I've been posting photos to my Flickr account for a while now, and they're supposed to get picked up automatically by this blog, but for some reason it's not working. If you're interested, they're here.

It was always my intention to try and get involved in the places I passed through, rather than come and go like a ship that passes in the night. I've only been here for a week, but I'm already starting to feel like part of the scenery. Next Tuesday is Halloween, and I've been told I haven't lived until I've experienced it in New Orleans, so I'll probably leave after that, if I can tear myself away.

I'm starting to feel at home here, and were my time in the country not so limited by my visa, I'd be tempted to spend a few months here. I'm starting to understand why so many of those who stayed after Katrina feel so passionate about their city.

I've already evolved a daily routine: after breakfast, I cadge a ride from a fellow volunteer or take a taxi from my hotel to St Bernard.

It's a sobering journey: once you leave the downtown area, most of the houses have suffered varying degrees of damage; block after block is derelict and abandoned, and people are few and far between.

It can also be hard to find your way around because so many street signs are missing, making taxi driving a sometimes frustrating job. The journey is punctuated by surreal sights like this gas station canopy.



The work is hard and dusty, but not hugely demanding; I've been spared the worst job of all, gutting filthy, flood-damaged, mould-infested houses, and instead I've been installing plasterboard in homes that will soon be ready for the occupants to move back into. Tens of thousands of people are living in white government-supplied trailers in their front gardens until their houses are repaired.

Zack Rosenburg and his colleagues at the St Bernard Project have a real flair for motivating volunteers and making them feel part of a team, and for this and other reasons I'm enjoying an excellent social life at the moment. It helps to make up for the relative solitude of the walk, and will sustain me when I head off again next week.

I thought it was worth reminding ourselves of the person this walk is dedicated to, especially since, if you came to this blog via the AICR website, you won't have seen her picture.

I just found this on my laptop. It was taken in January 2005, five months before Jayne was diagnosed; she looks the picture of health, but she already had advanced colon cancer and didn't know it. Next Wednesday, it will be exactly nine months since she died.

If you'd like to know more about her, there's an obituary I wrote here. With hindsight, I think I focused too much on her work and not enough on what a lovely, funny and colourful woman she was, but there we go; we define ourselves too much by the jobs we do.

I've adopted Jayne's motto on this trip: say yes, and worry later. It's got me into some extraordinary situations, but they've all been good ones.

The house I worked on for my first two days in New Orleans was that of Jack and Mazie LaFond, both 74. Jack has emphysema, so he?s had to sit and watch as a succession of volunteers from all over the country restore it to its former glory. It?s a simple but beautiful 130-year-old building, with high ceilings and ornate woodwork, and is now almost ready to move into.

On Friday evening, we sat in the sunshine on the front steps and Mazie shared her memories of Hurricane Katrina with us.

'We?d known for a few days that a hurricane was on its way. We?d been through them four or five times before, and we thought this one was going to turn away from New Orleans, but it didn?t. We almost waited too long, but eventually two or three of our daughters called and said it?s going to be a bad one, so we set off on highway 61 in a combination of excitement and fear.

'We were going to stay with a priest we knew in Garyville, Louisiana, but the traffic was bumper to bumper, and eventually we turned round and headed back in the opposite direction.

'We ended up renting rooms in South Haven, Missouri, and we also stayed in various other places in Louisiana, Texas and Minnesota. We didn?t think we?d be away for very long, so we only took three or four days? clothes and we left our pet cockatiels at home.

'Then we heard on the news that St Bernard, our parish, was gone, and there was also a story about St Rita?s nursing home nearby, where 35 people died. So we expected the worst.

'We didn?t come back until the second to last week in September, two weeks after the storm. We were very impressed by the eight-foot crucifix we passed on our way into the parish, that said: ?Jesus is still alive in St Bernard?. There were soldiers with guns everywhere, and trees had fallen all round the house, but it looked OK.

'Inside, though, it looked like someone had put everything into a giant washing machine and spun it upside down. The flood water had been four feet deep, and the place was coated with black spots of mould that were getting bigger and bigger and becoming all fuzzy, like they were growing hair.

'The carpets were still saturated, all cushy and mushy. The cockatiels were lying dead on the floor, and apart from the mould, there was also a terrible smell because a wild pig had been sleeping in the house.

