future mother-in-law) insisted that I ate Cracker Barrel for dinner. The next day I got up and was headed down the road and when I got to Milton I stopped at the Dollar General to get some rice and plastic bags trying to dry out my phone. When I go to check out one of the cashiers tells me that she wanted to buy this stuff for me that her mom and boyfriend were the ones that had picked me up the previous night. Not only does she buy me the items I was picking up but she also decides that I need cold water and she gets me a new Go Phone too. Then her coworker decides she wants to help me too so she tells me to get anything that I could use out of the store (all I could find was a pot). Later that evening I get a text from Matt asking me where I was so I told him and the next thing I know Matt, Mia and Granny pull up beside me and tell me they are going to be in a parking lot just down the road. When I get to the parking lot we talk for about 30 minutes where I find out they live just down the road from a Boy Scout Camp. They end up putting me up in the Hampton inn again then I hung out with them the next day and spent the night at the Scout camp. Then they drove me up to Charleston where I stayed in a homeless shelter again. Today I am going to send home $151 making it a total of $312.25 to FMSC.

I would like to thank everyone for keeping me in their prayers and to remind those just joining the blog that there is more to read below this.