Hancock, Maryland. 271 miles.

People
Coincidence no. 1
I was sitting outside a church making a phone call when some people wandered out, asked me what I was doing, and invited me in for a drink. In my typically polite British fashion, I declined because I'd had just had lunch and plenty to drink. One of them introduced himself as Bob Allen.
Three days and forty miles later, I walked into a bookshop looking for maps, and who should be in there but Bob Allen. He invited me to dinner and this time, rather less ungraciously, I accepted. This led to the creation of Goddard's Law: if you've got the choice between walking one more mile or meeting one more person, meet one more person.
This is Bob with his wife Rika, sons Hira and Yoshi, and foster-son Austin. Among other things, Bob lectures in the ethnography of the Amish people, who live in large numbers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He was a fund of interesting facts. I pitched my tent in their back garden, and Hira put his newly acquired one up next to mine. We got rained on, but we lived to tell the tale.

Coincidence no. 2
And this is Paul, Carol and Amanda Cheshire, of Dublin, Pennsylvania. I was sitting in the street and playing with my phone; Carol and Amanda were sitting in a cafe opposite wondering what I was doing. Being Americans, instead of keeping it to themselves, they came up to me and asked. I told them, and they promptly invited me home.
Paul, it soon transpired, is a translator like me - I've never met a fellow member of my profession by chance, simply because there are so few of us. He is translating the Bible into Malinké, a language spoken in Senegal; I translate crappy inter-office memos and PowerPoint presentations. He is serving God, I am serving Mammon, but our jobs are much the same.
[Photo to come]

Coincidence no 3
And finally, I'd like to introduce Stuart Hamilton and Dave Toolan, two doughty Brits who've had the brazen effrontery to walk across the States at the same time as me. They're following the American Discovery Trail, which starts in Delaware, and began three weeks before me. But then they were laid up in Washington DC for a long time, thanks to Dave's dodgy tendons. I was aware of their existence because I'd discovered their truly excellent and very witty website, and we spoke on the phone a couple of weeks ago.

Two days ago, I was approaching Hagerstown, Maryland, and followed my usual practice of ringing the local paper to see if they were interested in a story. The news editor said: "Oh, thanks for ringing, but I've just been speaking to your friend." "Er, I don't have a friend," I said (Well, I do have one or two, actually, but they have wisely elected to stay at home). "Your friend who's walking with you," she clarified.

Then it dawned on me: "Is one of them called Stu?" Yes, they and I had both arrived in the same small town on the same hot afternoon. I reckon the chances of that happening are approximately infinity to one, and the journalist who interviewed me said her colleagues had discussed whether we were operating some kind of scam.

We finally managed to meet up for lunch today. For obvious reasons, we have a huge amount in common, and we got on like a house on fire. I wish them all the very best with their walk and their fundraising.