'There was only a trickle of water, and no electricity, so we had to go to bed at 5pm. The Salvation Army and Red Cross brought us food and gave us money ? they were wonderful ? and a church group helped us to gut some of the house.

'We got tired of waiting for a trailer from FEMA to live in, so we bought one ourselves, and eventually my son in law contacted the St. Bernard Project, the charity that?s doing the repairs.

'Rather than leave all our damaged furniture and other belongings on the highway, we burned it all. We even had to burn our bibles ? that was the hardest thing.'

California is the Golden State, and Texas the Lone Star State. But it was new to me that Tennessee is nicknamed the Volunteer State, because during the war of 1812, volunteer soldiers from there displayed particular valour at the battle of New Orleans.

Maybe walking through the state has had a subconscious influence on me, because I've decided to do some volunteering myself. For some weeks now, I've been thinking about helping to do some clearing up after Hurricane Katrina, and when I got to Memphis I looked at the map and found that New Orleans was due south on interstate 55. So I hopped on a bus, and here I am.

I'm doing about a week's work for the St Bernard Project, a charity working in St Bernard, one of the city's worst affected parishes, offering rebuilding and other services to local people. We're working on a house which was left under five feet of water and had to be gutted and reconstructed.

I haven't been to New Orleans for twenty-five years, and I'd forgotten what an incredibly beautiful city it is. But it's a sad place at the moment; half the population has left, even downtown many shops and offices are still boarded up, and parts of the outer parishes look like a war zone, with almost everything swept away. However, it's also a time of hope, and an opportunity to rebuild a new and vibrant city and learn from the mistakes of the past.

I was a bit nervous about doing building work, because my skills don't extend much beyond putting up shelves, but the others were very patient about remedying this deficit.

They included a group of New York firefighters who'd taken a week's unpaid leave. As one of them said to me: "If everyone in the country took a week off and helped out down here, this problem would be sorted in no time."

They were also rather more generous with their time than the people of Memphis with their money. I was on the 5pm and 10pm ABC local news on Sunday night, and the station publicised my website details, but do you know how many donations I got from this city of 1.2 million? Precisely one.

I'm writing this on Monday from a top-floor room at the Marriott in Memphis, looking down on a tangle of rainswept freeways. They gave me two free nights, and I cheekily asked the duty manager today if I could have a third. To his immense credit, he said yes without a moment's hesitation.

I'm extremely grateful for this generosity, and the break couldn't have come at a better time. I've been covering a lot of miles in the last few days, perhaps spurred on by the lure of the big city, the last rest day a distant memory.

As I approached Memphis last night, I felt a familiar and unwelcome twinge in my right leg that grew steadily worse. I've been overdoing it, and I?ve got shinsplints again for the first time since Pennsylvania, so I need to take it easy for a while.

Amid all this luxury, I'm very conscious that while my days are a long, hard slog, my nights are usually spent in the comfort of a motel or someone's home. At the height of summer, it felt like I was spending my whole life in an airconditioned cocoon, scurrying outdoors into the sizzling heat, walking fifteen miles or so and then ducking back inside again.

I'm particularly aware of this when I compare my walk to Dave and Stu's. The last time I used my tent was seven weeks ago, and I've only slept in it ten times; they use theirs most of the time.

That said, I know things are going to change soon. I've reached the Mississippi, and from here on the dots on the map start to spread out, so I'll have to get used to more nights under the stars.

I recently discovered another new hiking word: flashpacking. I thought it described my situation quite well: no longer a penurious student, doesn't have to worry quite so much about counting every penny, computer equipment weighs more than clothes.

At least I'm not doing it in quite the leisurely style of Art Garfunkel. He took twelve years to complete the walk that inspired his album Across America, in about three instalments a year, allegedly delivered to the start of some of them by his chauffeur - not that this detracts in any way from his achievement.

I've just been reading an interview with him, and one passage really struck home because it precisely echoed my own beliefs.

I was never really hassled and I find the world, this is going to shock people, but the world is a safe place. Almost the entire world is trying to mind their own business and stay out of trouble and find their way to heaven in their own way. They just can't be bothered with you.

If I had a dollar for every time someone told me to be careful because there's a lot of crazy people out there, I'd have enough to fund a cure for cancer.

