The Road to Yorktown

A few other hardy souls seem to have the same interest in the Yorktown anniversary that I have. Good luck to them all.

ON ROUTE 7 IN MARYLAND -- When you're going 3 mph, you can smell the honeysuckle.

Not honeysuckle-scented air freshener or honeysuckle-scented candles. Real honeysuckle by the side of the country road.

That's one of the joys David Holloway, Mike Fitzgerald and Dave Fagerberg come across on their 685-mile march from Rhode Island to Yorktown. The three are retracing the steps of American and French soldiers who trapped British troops 225 years ago during the siege of Yorktown.

"Our favorite times are when we're out in the countryside by ourselves," Fitzgerald says. "When you come over I-95, the sound is just so loud. And the ground is shaking. You can feel yourself start to tense up."

Sometimes the three carry their flags next to four-lane bypasses, but most of the 40,000 steps they take in an average day are on two-lane roads that wind under old stone railroad trestles and past farmland that hasn't been turned into a subdivision.