RALEIGH (AP) — Hugh Armstrong says he hitchhiked and walked 1,000 miles south from New Hampshire without knowing who he was. Then he heard his granddaughter’s name in a McDonald’s in Asheville and started to fill in a few blanks.
Armstrong, 72, had been missing for more than two weeks, when he disappeared after going for a walk while on vacation near a New Hampshire lake. The retired IBM employee stacked hay for a Pennsylvania farmer along the way, hitched a ride to Virginia and made his way to his home state of North Carolina.
A sheriff’s deputy found him walking on U.S. 70 at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, and identified him as a missing person by the initials on his wedding band.
Armstrong hadn’t been able to remember his name since he fell into a ravine while walking near New Hampshire’s Stinson Lake on July 25, but he knew his age and thought he might know someone in Asheville. That’s where he found himself in a McDonald’s trying to sort things out.