WV Activity #1: Pile into Ryan’s Jeep and head out of town down a windy, poorly maintained road with nothing stopping you from rolling down a big steep hill. But once you get to the bottom and cross an awesome 80 foot high bridge you get to a parking lot and find that a few dozen other cars made the trek down to Blue Hole. The river is crowded by people in water with coolers and drinking beer, some people diving, some just resting in the water. …

Once again I find myself connect to some peers through the article printed in U.25 Magazine. West Virginia was a tough state to find connections. I was greatly disappointed a couple months ago when a wonderful and enthusiastic family said they were host me, and then backed out. Among the other most difficult states to find hosts were Hawaii, Louisiana, Alabama, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Maine. Notice that most of these are in the second half of the trip, which I haven’t spent as much time to plan, so it’s on me. …

Pennsylvania is done, that’s 45 states complete. It has been a goooood stop! Lot’s of great food, cookies, ice cream cream, cookie dough ice cream with homemade cookie dough mixed in and it was finished with two great meals eating out before leaving town. If you’re in Bellevue you need to stop in at The Rusty Nail for breakfast. They give you 4 strips of bacon! That’s very unheard of. I love my bacon and most places will give you a wimpy two strips, three if you’re lucky. …

I’m a dreamer. And for the first time I last night I had a dream about the end of my trip. It was kind of a reality check and wake up call. The dream took place on the last night of the trip where I was spending just one more night in a host’s bed. It was an interesting feeling when I woke up. Each night it’s getting a little more exciting. …

I knew that at some point on this trip I would find myself at a zoo, but I didn’t think it would take 45 states for it to happen, even though I’m not a huge fan of zoos, they’re just a little strange. Mostly I walk around feeling sorry for the animals. But anyways… there we were. Christian moved along pretty fast, stopping in to see everything, but usually only for a few seconds and then off to the next. …

What a day! Full of adventure, new things, and variety. This will go down as one of the best days of the trip probably. Perhaps I should make another list, the top 10 days of the trip. I’ll have to give that some thought and see what I can come up with. It was great that I had my own room. Couches can get old after a while. It allowed me to sleep in for a nice slow start to the day. …

It’s been another full day and a good one at that, except for this terrible hot weather. Sorry, but I’ll just never been able to handle this. Yuck! Especially during manual labor, which was my chore this morning before leaving State College. Katie and Jasmine had nothing but boxes in the living room when I arrived at their apartment and today was moving day. They kindly asked if I could help them pack the U-Haul before I headed out. …

About a month ago I found myself in Newburyport, MA where I met up with Jimmy, a reporter from the paper. He had a lot of questions about the trip that were “off the record,” as he was just very curious about my entire trip. It’s great meeting people who actually cannot hold them selves back from asking more questions. He asked, “Do you mind if I ask about night lift and if there has been much on your trip? …

Since starting at Michigan State in 2001 and becoming a bigger fan of Big Ten football each year, I have since wanted to go on a Big Ten campus tour, experiencing each university for a few days. I’m not too close to seeing them all yet, but I’ve made it to Penn State, the 5th Big Ten school I have seen, and the 11th school in the Big Ten for those of you who don’t know (yes, in the Big Ten we don’t know how to count, but personally I think it’s cool that they admitted an 11th team without changing the name). …

I’m restless again. I’m sleeping less at night. I’m rolling around in bed. I can’t concentrate on thoughts. My mind is all over the place. I’m having all the same feelings as when I left on this trip. I remember hardly getting any sleep the night I left. I was full of excitement of how I took this huge dream and put it forward into reality. Now I am full of excitement of how I took this huge dream and am VERY close to accomplishing it. …