Three days and a little under 60 miles of hiking to the cadence of peanut butter jelly time. We are slightly nauseous but a feeling like rockstars. We learned alot about endurance, found that our feet are much tougher than we gave them credit for and, when you burn about 6000 calories in three days, it is necessary to eat lots and lots of food. Also, even though the white toe taping made me feel all tough, really, it was more of a hindrance and blister promoter than anything. My naked toes came through blister free. Andy’s feet were a little dicey but the blisters are toughening up and I think very soon, he will have feet of steel.

After walking 24 miles to Bethany OK Monday night, our training was “compromised” by Trina and her husband Steve who made us vegetarian Indian curry and provided a luxurious private bedroom with our own bathroom. We tried to be engaging guests but l feel like maybe we ate like ravenous wolves and zoned out. I was in bed by 9 while Andy hung out with our hosts a little while longer.

While in bed, I got a disturbing call from Andy’s sister that hadn’t been able to reach us for the prior three hours. She said that Andy’s mom had a heart attack.

It was a scary few minutes until we got all the information. She was feeling chest pains and called her doctor, who told her to go directly to the emergency room. Talking about it later, we wondered what she thought her doctor might say? “Oh JoAnn, it’s probably nothing, just take a few aspirin and elevate your feet.” She went almost immediately into surgery to put a shunt in her heart to clear a 90% blockage. I’m writing this two days later. She’s home from the hospital and feeling better already. We offered, along with his sisters, to get on a plane that night, but were all told not to. We all have plane tickets to visit at the end of the month that were booked already. They were adamant that we should wait.

Tuesday we made sure our cell phones were charged and on to be able to get calls from family and walked the 10 miles to Oklahoma City to see the memorial. On the way there, I came across such a spectacular photo op, I would have paid money to have my camera.

Early in the day on the corner of a somewhat busy intersection, scores of Obama supporters were dancing, cheering and flashing Obama ’08 signs at the cars passing by and waiting at the stop light. People in the cars honked and waved. They were young, excited, racially mixed and having a hell of a fun time. Standing quietly next to the bright yellow walk/don’t walk sign was a man in his mid fifties to early sixties. He was wearing tan pleated docker pants and a blue oxford shirt covering a more than slight paunch. He had snow white hair and gold rimmed glasses. He was standing close to the Obama supports but obviously separate. His red, white and blue sign read “McCain/Palin”. It was actually somewhat sweet.

Wednesday we started our trek back at eight in the morning walking directly into 19 mile an hour wind for most of the day. The weather reports predicted rain and we saw and felt storms at our back almost the whole way home. The grey, rolling clouds caught up with us about four miles away from “home”. We got out of the sudden downpour by stopping for dinner, and watched out the plate glass window as the wind blew the rain horizontally and the sky went a darker shade of grey. We thought about calling someone for a ride home, but after putting in so much time it seemed like there was no way we weren’t going to finish.

The rain mostly let up and we decided to go for it, thinking we had only four miles to go. Unfortunately, because of walking into the strong winds all day, it ended up being more like seven. Three miles difference is considerable with black thunder clouds overhead, lightning and in some places ankle deep water. Dinner gave us some inspiration and physical strength and we got back on the service road.

Finally we saw the red glowing $189.00 a week Value Place sign of home. Just as it came into focus, less than a mile away, it started to hail slightly less than golf ball sized chunks of ice. We sprinted a quarter mile to a overpass and sat underneath watching cars and truck dangerously sliding around on the freeway and slowing to try to avoid the cars on the shoulder.

When there was a break in the hail, we decided to go for it again, this time not caring about jumping in ankle deep water or taking care not to get too muddy. It was nice to be inside and take a hot shower but surprisingly, I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I thought I would be. I’m already scheming a trip for next week.

*political post script:

I was considering writing an entire boring, long winded entry that no one will read about my political views. But that sounds dreadful. Instead, I decided to write the above boring, long winded entry about hiking. If you’re interested, just know that my beliefs can be sumed up in the best half hour episode of South Park: Giant Douche (with applicator) vs. Turd Sandwich (with a pickle). If you want to watch the whole thing, and you should, when the clip is over it will ask if you want to watch the whole episode. Click the link and then click on the episode, season 8 episode 8 (eighth square from the left). It’s a Puffy, or Diddy or P. Diddy (I’m not sure what he was calling himself in 2004) character face with sunglasses on.