Hello from Room 827 at the Marriott Town Center in downtown Charleston, West Virginia. The outside temperature is dropping, all while soft snowflakes cascade by the hotel window onto the cold pavement below. 

There’s an old backpack in my apartment. I’ve had it since college. And since those academic days back in Connecticut and greater New England, it’s held my road journals. 

Sitting in The Scotsman in downtown Waynesville on Sunday evening, I found myself sporadically watching the last NFL game of the season as the Detroit Lions eventually overtook the Green Bay Packers.

New Year’s Eve. A little past 9 a.m. in Room 211 of the Holiday Inn Express on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, within earshot of the airport and the bustling Interstate 40. 

It was another quiet Sunday morning in the ole humble abode in downtown Waynesville. But, this go-round, it was Christmas morning. Emerge from bed. Grab a glass of water. Check emails. Open the front door and check how much colder today is than yesterday.

Sunday morning. Across the globe, Argentina and France were battling it out in the World Cup soccer final in Qatar. Half-a-world away, and yet I was already a half-hour late for the early morning “Bloody Marys & Futbol” party up the mountain ridge outside of town at my friend’s house. 

It’s 51 degrees with a warm sun and blue skies hovering above downtown Waynesville. A little after 2 p.m. Monday with a cup o’joe in-hand while sitting at Orchard Coffee. Folks milling about in conversation, others simply reading a book or typing away.

Hello from Room 128 at the Red Roof Inn in Hardeeville, South Carolina, just north of the Georgia state line off Interstate 95. It’s 10:01 a.m. Yesterday, I awoke in Room 208 at the Hampton Inn outside of Lake Wales, Florida.

As of yesterday, Monday, Nov. 28, I’ve run 2,525 days in a row. I hadn’t checked in on “the streak” in a while, but was curious at where it stood after coming across a 2021 article for Outside magazine, titled “The Minds and Habits of Master Streakers.”

I was about an hour behind schedule leaving my native Plattsburgh, New York, the truck aimed for Waynesville and greater Western North Carolina. Some 1,100 miles in one direction, and yet it was already 1 p.m. on Thursday when I finally embarked from my folks’ farmhouse.