|
|
||||||||
|
By MELISSA WALKER |
 |
|
Photo: Joe Hurley of Danbury, Conn., walks along Douglas Avenue in Waukee on Friday morning as he continues his trek across the country on U.S. Highway 6. Hurley said he was surprised by the variation in Iowa's landscape. ROBERT NANDELL/THE REGISTER |
|
Four pairs of shoes and 1,500 miles later, Joe Hurley is well on his way to walking across the United States.
Hurley, 59, walked his 5 millionth footstep as he made his way into the metro area late last week. He stopped in Clive July 15 and meandered through Waukee on Friday morning as he continued a trip across the country walking on U.S. Highway 6.
Iowa has been much different than Hurley, of Danbury, Conn., anticipated. He entered the state in Davenport on July 2 and was expecting to see only corn and flat land. Instead, he found much hillier countryside.
"I think you guys deliberately foster that myth so people don't come out here and you don't grow too much," he said.
Hurley came up with the idea for walking the country after he walked U.S. Highway 6 across Connecticut in 1999. He saw how different the people on one side of the state were from those on the other and decided to see how people had changed nationwide since he was a child growing up in the 1950s and '60s.
Hurley is going through small towns to get an idea of what American life and "regular people" are like.
He decided to go forward with the idea after he retired last year.
"In many ways, I wish I had done this 10 years ago," he said.
Hurley is writing stories about his cross-country journey, and the tales appear in about 40 newspapers.
He will leave Iowa via Council Bluffs on Friday. On average he walks 20 miles a day, five days a week. He started his journey in Cape Cod, Mass., in March and will end in Long Beach, Calif., in late November or early December.
When Hurley leaves Iowa, he will share with others the stories he has uncovered - including his first 90-degree day when he had to break out his huge straw hat and long running pants to protect himself from the sun; his visits with a 92-year-old farmer selling corn near Walgreens on East Euclid Avenue in Des Moines; and his fascination with the air-conditioned downtown skywalk system.
He also talks about a magician he met in Davenport who claims to have the only magic show in the state.
Photographer and driver Travis Lindhorst is traveling with Hurley. Lindhorst drives Hurley to his beginning point every morning and picks him up when he is finished walking his 20 miles for the day.
Lindhorst also photographs different scenes from the walk. Hurley's trip was the perfect opportunity to photograph the entire country, Lindhorst said.
"The timing was right for me to take that jump if I was going to be a photographer," he said.
Lindhorst also has been there to listen to Hurley complain about the aches and pains the trip has caused his body.
"Every day, especially in the beginning months, there was some kind of pain, an ache that you wondered if this was going to stop the trip," Hurley said.
He said he asks himself at least 20 times a day why he is doing this.
"You have to have a will and stubbornness to get yourself through," Lindhorst
Copyright © 2004, The Des Moines Register
