Barnesville (Forsyth)

After posting from the library in Calhoun I started walking again, and made it into Adairsville by early evening. The forecast was for cold, for lots of cold, and I was weighing my options for the night over dinner in McDonald's when I met Gunnar. He sat at a table, with Annika, his daughter, and noticed my pack.
"You're traveling?"
"Yep." We talk about the trip for a few minutes.
"You seem like an honest guy, am I right? Well, I've got a house here in town that nobody's staying in for the time being. If you'd like you can stay there tonight. Supposed to be getting cold, you know."
He and his daughter leave for a few minutes to switch cars, and when they come back I meet Ruby, the wife and mom. When I finish eating I climb in their car and they take me along to visit the group home where another daughter lives, and then on to their house a few miles outside of town. I shower and clean up, and then go with Gunnar, Annika, and Cassia, a third daughter, to the local Kingdom Hall for their Tuesday evening service.
Afterwards Gunnar drops me off at the house in town. He's recently been fixing it up and now it's on the market, so I have the place to myself for the night. The world provides, as they say.
In the morning I pack up and get some breakfast in town before starting to walk. The sun comes out early and the day warms quickly out of the teens that set in overnight.
Around noon, as I'm sitting down by the side of the road, a post office vehicle pulls over and a lady offers a sandwich and some candy. I've got plenty of food but I take the chocolate and she wishes me well.
By late afternoon I make it into Cartersville, and don't go more than a mile or two beyond town before setting up for the night. It gets dark incredibly early, anymore, and the cold sets in quickly once the sun is gone, so I lie in my tent and read by headlamp until I fall asleep.
Thursday I walked from the edge of Cartersville down through the towns of Emerson and Acworth and Kennesaw into Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta, where Soles 4 Souls had made a reservation for me at a hotel for the next two nights.
In the morning David Graben, from S4S, picked me up at the hotel. His daughter Megan had the day off and had come down with him, and the three of us drove to OKAb shoes. OKAb just made a donation of over 40,000 shoes, and then another 10,000 in my name, and so we stopped in for a thank you. We were given a tour of the company, and a Fox News van came to get the story.
After OKAb, David, Megan and I drove to a foster children warehouse, where we unloaded a truckful of shoes. It continues to amaze me to discover all of the people and places who help put shoes on peoples' feet. The need is enormous, though I had no real idea when I first found S4S online.

The idea for the walk began to take serious form last fall. Sometime, probably October or November, I was messing around in my Desktop Publishing class and ran across the S4S logo. It quickly became obvious that their mission and mine could intertwine, and so I sent an email to the info line on the S4S website.
David was the one who the email was referred to, and he and Chris Carmichael had a little bit of dialogue with me through further emails. It's interesting to hear the story from David's perspective, now.
"We weren't sure what to make of you," he tells me. "One day I got an email from a kid who said he was planning a walk across the country, barefoot. We kind of probed the idea, and didn't think much of it, and then suddenly you were walking."
David and Megan and Sparky (nickname) - the man who drove the truck of shoes down from Nashville - and I went out to lunch, and afterwards they dropped me off back at my hotel.
At which point Carol and Don called.
I met the Hamelines back in Nashville. The have S4S ties, and went along for the walk through town and the shoe distribution at the mission, and then lunch afterwards, and then went with Wayne and I to hear Tiffany sing that Saturday.
They've been in contact since, and came up to meet me in Atlanta. Saturday they picked me up as I checked out of the hotel and took me to the Georgia Aquarium. Afterwards we headed east, and they put me up for the night in the motor home, which they had parked at Stone Mountain, a campground/huge tourist attraction thing outside Atlanta.
Yesterday Don drove me down and got me back on highway 41, and I walked all day, then they picked me up again when it got dark and I stayed the night in the motor home again. Today was the same schedule, and it's safe to say that I've acquired a temporary support crew.
I've essentially been taken hostage by a couple of New Englanders with funny accents. They let me walk, but don't let me cook, sleep in the cold, lose at cards, or in any other way fend for myself. It's terrible. But you have to understand, it's hard to flee when I'm on foot and they have wheels. Anyway, if somebody asks for ransom money, you know who to blame.
Tonight it's raining heavily, and I'm warm and dry, and am more than thankful.