There's a gray-haired man with a New England accent traveling along U.S. Route 6 in Northeastern Pennsylvania this week.
He's not lost.
In fact, his route is very clearly marked.
Joseph A.P. Hurley is about a month into his 3,600-mile journey across the nation. Making the trek in a car, or on a bike or even on roller skates would be quite a feat. But it's Mr. Hurley's feet that are getting him so much attention.
Mr. Hurley is making the trek on foot.
He'll rarely leave U.S. Route 6 as he threads through more than 400 towns in 14 states on his way from Provincetown, Mass., to Bishop, Calif., where the highway officially ends. Then he'll follow the highway's original path to Long Beach, Calif.
He stepped foot into Pennsylvania in Matamoras, Pike County, around 9 a.m. Wednesday and made it through Pike and Wayne counties by Saturday night. His walk through Lackawanna County began Sunday morning, and by last night, he reached Clarks Summit.
His next few days will be spent walking from Clarks Summit to Tunkhannock and then a week through the Endless Mountains of Wyoming and Bradford counties. He should be taking his last step in the Keystone State -- in the Crawford County town of Pennline.
After making it through the first four states in his journey, he's learned some valuable lessons.
Gel soles in his blue New Balance sneakers are vital.
Sunscreen would have come in handy in New York (where he suffered slight sunburn). And every person and town seems to have a story to tell.
It's the thought of hearing those stories that enticed him to make the harrowing journey, which he hopes will end around Thanksgiving.
Mr. Hurley was a reporter for the News-Times of Danbury, Conn. for 30 years. He hopes to use those reporting skills to bring the people and places on "America's Byway" to the rest of the country. He's putting his "reporter's journal" on-line as often as he can and filing reports on the historic places, the interesting and the odd people and he encounters along Route 6.
His photographer, Lin Horst, is following along in a Geo Metro, toting the requisite supplies and snapping images as Mr. Hurley plods along.
Mr. Hurley and Mr. Horst have come across people like Brian O'Malley, a ferry captain who's plied the waters off Cape Cod since 1971.
Places like Shohola Falls, which Mr. Hurley strongly encourages people to hike back to rather than just view from the road.
He gives high marks to his first impressions of Pennsylvania.
Milford, Hawley, Carbondale and Dickson City were just a few of the nearly 24 Pennsylvania towns he's traveled through so far. He said he lucked out by walking through Milford as the town prepared for its annual Pear Festival. And in Honesdale he encountered the town's annual Spring Festival.
He has a list of goal places he wants to see on the portion of his trip through the Keystone State. The list includes Steamtown National Historic site, the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour and the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania in Tioga County.
And though he repeatedly identifies himself as "crazy" there is a method to his madness.
"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," Mr. Hurley said. "In some ways they're right."
In the next few months, he believes his walk will test that theory.
So far some people have offered him a ride and others have driven by him without slowing down during a heavy downpour as he walked through Connecticut.
He said his greatest disappointment is that more people don't walk with him for a mile-stretch or more. Some have, but he said more company would be welcomed. He does appreciate the honking horns from the traffic that whizzes past.
He is already a day behind schedule and he expects that will be a common trend as he discovers places and people he didn't expect to encounter. Like the young brothers who offered him a banana and a dollar bill while he was passing through White Mills in Wayne County.
"I'll tell you this," he said during a stop in Waymart. "Pennsylvanians are the friendliest people I've met so far. Quite a few have stopped to say hello or offer me water. I've been impressed with their pleasantness."
He's disappointed he didn't do this 10 years ago "when I had a younger body," the 59-year-old New Milford, Conn., resident said.
His feet are already aching and he's just now reaching the true mountainous part of the trek. From Ohio to Colorado is a pretty flat portion of the walk. When informed the next stretch of his journey is through the Endless Mountains his smile briefly went away.
"If I can get through (Pennsylvania) then it will be smooth sailing...until the Rockies," he said.
