June 16th, 2009

 

9 miles

What a lightening and rain storm last night!  Yeow!  I got rocked out of my canvas tent at 2:15AM by an Iowa original rainstorm.  I thought that I would be hit for sure but according to system of counting by seconds to see how far the strike was from me, the closest was about 2 seconds!  The flaps on my tent only tie shut and consequently, I had quite a bit of rain running in the door last night, and of course the worst is knowing that you have to get up in a few hours and go walk in this stuff and without a coat or without any rain gear…because why class???  That’s right, because we are doing what the pioneers did over 150 years ago.  Luckily for me, it was only raining and the lightening had stopped… as if that is a benefit to be able to just walk in the rain.
Made good time this morning (even in the rain), left at 7AM, traveled 9 miles and arrived at 10AM!  It gave me

the time to get caught up on all of the research and writing that I need to be doing.  Met some great people here in Newton at the LDS church and they let us put up our tent in the back of the property.  They also brought me a gift of some of the food that is indigenous to the area which I enjoyed. They couldn’t have been kinder.

I have had a number of television stations contact me today for stories they want to do in the next few days.  They will meet me out on the road somewhere.

And…. And…. I bought a pair of shoes that I think will HELP MY FEET!  I’ll let you know how that goes in the next few days.  Today was the best day for my feet so far.  The guys will appreciate this… I wrap my feet in duct tape.  That’s right… duct tape.  It’s the only tape that sticks to my feet in the water and it is smooth to keep things from rubbing.