A California Man is riding in-line skates across the United States. He rolled into Carbondale Wednesday night after riding across southern Illinois all day.
Eric Baldwin and his girlfriend Clementine Ruel rolled through Carbondale on Thursday on a trip across America. Eric is on inline skates and Clementine right there with him on her electric bike.
This trip started as a personal challenge to skate across America. Eric has been skating all his life. After deciding that he was going to do it, he wanted to do it "for" something.
"I coached hockey for three years in Namibia which is a country in south Africa. That's where I met my girlfriend. We saw that there's a lot of interest in inline hockey down there. But there's not a lot of money to maintain the sport because it is quite expensive," Eric explained of his goal.
He is using the trip to raise money so that he provide hockey equipment for people in Namibia and surrounding countries after seeing the response from the people he coached.
Eric and Clementine post updates about their progress to their social media pages.
They are three weeks into their trip, starting in Yorktown, Virginia on May 24th. Their plan is to finish in 2 months winding up in San Diego California. They're making this trip without car support, traveling with a tent and supplies on Clementine's bike.
Eric says he's really enjoying the opportunity to get to see the country and meet people on the way, "Every little small town offers it's unique taste. We're going through middle America for most of the route. We're taking back country roads with cool people and small towns. That small town America feeling has been awesome."
You can follow their trip by looking for their username @skateacrossAmerica2025 on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
