Walking America in the 70s

He decided he was going to walk across America because walking you meet people. He had this giant Malamute Alaskan Husky mixed dog that was going to go with him. So then he walks, it takes him two years and he lives in Appalachia...and ends up in New Orleans where he's going to stop and write his first article for National Geographic. And while there he meets a dark haired beauty in the Baptist Theological Seminary which is my mother and they fall in love.