July 18th, 2009

 

28.1 Miles

It was a marathon day and was my longest walk so far to date.  I wanted to put two days together so I could have an extra day off.  I have done this twice this week and the reason is that the Archway Pioneer Monument and Museum that spans Interstate 80, is going to be doing some publicity with me and I needed the extra time off, another reason is that Fort Kearney was a place where you might be able to barter, buy or trade for some extra supplies, so I have given myself the opportunity to be invited to a dinner (charity) and hopefully to hire myself out to work for some extra supplies that I have lost, due to the rain.  So far, Bill Rasmussen, a friend of my brother in Seattle, has let me use his shower (thank goodness) and he also fed me a wonderful dinner high in protein, an item that I have been sorely lacking lately.  It may be a stretch, but I accepted.  Bill and his wife Diane are also setting up different religions to walk with me on Tuesday, which will be awesome!  By the way, I weighed myself after the shower and found out that I have lost 25 pounds in 40 days!  I wouldn’t recommend this method of weight loss.  The carpal tunnel just isn’t worth the trade off. I was met by a number of wonderful and curious people along my trek today and will show their photos as soon as I get them downloaded to the net.

Once again when I went to church today (Sunday), they had a pot luck dinner afterwards and for the fourth time, I abstained.  It smelled and looked wonderful and the church members were very kind and generous, but I felt like I need to abstain.  I will eat charity from a private home, but for some reason, I just have a hard time justifying this large buffet of food at the church.  Thanks for the offer anyway.  I was going to eat, especially the macaroni salad that I have been craving, but I just felt that I shouldn’t.  Anyway… I gave a talk to the young men and women this morning because they are going on their youth trek to Martins Cove in a couple of weeks.  It seemed like everyone was interested in what I had to say.  I appreciated the opportunity to share my experience(s), so the youth are going to join me for 6 miles when I leave on Tuesday.  I welcome the company.  We are going to walk a bike path that is very close to the trail and will keep everyone safe.

I am supposed to be interviewed by the ABC station here in Kearney on Monday.  I’ll let you know how that goes.