Before I left on this trip, my friend Meredith warned me: “be careful! 5 months is a long way to be away from all of your friends!” And she was right! 5 months of solitude uninterrupted is a lot of time to spend in your own head, in a tent, in some unknown forest in the corner of a remote part of the world.

So luckily I have friends to meet along the way 💙:

Everyone say hi to Olivia!!!

I didn’t hear you! Say it again, and with feeling this time!

Very good!

Liv and I went to the same high school in SE Michigan way back in the day and both ran cross country and track (Liv has kept the faith in running while I have optimized my body to convert beer into naps). Coincidentally, Liv is also finishing her final rotation at a memory care facility in Virginia Beach! She and her significant other’s family graciously welcomed me to stay at their house for the night and I glaaaaaadly took up the offer!

Oysters? On just Day 3 of this trip?? And a four-poster bed to return too??? Guys, air-dried beef and a Walmart cot just aren’t going to cut it from here!

My tastes may have been spoiled, but my luck only just so: I finished in a cool fourth place in a game of Liar’s dice with Liv and the O’Connell family. It was a lovely and cozy evening in likewise company:

Pictured, from right to left: two Liar’s Dice world champions (Liv and William) and a nominee for the people’s choice award (yours truly).

It was a lovely time 💙 thank you again to the O’Connells for putting me up; please allow me to return the favor the next time you’re in Alexandria! I promise I’ll share my jambalaya recipe too when I can get back to my full cookbooks 😁

And thank you so so so much Liv, for kickstarting my new adventures with great old friends:

You’re the best Liv!💙

Not much to update everyone on otherwise: Wednesday was a traipse down the Delmarva peninsula from Cape Henlopen to Kiptopeke, where I caught the sunset from the right side this time:

There were 5 ships lying at anchor in the leeward side of the channel, and an interesting thing happened when the sun went down: every ship turned their lights on about 25 seconds after the sun set. I suspect this delay happened because while the sun had set from my vantage point, the sun hadn’t set yet from the view of the ships since they were anchored several miles to the west. For a brief window, we existed in the same time, in the same place, in the same way, but on opposite sides of an instantaneous event. What a strange feeling! I felt like a one-eyed man seeing both sides of a coin at once.

That’s all for now! The next stop is the Outer Banks: then a right turn for San Francisco.

Stay well,

Evan