So often, the subtext is this: the people where I live are the salt of the earth, but you can't trust the guys five miles down the road any further than you can throw them.

All the way down route 79, I was with assailed with dire warnings about Memphis. 'You just watch yourself,' one person told me. 'It's a rough place down there.' Eventually, I almost started to believe them: I was heading for a war-torn ghetto with a crack den on every corner and a mugger behind every lamppost.

Yes, Memphis is one of the country's most crime-ridden cities, and there are some areas where you'd definitely think twice before taking an after-sunset constitutional. But I've constantly been struck by people?s fear of the other, the nameless shadows that lurk beyond the light of the campfire, anyone that looks or sounds or smells or feels even remotely different from themselves.

I was also struck by the last sentence of that quotation from Art Garfunkel. Some people stop their cars, get excited, invite me home, spread maps out all over the kitchen table. More often they ask me what I'm doing and then just say oh, or change the subject. One boosts my morale, the other puts me in my place, but both are good for me.

Some people should be banned from owning mobile phones.

Remember when I took time off and hitchhiked to Florida recently, some anonymous and mean-spirited individual with nothing better to do dialled 911 under the mistaken impression that hitching was illegal?

Well, today I had another brush with the long arm of the law.

I was on the road from Arlington to Bartlett, an outer suburb of Memphis, and I did an interview with a delightful ABC reporter, Paige Robinson. Then we said goodbye and I continued on my way.

A few minutes later, a police car cruised up beside me.

'We've had a report of a woman lying at the side of the road, and a guy walking,' the officer said accusingly.

'Well, the guy walking could be me,' I admitted, half expecting him to tell me that using your legs as a means of locomotion was a felony under the Tennessee penal code. 'But if there'd been a woman lying beside the road, I think I would have noticed.'

Then it dawned on me. 'Oh, Jesus, I know what's happened,' I said, and explained.

Paige had been in an almost prone position, hunched over the camera on the ground as she filmed these lovely legs of mine. If you'd been severely shortsighted, cerebrally challenged and desperate for excitement in a little country town on a grey Sunday afternoon, you could just about have mistaken her for a woman in her final death throes.

The policeman grinned. 'Takes all sorts', he said, wished me luck, and drove away.

There doesn't appear to be an offence of wasting police time here like there is in the UK. Still, at least it was another statistic for my walk. Number of times questioned by police: 4. Number of times treated as prime suspect in murder investigation: 1.

Artist Billy Tripp, 51, has created one of the world's largest metal sculptures, right here beside my motel. Entitled Mindfield, it's 200 feet long and up to 125 feet high.


Among the components are a water tank (the tower on the far left), which Billy cut down and transported here from Kentucky and, immediately to its right, a fire watchtower.

'I started the piece in 1989, and I hope I'll still be working on it when I die. It's a conversation with myself, and it's not really meant for other people; it's my gravemarker - I've specified in my will that I want to be buried underneath it - and it's also a cenotaph for my dad and mom.

'After I've gone, Mindfield will be looked after by the Kohler Foundation, which maintains outdoor artworks by self-taught artists.

'It started out as a lot of smaller pieces stored on concrete blocks, and I decided to join them all together with structural beams to form a larger whole. I've painted it nearly all in grey because that's my favourite colour, and I've also put lots of more colourful pieces around the site boundary.

'When I began Mindfield, a building inspector slapped a "stop work" order on it because he thought it was a building. Not everyone was happy with it, and I heard people phoning in to radio talkshows to complain, but I was helped by the fact that my parents were very highly regarded in Brownsville.

'The planning board wanted to know when it would be finished and I said I didn't know, but one member of the board said, "I vote to let him ramble on". Generally speaking, the locals have been favourable, and I think that speaks highly of the city.

'I was extremely close to my dad, but he died of prostate cancer in 2002. Before he died, I took him up to Wisconsin to see another big outdoor sculpture, and on the way we passed this abandoned lamp factory.

'There was a 109-foot-high water tank in the grounds, and I decided I just had to have it for Mindfield. I christened it Deena, after the name of the lamp company, and I spent a year negotiating with the company's bank, constantly waiting for a message on the answering machine to say I'd got it. In the end they sold it to me for $1,500.

