On the cold, windy morning of March 5, 2002, Joyce and Peter Cottrell of New Hampshire hiked up Cape Henlopen in Delaware. Heading west, they strode away from the Atlantic sunrise.
"It was a golden strip -- almost like a walkway," Joyce Cottrell said.
From there, it was one foot after the other along the American Discovery Trail for 257 days and some 3,960 miles.
They hauled massive packs across the state of Delaware and on across Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, almost 700 miles across Colorado, Utah and, most recently, the Silver State.
When the grungy pair arrived at the top of Six-Mile Canyon near Virginia City, they were met by the stares of two Storey County Sheriff's deputies.
"When we walk up to you, we're weird-looking," explained Cottrell.
When the Cottrells asked for a hotel, the deputies pointed them toward to the Sugar Loaf Mountain Hotel and sped off. It turns out the deputies hurried there first to spread the word of the couple that had walked across America.
"Everyone there was really kindhearted," Cottrell said. Don and Joyce Hinzpeter, owners of the hotel, even watched the couple's packs the next day so they could visit the town's stores and museums.
"You've got a lot of kindness here," Peter Cottrell said.
The couple is living in Carson City for the time being to make some money for the rest of their trip.
Living at the home of Dale Ryan, Nevada coordinator for the American Discovery Trail, the Cottrells walk the 11/2 miles each day to their jobs at Wal-Mart.
"I offered to drive them, but they want to stay in shape," Ryan's wife, Bonnie, said with a laugh.
The Cottrells -- who expect to be the first people to backpack the entire American Discovery Trail -- have met plenty of equally hospitable folks during the last year.
Sitting at the Ryan's table Thursday, they told the story an 80-something man who offered them a ride in his white Cadillac into Herrington, Kan. They refused, in order to walk the entire trail, but later worried they had hurt the man's feelings. When they saw him again later in town, they accepted his offer for breakfast.
"He said, 'I've already eaten so you go ahead and order, and I'll do all the talking," Joyce Cottrell said.
The guy turned out to be an author -- and hilarious entertainment. They have stayed in touch and received letters from the Kansan.
"We've never laughed so hard. He's not some literary genius, but it's just that it's coming from his heart," Cottrell said.
"There's somebody we meet like that every day," Peter Cottrell said.
From offers of a yard to a spare room to sleep in, the Cottrells said they feel Americans are kind -- and they've got a mailing list of 168 people to prove it. They even recuperated from the flu at a camel ranch outside Moab, Utah.
"The people of the United States have been the most kind and warm-hearted we've ever met. It's not a generalization, it's actual fact."
Joyce Cottrell worked as an electronics inspector for 25 years before the trip, She and her husband, who inspected auto parts, left their jobs after being refused leaves of absence for the trek. They found jobs at Wal-Mart because it's a stress-free environment, and worked at a store for four months in Pueblo, Colo.
While they still have to go back and cover two snowed-in mountainous stretches -- the middle of Utah and the middle of Nevada -- the Cottrells are eager to cross California to the West Coast.
They look forward to seeing a sunset over the Pacific.
"It'll probably be foggy and cloudy," joked Bonnie Ryan.
"Then we'll wait for the next day," said Peter Cottrell. "We'll see it, we'll see it."
ON THE NET
www.discoverytrail.org/