The event Day #1

Up early after only 3 hrs of sleep, we loaded the car, made PB&J sandwiches, grabbed a juice and off to the long term parking lot…..by the way, this was @ 4am! Arrival @ the parking lot was not as bad as anticipated… of course not; nobody in their right mind is up on the roads @ 4am! We got to the parking area, parked, unloaded our gear and headed to opening ceremonies. Did I mention it was 48 degrees? Brrrrrrrr! So, since I was so worried about parking we are only 2 hrs early for the ceremonies, we visited the booths, got our lanyards for our credentials, used the potty and took lots of pictures. Opening ceremonies was a very emotional time….. a time to remember the ones we lost and a time to remember the ones we loved that are fighting. We raised a flag with the names of the loved ones we are dedicating our walks to. We cried, laughed, cried again, danced, shouted, danced again and then headed out for our first 20 miles! Our first pit stop was great. We had beverages: water & Gatorade. We had food: bananas, oranges, chips, granola bars, graham crackers with pb&j, cheese sticks and peanuts. We also had potties! We had Medical and thank goodness we did not need that tent! At the first pit stop Erika & I fell to the end of the pack waiting our other team mate, but we quickly caught back up with the other walkers. The residents of the towns where we walked were amazing. They were standing by the pathway, cheering, clapping, thanking us for walking and handing us candy & goodies! The entire community got involved! We continued to the second pit stop. We had more of the same at that pit stop as well. The graham crackers with the pb& j are the BOMB! Don’t know where they got those or the company that make them, but they are amazing. I grabbed one at each stop that had those and stored it away in the fanny pack! LOL! Then it was off to the trail again. Our lunch on the first day was: Turkey/Cheese sandwich or Ham/Cheese sandwich, Sun Chips, Peanut Butter Cookies, Choc Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and an apple. We ate lunch at a church and sat on the ground on the porch. We propped up our feet and rested for a while! Then, back to the walk. The rest of the pit stops were more of the same food and beverages. The last 3 miles of the trail was probably the worst of the entire weekend. We were stuck walking in the emergency lane beside a hwy on the asphalt with a ton of hills. The terrain was the worst with the DUI grooves in the asphalt. Every step was torture on our feet, but Erika and I pushed through to the top of each hill and then to the camp. What a beautiful site! Whoop! Whoop! As we reached camp we saw the 3-day crew, all cheering us on. We got scanned into camp and we took our picture with our sign for completing Day 1. Our time for the first day was 8 hrs & 25 min. We then went to locate our luggage, grab our tent and locate our tent spot. After lugging all our crap to our spot, we began to unload and set up our tent. We drug out all of our decorations and began decorating our tent! We were getting lots of compliments! I sure hope we get the tent decoration award! That would be awesome! Our first event and we get a ribbon for our tent decorations! After the tent was set up and decorated, we ventured over to the dinning tent to grab some dinner and locate our other team mate. Unfortunately, she had some knee problems and had to ride the sweep van back to camp early. Dinner included: Steak, Green beans, Salad, Roll and an Apple Pie. Beverages: Coke products, Coffee, Tea, Hot Cocoa, Water, Gatorade or Milk. Dinner never tasted sooooo good! LOL! After dinner, Erika & I headed out to grab our clothes and get in the shower line. As the sun began to go down, it began to get quite chilly! Well, let’s just say cold! At least we picked the right shower line! Luck was on our side for a change and we only waited about in line about 15 min before we could shower. After the shower, we decided to walk over to check out the 3-Day lounge. We got in line to get a chair massage with the boots for your feet and legs. After our massage, we headed over to grab some hot chocolate! Oh that was warm! Now, back to our tents to meet our other team meat and hit the sack. 9pm was “lights out”. We crawled into our sleeping bags with sweatpants, sweatshirts, gloves and socks………we were freezing. During the night, Erika and I had to sleep with our heads in the sleeping bags……….all I could think about was SIDS……not waking up! LOL! I slept like a log, but Erika didn’t sleep at all hardly. She was up and down to the potty all night and worried about her girls.......and her hubby. Her family had a bad day Friday. Hopefully, we would have another good day for Day #2 and Erika’s family would also have a good day #2.