In eastern Kentucky, there are 2,000 fourth and fifth graders watching Joe Bowen's every move. Now 62, Bowen is retracing a 14,000-mile bike ride he took when he got out of the Air Force in 1967. "I read [John Steinbeck's] Travels with Charley and was like, 'Man, I've got to do that,' but I couldn't afford a camper," says Bowen. Instead, he left Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California, by bicycle and, 16 months later, showed up back home in Kentucky. "I've always known I had to do it again." Not that Bowen was idle in the meantime - he's the stilt walker. In 1980, he walked 3,008 miles on stilts to raise money for muscular dystrophy. "I'm a little bit of a ham," he admits.

Bowen started on April 8, 2005 - 38 years to the day after he began his original trek. Along with retracing his cycling route, the retired construction manager is also rekindling some of the friendships he first made back in 1967. He says these remeetings offer confirmation that a "faded memory" is really true: "You would not believe the reunions." Take, for instance, what happened in Sheridan, Wyoming. "Thirty-eight years ago, I rode into the little town and I only had a few dollars. I stopped by at a little restaurant and told the owner that I was looking for work. He said, 'I'll help you,' and found me a job working two weeks stacking hay on a farm." He also let Bowen sleep in the restaurant - as long as he cleared out by the time the breakfast customers arrived. "I thanked him, left, and had never written to him." But a local gave Bowen the man's number when he got to town on his return trip. "I called him and said, 'Do you remember a young man in 1967?' and he said, 'Joe, is that you? I'm coming to get you, and you've got to stay a couple days.' He's just an incredible old man. I guess I was good medicine for him."