'My dad was in hospital by now, and I told him, "I got Deena." But he was all drugged up, and I don't know if he understood.

'He died shortly afterwards, and I used the tower as a way of avoiding coping with his death. I was out there cutting it down the day after he died.

'My Harley Davidson, which I call Sylvia or Sylvania, is another conversation with myself. It makes me smile, and talks back to me.

'It's all about birth, sex and death, and it's decorated with family mementoes like my father's wedding ring and a pair of his socks. There are lots of topless Barbie dolls on it, and plastic flowers that blew across the road from the cemetery, and there used to be pictures of people having sex.

'Anyway, someone at the Harley dealership phoned the police and complained that there was this bike outside the store with obscene pictures on the front.

'A policeman came round and said you're going to take those pictures off or I'll give you a ticket, not because they were offensive but because they could be a distraction to other drivers.

'I took the ticket because I wanted a judge's opinion about whether this violated my constitutional right to free speech, but the judge ruled against me and I was fined $50 for inappropriate display.

'I've taped over the pictures now - I didn't put them there to shock or offend people, they were just statements about loving communication between adults.'

Walking out of Humboldt this afternoon, I became conscious of something moving just behind me. It was a large black dog, a retriever or something like that, and instead of barking at me like ninety-eight percent of other dogs it was just quietly trotting along, so I took an instant liking to it.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries, I patted it, and it wagged its tail and ran off ahead. As it did so, it veered to the left - straight into the path of a truck.

If the dog had put on a burst of speed it would have escaped, but it froze, and disappeared under the wheels. For a moment I thought it might survive by crouching down low, but it was killed instantly and the truck scarcely braked, speeding off into the distance just like the one that had hit me.

I dragged the dog into the ditch at the side of the road, and then thought maybe it belonged to the owner of the house with an open gate just behind me. So I started walking back, and as I did so a guy in his 60s or 70s came down the drive.

'Was that the dog?' he shouted.

I nodded. 'Is it yours?'

He looked sad. 'She arrived here five weeks ago, and just stayed'. It wasn't very long, but clearly long enough to build up an affection, and he walked up the road with me and dragged the body out of sight into the woods.

It was a sad coincidence, because ten days ago when I stayed with Ben, the guy with the beautiful house, we went out to dinner in town. As we drove along the narrow country lane in the darkness, I saw something white out of the corner of my eye, whirling like a piece of newspaper blowing in the wind. By the time we'd realised it was a dog running into our path, there was a thump and it was dead.

Unlike the truck driver, we stopped to apologise. The owner didn't seem put out at all, simply dragging the carcass unceremoniously across the lawn by its hind leg. I'm glad it wasn't a much-loved family pet; like so many dogs I've seen here, its purpose seemed mainly to be barking at strangers. But it made me think: one moment you're gambolling around with not a care in the world, and the next you're dead.

They could do with a few lessons in customer service here in Humboldt.

Last night, I went to a bar, where it was happy hour until 6 pm. I had a beer, and then at five to six I asked for another one. The barmaid gestured at the two clocks on the wall, both of which read 6.15.

'Sorry, happy hour's over,' she drawled.

'No, they're both wrong,' I protested, but she was not to be moved, so I left.

Then I arrived at the motel just along the road, where the manager had turned taciturnity into a whole new art form, reducing the check-in process to precisely six words: smoking or nonsmoking, forty-nine fifty. She also barged into my room at 7.15 am without knocking, and walked out again without apologising.

But I went across the road in search of dinner, and happened upon the world's friendliest branch of Pizza Hut. There was none of the usual polite deference, just a lot of people having a loud conversation and plying me with questions because they'd seen me out walking earlier.

I sat down with my book, and one of the waitresses shouted across the restaurant: 'What's that you're reading?' Here was someone after my own heart: whenever I see someone reading, I always have to see what it says on the cover. So I went across and told her, and we had a discussion about the kinds of books we enjoyed.

Later she came and sat at my table. Her name was Holly, and she told me about her father, who'd died of cancer at the age of 39, and her mother, who had it now.

As I made a second visit to the salad bar, I caught a snatch of conversation among the staff. 'He's got nice legs, hasn't he?' 'Yeah, must be all that walking he's doing.' I pretended I hadn't heard.

