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FTP Journal Excerpts: ARTICLE 03.25.04
Provincetown/Hyannis MA
[Photo] Joe Hurley, the reporter who began a 3,600 mile walk across America Friday. He's following Route 6 from Provincetown (Cape Cod) Mass. to Long Beach, CA
(photo: Travis Lindhorst)
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People say Americans have changed - America has changed - in the half-century since I was a kid in Boston. They say we don't know our neighbors any more; we won't open our doors to strangers; the sense that we're-all-in-it-together is gone. America today is a colder, harder neighborhood.
In some ways they're right. If you read the newspapers, watch TV, or check the Web, the world is different. The culture has changed, the image has changed, technology has changed. The 50s were Ozzie and Harriet, we're Will and Grace.
But take a close look at your friends, your family and yourself - are we really so different from generations past? Average people, like us, will lend a hand. We still care about right and wrong, we're still trying to make the world a better place.
In the next few months, I'll be walking across the United States in search of the heartbeat of America at the dawn of a new century. I'm sure I'll find many people who would fit comfortably into their parents and grandparents shoes…
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 Just yesterday I talked with Brian O'Malley, a ferry boat captain who's plied the waters off Cape Cod since 1971. When you ask Brian about the hardest part of his job, he'll tell you, immediately, that he never had enough time with his wife and daughters.
"My wife's been wonderful. When I was away half the time, she raised the girls by herself," he said.
[Photo] A barge powered by a backhoe moves slowly through the harbor in Hyannis, Mass. The operator dredges parts of harbor with the yellow backhoe then uses the shovel and arm to propel his craft, swinging the shovel from side to side like an oar. Hyannis is off Route 6 on Cape Cod, where Joe Hurley began his 3,600 mile walk across America Friday. (photo: Travis Lindhorst)
Accompanied by photographer Travis Lindhorst, I'll walk the entire length of Route 6, the longest (or second longest, depending on your point of view) highway in the nation even though it's a two-lane street in many places.
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Accompanied by photographer Travis Lindhorst, I'll walk the entire length of Route 6, the longest (or second longest, depending on your point of view) highway in the nation even though it's a two-lane street in many places.
Think of Route 6 as America's byway - a local road that meanders across the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific.…
[Photo] Travis Lindhorst who will take photographs during Joe Hurley's 3,600-mile walk across America.
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Travel Route 6 and you'll discover an America you'll never see from a superhighway. You'll find women tending flower gardens, old-timers sitting by the roadside, kids getting on school buses and folks hanging out at the diner. These are the people we'll meet as we discover America together.
I'll walk about 20 miles a day, five days a week. Travis will drop me off in the morning and pick me up at the end of each day's walk. (He's the one who will have to listen to me moan and groan.) During the day, Travis will take pictures. We'll stay in local hotels, motels, inns. Already a number of inns have offered us free rooms. That's a welcome break, since we're operating on a shoestring.
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Today, as we prepare for the walk, we're in the Carriage House Inn in Chatham on Cape Cod. The owners, Jill and James Meyer, risked their life savings to buy the inn last year. Yet, they opened their doors to a couple of strangers with the odd idea of a slow journey across the country. That's the kind of America I believe still exists - and it doesn't hurt that James cooks a great breakfast.
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On Thursdays, we'll file stories and pictures with newspapers that are following our adventure. On Mondays, we'll travel (by car) to interesting places not quite on Route 6.
We invite you to join this adventure. Read about our struggles (there will be many) and triumphs. See places you didn't know existed; meet people you won't forget. Feel free to walk along on any part of our trek or just waive as you drive by. After all, you are what I'm searching for. You are part of the heartbeat of America.
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Full Stories and Hi-Res Photo Logs Available to Newspapers and Media.
Contact Joe Hurley
email: japhurley@hotmail.com
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