No matter how many stories former walkers told us, we could not even begin to imagine what the next full week was going to hold. The craziest terrain, extreme heat conditions, and the worst of the worse blisters were in our future.
I was assigned to day shift this past week. I was pretty excited about that because I knew the scenery was going to be amazing as we walked through California. We walked through everything from cities to farmland to wine country to I don’t even remember. It’s only been a week, but feels like eternity!
I took the very first walking shift of the summer for the central walk and I went with Rita and Josh. We only had time to finish 10 miles, while the second shift did an additional 5 miles. The first day wasn’t so bad…the next should be a piece of cake. (Ha! I was wrong!)
Basically all my days are running together…but, I do remember some key events. On the second day—we got lost…several times. So, we walked like 14 miles in the wrong direction. The first night of walking…we couldn’t make it to an RV park so we had to sleep in a Walmart parking lot. What an adventure! We thought it was open 24 hours…but, we were wrong—so, the whole bathroom thing was interesting. Oh, also the stove and fridge in the RV were broken this week. Not to mention…we didn’t fill up the fresh water tank and Crossroads never uses the bathrooms in the RV for sanitary reasons. Good stuff.
Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we were able to spend the night in RV parks, so we got showers. Thursday night, however, was spent in the parking lot of a church. We go to daily Mass…and at one of the churches during the beginning of the week, the Parish gave us 72 servings of Sirloin Burger soup. Haha…the team can’t wait to eat it.
So…moving on to the exciting events. On Wednesday, it was over 100 degrees and I almost had a heat stroke…so, I had to sit the rest of the day out. Lets see—on Thursday evening we were in the mountains and had no cell phone reception. It gets better though—we got stuck in the SNOW in California in May! Haha. Josh decided he wanted to touch snow, so we drove down a forest road and before we knew it…the van is only a front-wheel drive and the snow was too soft. Bad combination!
Hmm…well, on Friday night we walked passed Lake Tahoe and we decided that we couldn’t miss out on jumping in. So we did…at 9 pm that night. It was actually pretty refreshing. I mean, we were freezing on the 2.5 hour drive back…but, it was definitely worth it.
We spent this past weekend in Sacramento—we had to drive back to the city since we made it to the Stateline on Friday night. During the weekend we stayed in this Catholic school that had a shower. I ended up speaking at about 10 Masses on Sunday and one on Saturday! You can’t say I’m not honing my public speaking skills.
We’ve been walking in Nevada since Monday on Route 50 (also known as the loneliest road in America???) On Monday we got stuck in a huge hailstorm and on Tuesday we got stuck in a huge wind/dust storm. Oh my…the excitement never ends! Anyways, I’m hoping to update again at the next RV park we go to—it’s rare.
Lets just say that I never treasured hot water pouring from a faucet more than I do now that I’m on Crossroads…
Until next time, Michelle
Hi Michelle. This is your middle sister’s boyfriend’s mom. You dad came over to eat last night. He told me about your fight for life by walking America. Amazing! We are so proud of you. You are in our prayers.