Jim Armbruster left his home in Aurora on May 6 to go for a walk, only he wasn’t going for a quick stroll around the neighborhood.

Almost five months, three pairs of shoes and 2,200 miles later he would be standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, looking over the San Francisco skyline.

Along the route from the western suburbs to the Bay Area, Armbruster was not only accomplished a long-time goal but also raised more than $100,000 for Geneva-based Marklund, a non-profit that provides housing and care for profoundly disabled children and adults.

Armbruster’s epic journey began as a childhood curiosity from listening to his grandfather’s tales of traveling to Oregon in 1898 from the Chicago area. The country’s infrastructure was not quite what it is now, and his grandfather walked a significant portion of the way.

Armbruster, the CEO of ATMI Precast in Aurora, determined that he wanted to complete such a journey by the time he was 60.

As that birthday quickly approached, he decided to make a go of it. He began a workout regimen that included training on a treadmill and in addition to a 12-14 mile walk every Sunday.

Before he began the journey, Armbruster decided to make it a charitable endeavor. The selection of Marklund was an easy one for him, as he is a member of the board and has a son who is in the care of that facility.

“About a year and a half ago I decided that if I was going to do this that I was going to use it as a way to raise money for the kids (at Marklund),” he said from his RV, when returning home from his walk. “If anything comes out of this I hope it urges people to find out what Marklund is. It’s a spectacular organization.”

The cost of care is $20,000 a year for each person who lives in a Marklund facility, he said.

Armbruster had planned a cross-country trek to California when he was 40, but at the time it was not feasible. His business concerns outweighed his personal desires.

“The biggest challenge was getting the business big enough to where I could leave it for six months,” said Armbruster.

ATMI Precast now has about 500 employees and is large enough that Armbruster could leave it in the hands of a trusted management team.

He had an Internet connection throughout his trip, but day-to-day operations were mostly in the hands of others, allowing him to concentrate on his goal and take in the pleasures of his walk.

Each day, Armbruster would rise early and be walking by 6:30 a.m., with a water supply and a few energy bars. He had a strict, 20-mile a-day goal that he met six days a week for the entire journey. He rested only on Sundays.

“The real challenge was the first two to three weeks,” he said. “I had horrible blisters on both of my feet; eventually they did go away. I ended up losing 20 pounds on the trip.”

He had a support crew that consisted of a few dedicated friends, a motor home and a jeep. The motor home would be stationed at a RV park for six days at a time, while the jeep would shuttle Armbruster to his starting point each day and pick him up at the conclusion of each walk.

The route that Armbruster traveled went through Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. It is illegal to walk on Interstate highways, so he stayed on old two-lane highways, mainly U.S. Rts. 34, 36, 50 and 40.

Highlights for Armbruster consisted of coming face-to-face with a black bear in Colorado’s Rabbit Ears Pass, just outside Steamboat Springs, walking though a blizzard while leaving California’s Lake Tahoe, and attending a friend’s wedding in Park City, Utah, that had been timed to take place on his arrival.

Joel Rusco, CEO of Marklund, joined Armbruster for 120 miles of his journey stretching from Nevada into California.

“I’m 15 years younger than Jim, but I could barely keep up with him,” he said. “He was cruising.”

Rusco said that when Armbruster first approached him with the idea of doing the walk he was a bit shocked, but then thought that it would be a great idea.

The non-profit dedicated a page of its Web site to Armbruster’s journey, posting photos and journal entries.

Marklund operates with a $17 million annual budget, but 20 percent of that budget is not covered by state funding. Donations like the one generated by Armbruster are important to the organization, said Rusco.

“This is extra money that we weren’t planning on,” said Rusco. “We need these funds for staff.”

Armbruster said that he is not looking to compete with this event and has no plans of doing any walk that would top it.

There will be other adventures in his future, but for now he is content to take in all that his journey had to offer.

“Not a single day went by without something spectacular,” said Armbruster. “My favorite thing was being in the desert. I am used to driving through it at 70 miles per hour and thinking ‘why on Earth would someone want to live here?’

“But when you are there at dawn, with the sun coming up, it is quiet and surprisingly cold. It is a very beautiful place.”