After 148 days, 3,100 miles and the endless repetition of putting one foot in front of the other millions of times, Ben Davis is back in Little Rock and readjusting to the routine he left behind five months ago.
On the positive side, he gets to see his girlfriend every day. He can eat breakfast at Leo's Greek Castle in Hillcrest, and he no longer has to plan on walking 30 miles to Wal-Mart when he needs food or supplies.
But there are things he's already missing from his cross-country trek: staying and eating with different families each night, meeting new people and the ever-changing landscape.
"Little Rock is great," Davis said, "but it doesn't change."
Davis arrived a week ago at Boston's Pleasure Bay, the final destination in his walk across the country that started Feb. 27 in Los Angeles. He was greeted by 30 or so friends, family members and Instagram followers.
"It was a really cool moment to be able to hang out with them," he said.
Davis said his emotions were mixed upon arrival at the beach. He called it exhilarating to be finished with the journey, but it was also a reality check.
"It was tough to give up that way of life I had grown accustomed to," said Davis, a former technical writer and marketer in Little Rock. "It was hard; it's still hard."
That way of life involved walking 25 to 30 miles a day while pushing a yellow stroller that held all his water and gear. His feet would begin to ache each day at mile 22 or so, but he said he would always wake up fresh.
His eastbound route placed the toughest obstacles early on in his journey: the Mojave Desert, the Painted Desert, the Rockies and the Great Plains. Isolation was the hardest part, he said, especially in the Mojave. A 140-mile stretch in the desert included only two gas stations, one at 50 miles and the other at the 110-mile mark.
For four days, "it was just me entertaining myself," said Davis, who would pitch a tent and camp off the side of the road.
The isolation relented as he put the miles behind him. He still had a long way to go when he reached the Mississippi River, he said, but there were more people on his remaining route, giving him places to stay and people to meet.
When Davis stayed at someone's home, it was usually because the person who lived there was one of his 24,800 Instagram followers, but he would sometimes ask strangers for accommodations.
He would approach strangers' homes, asking for water. Naturally, they would ask him about what he was doing. After hearing his explanation, Davis would then ask if he could set up his tent for the night on their property. Nineteen out of 20 times, he said, the strangers would give him a spot to sleep in the house or a meal.
Those details and many more will appear in the book Davis is writing about the journey. He wrote in his journal almost every night and then used his laptop computer to turn those entries into a narrative every week or so.
He said the book is about 90 percent done. Now, he's writing about making the adjustment back to his regular life. Its title: Ever Eastward, the saying his dad would text him as he moved closer and closer to Boston.
"That was kind of the rally cry for the whole walk," he said.
State Desk on 07/30/2016