Chapter 10: A Brand New Day.

I woke up the next morning to my cell phone going off. I had set it as an alarm clock, and it pumped out a little short stint of a Sting song at me before I turned it off.

I woke up with a vendetta. I was going to finish this day, dammit, and nothing was going to stop me.

I walked down to the main tent to get breakfast. While in line, I heard another song that caught my attention: "Well they call me the fireman, that's my name, making my rounds all over town putting out old flames..." It was the Fireman song, Emily's song! I just thought it was so weird that the last person I talked to the night before was my best friend, and now here first thing in the morning I was hearing her favorite song. It put me in a really good mood. That morning they had country fried potatoes instead of hash browns, but breakfast was pretty much the same.

Back at the tent, I changed clothes and wrapped up my sleeping bag, then hobbled towards the medical tent. It was only about 5:45, and I wanted to get in line early to start getting my blisters all wrapped up. As it turned out, I was one of the first six people there, and I got a chair to sit in (which is a big luxury!). When the red t-shirted medical person finally brought all the blister and other gear out to the self-help table, the walkers were on it like vultures. :) It was kind of sad and funny at the same time. I sprayed my blisters with sticky stuff, bandaged up the three on the bottom of my feet, and put u-shaped moleskin around the base of my big-toe toenails, as someone had suggested to me the day before. I was just now starting to get a blister under my left toenail, and they were starting to hurt. Once I had everything all wrapped up, I realized that darnit! I had left my fanny pack, which had my body glide in it, back in the tent. So I couldn't put my socks on until I had that; in my fuzzy slippers I hobbled back to the tent, and when I got there I had to peel the fuzziness off the bottom of my feet before body-glide-lubing them up and then putting my socks on, ever so gently.

We walked slightly uphill out of camp, and along the path that encircles White Rock Lake.

The sun was just starting to rise, and it made everything beautiful.

"Oh hey, look!" one of the walkers said. I looked over, and there was a little green parakeet in the grass. I felt so bad for him; I knew he would probably die out there, and some little child was probably really missing him. A walker took a step towards him, and he took off flying.

I stopped and pulled out my little blue camera. Way, way off in the distance was Dallas, and I thought to myself, "We're walking allll the way out there today." As I was taking a picture, a lady walked up to me and said, "Would you like me to take your picture?" So she did, with Dallas in the background, taunting us.

The morning had heat, but it also had momentum. There were all kinds of beautiful sights along the route.

Sure, it was hot, but we were blessed with a lot of shade while we walked.

Before I knew it, it was lunch time. Lunch brought another sandwich, cole slaw (YUCK!), and some chocolate cookies. I sat down with my food, somewhat near the medical tent. Those of us at lunch now were some of the early ones; we had left just when they let us that morning, so we had gotten to lunch early. The medical tent wasn't very busy. As I chewed my sandwich, I eyed the medical tent, and finally I decided to put all my lunch into the plastic handle bag and amble over there.

The blisters under my toenails were getting worse. I couldn't see the right one, but I could feel it. On the left toenail, the blister had risen up about a quarter inch, and it was lifting my toenail with it. It hurt like hell. I really wasn't going to be able to walk the rest of the day unless I did something about it.

I sat down in an available chair at the blister tent and waited patiently for the red t-shirted medical lady to help me. When she turned around to face me, I put my left foot in her lap, and she instantly told me I was going to have to splint my toes. This basically involved taking a white piece of styrofoam-rubbery looking stuff, cutting it into an oval shape with a hole in the middle, and using it to surround my toenail, on the top of my toe and on the sides of it. This way, my toenail was in the hole in the middle of the circle, and the white circle would keep my toenail from touching my shoes. The thing was about a half inch thick, and I had no idea how I was going to get my shoes on. I lubed up my feet again anyways, picked up my right shoe, and basically jammed my foot into it. It was the... most... excruciating... thing you can imagine; it's a week later, and my toenails are throbbing just thinking about it.

Once I had my sneakers on, and I could barely stand, I wobbled ever so slowly (how am I going to finish the day like this?) over to the water table, and filled up my water and my sports drink bottles. The porta-potties were waaaaay across this field, and the rest of the path for the day was laid out from there. I made my way across the field, made use of the facilities, then began on my way.