Backpacking Believers: June 2014

Hello Everyone,

It has been a while since our last blog post. We have hiked over 800 miles now across America and have seen a lot. We have been state park hopping here in Ohio. We have camped in our tent in a lot of nice places, lately. All of the parks have been different, some have putt putt, some lakes, some dried up lakes and some resorts galore camping. We have been blessed with free camping at some of the parks and food brought to us for breakfast and pizza for supper given to us at others. We have been on dangerous curvy roads, wilderness trails, steep hills and flat valleys and everything in between. We have seen more bald eagles soaring over us lately and this has been a blessing to us to see. We have seen them in every state so far, praise God. We have had to deal with sprained ankles, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders and snakes lately, but God has been good to us. We have had some very close calls with traffic as well. We have been able to rescue an infant brown bat and help it. This was so interesting and to here it cry for its Mom nearly made us cry. We also camped in a shelter on the Buckeye Trail. We went to Serpent Mound one of the largest effigies in the world. This was really neat to see and to learn about. We have walked in close to 100 degree day and also in the worst thunder storm yet. We are sure we have much more of this to come. All in all we are loving every minute of our walk in love and cannot wait to see what God has for us with each new day. Please continue to pray for us and we love you all and Lord Bless You.

Backpacking Believers

If you would like to help us on our walk with supplies or financially please contact us. We also have a donation account at Wells Fargo.... Backpacking Believers use Jennifer Sunde Thank you every little bit helps us in our walk. God Bless

Tar Hollow State Park

Hiker Treat

General Store Tar Hollow

GentleFir and Grounded Haug

Long valley road

Pretty scenery

Camping in trail angels yard

KatyDid and Grounded Haug

Beautiful Corn

GentleFir

Decisions.....

Pike Lake State Park camping

Little Brown Bat

1797 old hotel

Longs Family Resort campground

Long Farm Road

Pretty architecture

Serpent Mound

View from Buckeye Shelter

Buckeye Trail Shelter

Buckeye Trail wilderness walking

Beautiful Farms

Thunderstorm Selfie

Hello Everyone,

       Since our last post we have made it into Ohio. Our first day into Ohio, we were run out of town. This was very scary, we were told by a church to contact this lady at an orchard and camp there. Well, we called and left a message and then went to the orchard and talked to à man; her son, and he said his Mom was old and cranky. We waited for her permission to camp but instead she came and said to leave and she was calling 911 and we were to leave town. We were followed by her at 8:30 pm out of town. Then we were stopped by the police, he ran Chris' information and said there was no place to camp. Then her son was in the woods and he followed us too. We walked and walked and walked and we begàn to become afraid. Then here came the police again at 11:00 pm and took us home to camp in his yard safely. We did not get set up until midnight. What a blessing. Then he cooked us breakfast and took us back to the trail.
      We then met Amber and a group of community children and they all wanted to walk and escort us into town. We really enjoyed all of the children. Amber and the town let us stay the night at their community center. We will miss them all. We were very blessed again. We walked on out of town and walked through Amish communities and were offered to stay with them, but we had not walked far enough to stop for the night. We walked to a rustic cabin at Shew Orchard along the buckeye trail. We had bad weather but safe shelter and an outhouse.
         From Shew's Orchard we walked to Glouster, OH. While our map said there was lodging and laundry but there hasn't been anything open in 5 years. We were in a cafe' and asked about a church and we were offered to stay at a trail angels house for the night. That night turned into 5 nights. The Vernon family has been such a blessing. We were slack packed and went to church with them and became family. We volunteered at their churches spaghetti dinner and had a surprise birthday cake for Jennifer. We cooked out Mondày for Jennifer's birthday and took a zero day.
          Our trail angels slack packed us and then we all hiked Old Mans Cave together. It was great to have hiking companions. We were slack packed again to Ash Cave. The Vernon's church were on a trip to the cave and they waited on us for lunch and fed us. We hiked the cave and the falls trail, once again with companions. Our trail angels hiked with us again and it was wonderful. Thank you to our trail angels.
          We enjoyed resting and skipping rocks in the river for our last night together. The time has come for us to part our ways from our trail angels home and it will be very sad. It is always a blessing to meet new people and then become very close to them. The Lord has seen to bless us with wonderful Christian families on the trail and we truly have been blessed by the Vernon family these last few days. I hope you enjoyed this post. We will be walking towards Cincinnati this week. Please keep us in your prayers.

Lord Bless You All and We Love You All,

Jennifer