Chapter 11: The Hobblers.

The longer I walked, I suppose the splints began to mesh into place, and I picked up a tiny bit of speed, until I was at my normal ambling along rate. A short ways in front of me, I noticed that I was actually catching up with somebody (man, she must be moving slow, I thought.) We all need a buddy, and I became hers. I caught up to her, then slowed down to her pace, and we began to talk. She used to be from this area, and she moved to Canada for work. She had lost her mother to breast cancer. Everyone has their reason for being there.

We came up to an intersection, where we heard walkers screaming and giggling. I smiled as we saw why they were giggling: there were a few firefighters standing at the corner of their station... with a fire hose. They were dousing walkers as they went by.

I have always had a lot of respect for firefighters; but after that day, I regard them as nothing but totally, completely freaking awesome.

The one thing I remember about our second-to-last pit stop was this tree. It was huge, and it made me think of the one from Forrest Gump that he and Jenny used to sit in. Lots of walkers were taking advantage of its shade.

We stopped at intersections, we passed through green lights, and before we knew it, we were at the last pit stop of the day. Time really goes by when you have a good friend with you. I kind of chuckled when I saw where the pit stop was.

I've been to this bank before. About a week before, Scott and I had gone down to the West End, and we drove around for ten minutes in circles, looking for an ATM. This is the one we stopped and used.

After we left that pit stop, my Canadian friend and I, we came upon a girl who was visibly having a hard time walking. We joined up with her and walked the last mile or so together. Apparently her sister was doing the walk as well, and she had raced off since this girl here was walking too slow. I think I remember her telling us she had sprained her ankle, but she was walking anyways. We were almost done.