Ryan and his father---both sporting the "RF" sign, in the Appalacian foothills of West Virginia outside of Parkersburg.  

Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast running with his dad in West Virginia. 11/28/04

Trust me, this guy was serious. He's looking at our IDs right now to make sure they're not fake. 

Coast to Coast "uncensored" -- somewhat

Coast to coast provided all participants, those on the road, and the support staff an incredible opportunity, and enormous trust was placed on us to “not screw up.” Mossman would always finish his conversations with me on the run with “be safe.” I know people were extremely nervous about the experience, so some innocent items were omitted from blog entries from the road, so that people wouldn’t get nervous.

There were tensions on the road between people, and between subgroups on the trip. The experience was indeed a stressful one. Things weren’t always wonderful during the whole trip. In fact, sometimes things got pretty damn trying between people. Don Campbell, a ’79 runner told me that if nobody kills another runner, then we’ve done a good job. The inter-RV tensions were because on a trip like this, we fall into survival mode, and we become clan-like. It’s actually really interesting how each of us reverts into survival mode on an experience like this. If we had more inter-RV interaction, I think the issues between the groups would have been mitigated. Oh well, lessons for 2029.

We learned to absolutely appreciate state police. We were pulled over countless times, but we didn’t get one ticket. The state police were really interested in the run, and were extremely supportive of our effort. In fact, in New Mexico, we were encouraged to stay on the Interstate, which was simply amazing. Local police were another story, however. We had a local authority threaten runners and drivers with arrest in eastern New Mexico. In Missouri, we were accused of being terrorists, manufacturing bombs in our RV, with the intent to blow up a small electrical substation.

The Missouri story is particularly interesting. Firstly, Missouri state roads stink. They have no shoulder. The white line is painted on the edge of the road and they were quite dangerous. It’s a stroke of luck that nobody got injured from a vehicle strike during the whole trip, particularly east of Kansas. Because of the dangerous shoulders, the RV that I was living in backed into a driveway of a substation. We were sitting for about 30 minutes, and a town police officer approached our RV. He questioned our intentions, and we told him our story. He asked us if we had any papers, which of course we didn’t. However, we did have a newspaper that told of our story. He didn’t buy it. He was convinced we were terrorists. I told him that RIT Campus Safety contacted the state police and notified them of our event. I don’t think he was too fond of us talking about the State Police, however. He asked to search our RV, and one of our runners said, “sure.” I however wasn’t too keen on this idea and I blocked him from entering the vehicle. He wasn’t too happy with this, and threatened to call 10-11 Sheriffs deputies. I told him that that was fine with me, but I would not grant him access to the vehicle. He kept mumbling how we could be making a bomb in the RV. He asked if any of us had outstanding warrants, and then asked us to come outside, and present identification so he could “check for warrants.” Of course we were clean, but he kept accusing us of making a bomb. After about 45 minutes, he let us proceed.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad staff weren’t too happy with us running on the side of the road that was next to railroad tracks outside Phoenix.

When on the roadside, watch out for small cactus. On coast to coast, the entire country is your bathroom, and almost all of us appreciated this luxury, except when it was raining. Things are bound to go wrong on the trip. We didn’t drive the route and explicitly go over the route with the runners, so things are bound to go wrong. Flexibility is key to success on this event. Mitigate risk. Wal Marts are everywhere, except when you need them. Purchase extra fuses. Arizona and western New Mexico definitely has the most interesting terrain of the trip. When you hit Missouri, you’ll wish you were in the western panorama. In Texas, which smells, people know you’re from “snow country” when you are wearing shorts in November. Route 50 in West Virginia is pretty crowded with cars at 5:30 a.m., and don’t park the RV on a narrow blind turn.

That’s all the innocent “uncensored” items that I can think of for now. Comment away with other innocent “uncensored” items.