When I went to pay my bill, they told me Holly had already paid it out of her own money, so I went into the kitchen and planted a great big kiss on her cheek. One person like her can make the difference between a bad day and a good one.

I'm heading southwest down Tennessee highway 79 towards Memphis, my next main destination, ninety miles away.

It's not been great walking: the road is long, straight and busy, with a hard shoulder only six inches wide. After my bruising encounter with a pickup truck I no longer trust drivers to steer clear of me, so I keep stepping aside for them.

But the walk has been enlivened by the slowly changing landscape, and by the constant reminders that I'm in the south.

The first was drifts of white fluffy stuff blowing around on the side of the road, heralding my arrival in the cotton belt.





What's more, it's harvest time. Picking machines bustle to and fro in the fields, leaving billows of sandy-coloured dust in their wake, while the loose cotton is compacted into huge loaf-shaped bales known as modules, to be taken away by truck.


Another distinctive feature of the landscape is kudzu, also known as the vine that ate the south. Introduced from Japan in the 1930s to combat soil erosion, it's now rampantly out of control, covering huge areas of countryside, smothering everything in its path and growing by up to a foot a day. As it envelops trees, bushes and telegraph poles it creates bizarre natural topiaries, like primeval creatures clawing their way up from the bowels of the earth.



Last night I stayed in Milan (pronounced Meilen), earning myself the distinction of having walked from Paris to Milan in two days. The road out of town was perched on a levee, cutting straight through a huge expanse of waterlilied swamp that reminded me of the Everglades. Whole swathes of trees had been stripped of their foliage by a tornado that rampaged its way across the county last April.

A lot of people on this trip have made a big impact on me, but none so great as the anonymous driver of the white pickup truck I bumped into yesterday afternoon as I walked into Murray, Kentucky.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I found this sign at the 1,000-mile mark, which seemed rather appropriate. I felt quietly pleased, and the female passer-by who took my photograph congratulated me; it wasn't exactly a tickertape ride up Fifth Avenue, but it was better than nothing.

A mile later I heard a car coming up behind me, there was a loud bang, and an excruciating pain shot up my arm like an electric shock. I'd been hit by the wing mirror, and since the pickup was probably travelling at the speed limit of 45 mph it hit really hard. The driver sped off into the distance - they must have heard the impact, the mirror would have been knocked out of position, and they could probably see me doubled up in agony, but they weren't about to hang around to find out how much damage they'd done.

I felt angry, but I also counted my blessings, because if the truck had been driving another six inches to the right, I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this. I've been very aware that I've been trusting the thousands of drivers who pass me to drive carefully and give me a wide berth, and they're not always going to repay that trust. My elbow is bruised and swollen, but I'll live.

So on I went another mile, and found two smiling faces waiting for me beside the road: William and Thomas Rasinen had seen my "coast to coast" banner, and were inviting me to stay the night. William is no mean long-distance hiker himself, having completed 1,100 miles of the Appalachian Trail in one go, so we have something big in common. Their appearance was particularly timely, because I was still in shock and I needed someone to let off steam to.

As a walker, William was familiar with the concept of slackpacking - leaving your pack with a helpful friend and walking without it - and he suggested I stay two nights. So today I crossed the state line into Tennessee and then came back to his home in Kentucky in the evening. He, his brother, and their girlfriends Sarah and Sonja have been truly delightful company, and I'm extremely grateful to them for helping me to leave Kentucky on such a high note.

Maps only tell you so much. They tell you which way the road bends and how big the next town is, but they're not very forthcoming about who you're going to meet along the way, or which of two routes is the more scenic. Sometimes there are exceptions to this, and you can tell long before you arrive in a place that it's going to be beautiful.

I've had my eye on the Land Between the Lakes for a long time now, and today I passed through it. As the United States' largest inland peninsula, it sticks out on the map like a hitchhiker's sore thumb. The Cumberland and Tennessee rivers flow in parallel for about fifty miles, separated only by a narrow ridge, and both have been dammed to form lakes.

It was a grey, drizzly and mournful day, but the scenery was uplifting. First there was a long sweep of bridge across Lake Barkley. As I reached the halfway point, a quarter-mile cavalcade of coal barges, herded from behind by a single tugboat, passed beneath my feet. The pilot waved lazily from the bridge, and I felt the same excitement as a child attracting a train driver's attention.

