Outside the Lebo Diner in the Kansas town for which it is named, Arkansan Ben Davis posed for a photo holding a sign that read "50%," with arrows pointed in opposing directions.
One pointed toward the Pacific Ocean, from which he had walked; the other was pointed toward the Atlantic.
Davis, a former technical writer and marketer in Little Rock, set out on his coast-to-coast walk from Los Angeles on Feb. 27. In the course of his 1,600-mile journey, he has amassed a following through his blog and Instagram account, as well as on a popular discussion board on the website Reddit.
He stopped in Kansas City this week ahead of his 30th birthday — a milestone he says served as part of the motivation for the journey — and plans to set out again Monday en route to Boston.
Davis' rules, outlined in responses to dozens of questions he received on Reddit and through his blog, are to walk 25 to 30 miles a day, never ride in a car and try to spend around $1 a mile, but he admits they've become more like guidelines, he wrote.
For example, he says his biggest regret is turning down an hour-long ride to see the Grand Canyon, even though the driver offered to return to his location, so as not to cheat. He's now resolved to take some short car trips to experience the country — as long as he is still walking every foot across it.
In an interview with Arkansas Online, Davis said seeing the country one step at a time has given him a greater appreciation for the distance between cities most cover in a matter of hours by car or plane.
"It's a different beast when that 40 miles of no cellphone service takes two days to get across," Davis said.
The Beebe-raised Davis spoke of many of the people he's talked to during his journey: gas station attendants and hotel clerks, who may be the only people he comes across in a day.
"You crave that interaction," he says.
Those tracking him online — including more than 17,000 Instagram followers — leave numerous comments giving him words of encouragement, or testimonies of how his journey inspired them.
Before quitting his job for the trek, Davis had a side gig writing a weight loss blog and published his book, Do Life, in 2012. He said he plans on writing another book about his trip on his return to Little Rock.
Davis is well aware that he's not the first to make the cross-country trek. He read books by others who had completed the trip as part of his preparation, and he even met a walker headed in the other direction (and pushing the same yellow BOB Ironman-brand stroller) at a McDonald's in Garden City, Kan.
"By default, every single one of these trips are unique because no two walks are the same," Davis said.
If all goes as planned, Davis plans to reach Boston by the end of July, where he's invited his followers to come and celebrate with him at a yet-to-be-determined spot in the city.
After that, he and his girlfriend plan on making the trip back to Little Rock — by car.