These Knees Were Made For Walking

Carrie's walk across America blog

This is Me

Carrie Overgaard

Retired

thesekneesweremadeforwalking.com

My name is Carrie. I live in Bynum, NC and love it here. A small community that sits on The Mighty Haw river. I have lived in this small township the entire time I have lived in North Carolina. I was born in Seattle, Washington and moved here in 1992. I worked for UNC Hospitals as an RN but I retired a couple of years ago from a career in nursing that spanned around 35 years. Now, I am working toward fulfilling a lifelong dream of walking across America.

When I was a kid we took road trips for vacations, mostly to visit my mom’s family in Wyoming. Around 8 years old I started asking if it was possible to walk there. I would ask my dad about miles and how long. Who knows what else. Over the years I would periodically plan out the trip. The last time I remember was a few years ago. Jerry Seinfeld was looking at the ELF mobile, made in Durham. There was a short news piece about and I thought “I could use that”. I

Then I retired and decided to go ahead and do this. I had a false start the year I retired but that turned out to be a blessing. I had done no training and very little planning. Now, three years later, here I am. Trained and planned. And with Jack. I adopted him in September from the Chatham County Shelter. I think I got lucky. He is a good dog. Smart, friendly and well behaved. (there is a story there but that will be for later.)

Here some resources and pages that I used to plan my trip

Rails to Trails Conservancy: https://www.railstotrails.org/

This is a great organization, in my opinion. They convert decommissioned railroad lines into walking and biking paths. And they are building the Great American Rail Trail, a through path from Washington, DC to La Push, Washington. That is my map. By using railroad lines I won’t walk more than a 2% grade. Essentially, everything is flat. It also adds about 1000 miles to the walk. But what the hey? 3000? 4000? It’s all flat. I can do that.

There website has all the details of the trail so if you want to know anything about where I am, etc., this is where to look.