Then came twelve miles of winding, undulating road lined with autumn foliage, followed by another vertiginous bridge across the huge inland sea that is Kentucky Lake. Heights as such don't worry me, but there was a strong wind blowing, and in such situations I have an irrational fear that something precious will blow away, like my wedding ring or my glasses. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the asphalt below me until I reached the other side.

Yesterday the temperature reached 89F, but today was the first cool day I've experienced in over three months, and for the first time I felt underdressed in my shorts and t-shirt. There's more 80-plus weather forecast over the next few days, but the writing is on the wall as far as this summer is concerned.

Tomorrow, with a bit of luck, I should reach the thousand-mile point. I know I've already celebrated by going to Florida, but I still feel I should mark it in some way, though I've no idea how. Perhaps something will occur to me when I get there.

This is the smallest place I've ever written a blog entry from. It appears to consist of this ten-room motel, a couple of other nondescript buildings, and a 55-mph speed limit sign.

Something tells me I won't be painting the town red tonight. There are no other guests in the motel, the owner has packed up and gone home, and there's a powerful and all-pervading musty smell - though this is not his fault, as he's still clearing up the mess after a recent 8-inch deluge caused serious flooding.

My heart sank when I arrived in the room and realised I had several hours to kill before bedtime. But once again, the internet saved the day: there was another small deluge of emails to answer and messages on the blog. These mean a great deal to me, and have often cheered me up after a miserable day, so please do keep sending them on the slightest pretext.

There's so much wit and wisdom in some of the emails that I wish I could share them with you. So next time, why not consider a message on the blog so that everyone can enjoy it? Obviously, if you're a debt collector or a blackmailer, best keep it private.

Oh, and talking of powerful and all-pervading musty smells, my friend Alex of Leeds (the one who sent me the postcard the other day) has emailed asking if my socks are smelly. Well, Alex, if you go into the garden and breathe very deeply when the wind is blowing from the west, you should just about be able to catch them.

I'm back in Kentucky after my break in Florida, and I start walking again tomorrow. I'm hoping I don't get blisters or shin splints again after two weeks of exercise deprivation.

Here's another coincidence. I passed through the Nashville area on both my outward and return journeys; both times I was invited to stay by people who'd given me rides, and both times they had truly extraordinary houses. I'd like to thank them all very much for their memorable hospitality.

Debbie Perdue and Joe Tant rent a 200-year-old cottage on the outskirts of town. Debbie is a Goth, and has turned the entire house into a set from a horror movie. Natural light has been deliberately excluded, the walls and ceilings are draped with lifelike cobwebs and spiders, and coffins also feature prominently in the decor.

The whole house is a work of art, an expression of Debbie's personality. Joe accepts all this with bemused resignation, though he's very proud of her creativity, while the landlord has no idea of the nightmare metamorphosis his house has undergone.

The house is packed floor to ceiling with dolls, which Debbie makes and sells on eBay. She buys them from thrift stores and then turns each one into a unique creation, with deformed limbs, gaping wounds and exposed innards, and liberal spatterings of fake blood.

While the dolls are unlikely ever to feature as raffle prizes at a vicarage tea party*, Debbie is an extremely talented artist. 'They used to be owned by kids, and I exhume them and bring them back to life,' she told me. 'Adults can love for longer than kids. I want them to be loved.'

The floors and ceiling of my room were draped with black parachute silk to keep out the light from the windows, but apart from being pitch dark it was extremely comfortable.

My room in Ben Teague's house, where I stayed last night, was equally commodious but somewhat different. It was also the first time I'd slept in a four-poster bed.

Ben restores old houses as a hobby. His latest project, Riebeek-Kimbrough Hall, is a spectacular 23-room plantation house dating from 1864, with a 21-acre site including a lake and a helicopter pad. He bought the house in 1986, dismantled it and transported it 90 miles to its current site.

Many of the neighbours are country music singers, and Willie Nelson lives nearby. The house once belonged to a member of Elvis Presley's backing group, the Jordanaires, and Elvis's Cadillac used to be parked in the garage.

The property is currently on the market, and Ben has promised me 10% if I can find a buyer. So if any of you has a spare $3 million knocking around, let me know.

*What's the American equivalent of this?