As I start my second day, I pass an older fellow having his morning coffee or tea. “Good morning.” He cheerfully raises his cup “Merry Christmas to you!” “And Happy Easter to you” I reply! Not quite the typical, familiar beginning to my hike, but a wonderful beginning never the less!

This beginning differs. Unlike the start of the South West Coast Path in Minehead, there is no sculpture in St. Austell announcing my hike’s beginning. Unlike Canterbury Cathedral and Rev. Emma, no great religious site or person to offer blessings the morning of my beginning. Unlike my Via Francigena start in Aosta with the Italian Alps surrounding me, I see no towering mountains beckoning me onward. This second half of the South West Coast Path has a relaxed, familiar beginning. That is fine!

The “relaxed” beginning is in part due to what I’m not doing. I’m not carrying my backpack; instead, I only have my daypack with the water bladder, a protein bar, and some rain gear. Although the past two days have only consisted of 6 miles and 8 mile walks, I already feel like a youngster again. Well, maybe that is overdoing the difference; yet, I definitely have a bit more spring to my step than I expected.

The “familiar” part of my beginning is that I feel as though my path is similar to my neighborhood or Stone Mountain. Not what I expected to feel! Of course, the dramatic features of the path scenery differ. I pass five-hundred-year churches. I walk with beaches and the English Channel to my right. I pass light guard house and a “Day Marker”, an 80’ striped red and white Tower built before lighthouses.

What borders the path is the ordinary beauty of wildflowers on both the right and the left, a community garden, a private well cared garden, a beautiful stone stacked wall, and more. As I am strolling through the community garden, I, in impromptu fashion, ask a passing walker if he knows the name of a plant right beside him. “I don’t know the common name, but that plant is a ceanothus.” Of course, every English walker knows the Latin names of plants.

There are spring flowers and shrubs everywhere. Although some consider rhododendron almost a “weed shrub” in southern England, the flowering shrub is beautiful!

Again, sometimes the path is bordered by the not-so-beautiful. Just like home. The train tracks on my left. The socially exclusive, the restricted golf course on my left connected to a rather expensive looking hotel.

Who is on the path, or about to be on the path, makes me feel familiar. Yesterday, as I pause at my first intersection of several trails, I meet a couple from nearby Devon who are here for a week holiday. Later, I meet a couple whose son and wife have moved to Atlanta within the past few months!

This morning I meet Martin and Mike, two fellows in their 60’s. Martin, from Gloucester, comes south several times a year simply to enjoy walks either inland or along the coast. Mike, from eastern Canada, is walking a hundred miles of the South West Coast Path for the first time. Like me, they want to enjoy the path and create memories. While walking today, I meet an elderly fellow sunning himself.

The familiarity of the path is also because of the dogs walking their owners. I have never seen so many dogs on a path. Single dogs, paired dogs, even three dogs at a time. As I was walking downhill, one dog races by me trying to catch the ball bounding ahead of him. “He doesn’t know anything about gravity” the owner says as we pass.

I know another cause for this familiarity. Every single person that has spoken to me speaks English. Even though I have to ask the fellow from Yorkshire in the north to repeat himself, I understand what he and others are saying. How nice!

One last piece of familiarity. Walking out of the Fowey parish church this afternoon, I immediately see a Tour Cornwall van. Well, the first week of June, Mary and I, my cousins and their husbands, will be using Tour Cornwall, a small local tour company, to show us around St. Ives. Walking up to the fellow next to the van, I introduce myself. “Hi Curt, I recognize your name through the emails. I’m Tim. Are you enjoying your walk?” Four thousand or so miles away from home. Arrangements conducted by email for a future tour in 5-6 weeks. A tour even in a different part of Cornwall. But, here I am chatting with Tim as though we are best buddies. Now, that makes me feel at home, in a familiar neighborhood.