Susan's Journal

A vacation in Biloxi.

2006-08-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

This week is tearing at my heartstrings. Biloxi, as many of you have heard me say, is (was?) one of my favorite places on earth. If there were jobs there for me, we would have moved there in a heartbeat. There weren't though, and here we find ourselves, just north of Dallas. During our school "fall break," the second week of October, we had planned on taking a vacation in Biloxi, staying in a hotel just on the uphill side of highway 90, a two minute walk from the ocean. I'm sure that the hotel we had reservations in is no more.

Over the next few days, as a tribute, I'd like to take you on a mini-vacation to Biloxi, Mississippi. I'll take you on an imaginary trip, showing you pictures of trips we have taken there, telling you the places we would visit, and the memories for me that go along with those places. Please enjoy this story as its told, and think about all the places that I talk about, and the fact that they're no longer there.

Let me list the chapters of the story for you here...

Biloxi Vacation, Day 1.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 2.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 3.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 4.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 5.

2005-09-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

The next morning, we woke up with the sad realization that it was time to go home. We skipped continental breakfast, and Scott started packing up the suitcases. We had our soft-side Thule with us, and Scott started loading our suitcases in it. I took this picture of him from our hotel balcony.

I wanted to hit one more local place before starting the road trip home, but it was too early to go there, so we brought the kids to this cute little playground across highway 90 from the beach. Scott and I sat on a park bench while the kids played. The little park was wonderfully shaded.

After we left the playground, I asked Scott to park down by the beach. There was this one little adorable palm tree, there growing in the sand all by itself, and I wanted to get a picture of it before we left. It would make a great menu picture for a DVD, I thought to myself.

Finally, it was after eleven! We headed back up 110 and pulled into the Pizza Hut parking lot. I used to go to buffet lunch here all the time when I was in the Air Force, teaching classes at Keesler Air Force Base. We went in there and sat down to eat, and Rainlin said to me, "Mommy, look at all the soldiers!" I used to be one of those, I thought.

After stuffing ourselves with a great pizza lunch, we hit the road. Daddy found some Spiderman and Barbie coloring sheets at a gas station we stopped at on the way, and the kids had a blast coloring them with markers.

I felt sad about leaving Biloxi, but I knew that someday we'd get to come back and visit this wonderful town again.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 4.

2005-09-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

The next morning, we wake up a little earlier than the days before, and Scott heads down to get us some breakfast. He comes back with a waffle and a little carton of milk for each of us. Great stuff.

It's warmer outside today, and the kids ask me if we can head down to the pool. By the time we're done eating and getting ready, it's a little after nine, and I think it's all right to head down to the pool.

There's Mac Daddy Dylan, waiting in the jacuzzi for all his girlfriends to come down and hang out with him! He's so adorable. He's not all into the deep regular pool, so wading around in the jacuzzi is just fine with him. Rainlin, on the other hand, loves jumping in the big pool--as long as she has all her safety gear on.

Daddy gets his trunks on and comes down to the pool to play with the kids. I'm not a big pool person--in fact, I'm not a big water person--so it's fun for Daddy to come down and play with the kids. Daddy got the swimming floaties on Dylan, but this was about as close as he would get to the pool. If you look reeealy closely, you can see the ocean in the distance behind them, beyond the pool and across highway 90.

Somewhere along the way, we had noticed that they were setting up a carnival at the Coliseum right there along highway 90! It was just a few miles down the road from the hotel. After we played in the pool for a while longer, we headed out that way to grab a bite for lunch and enjoy some of the rides. Years ago, when I used to be stationed here, I had seen Eddie Money play at this summer carnival thing, right here at this same place outside the Coliseum.

The kids rode a half dozen other rides I can't remember what they're called, including a little kids' mini-roller-coaster. They had a blast. We bought cotton candy and hot dogs, and they each won a couple little prizes playing the pick-up-a-duckie game. Dylan was estatic; can't you tell?

Before we realize it, we've spent most of the day poking around the carnival--eating snacks, playing games, and riding rides. The kids even got some of those free advertisement fans with the popsicle stick stapled to them. This is our last full day in Biloxi, and the week has gone so fast... but there's one more place I want to visit before we turn in for our last night here.

It was getting late, and I tried to get a good picture of the theater, but it just didn't work. That place holds a lot of fond memories for me--it was the first place I ever saw Rocky Horror Picture Show! That was a midnight while I was stationed at Keesler as an eighteen year old, still in tech school there. We took the bus off base, but we had to walk alll the way back to base, because after midnight that same bus didn't run.

We bring the kids in and find out that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is playing, and even though the kids have already seen it, we welcome our favorite old theater and buy tickets again. For just about five bucks we get a giant coke and tub of popcorn to share. In the theater we get to sit in comfy chairs around a table, almost as if in a restaurant, while we watch our movie. It was a great time; and by the time the movie is over, the kids are almost falling asleep in our arms, and we have no trouble getting them to bed back in the hotel room.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 3.

2005-09-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

This morning is a little chillier than the previous ones, but the kids still want to head down to the beach! I pull t-shirts over their heads, and we walk with our sand toys across highway 90 and across Sharkhead's parking lot to the sandy Biloxi beach.

There's a little restaurant-slash-sports-bar there beside Sharkhead's that I can't remember the name of, and in the summertime they have soft cushions down on the yellow wooden lounge chairs, and there's a volleyball net for anyone who feels so inclined. We always seem to end up in Biloxi during off-summer-season, while it's still warm, so this part of the beach is never packed when we're there. It's beautiful and nice and quiet.

The sun finally decides to come out and warm us up, and the kids pull off their t-shirts. Dylan sits down in the warm, shallow water and begins to dump buckets of sand on his legs as if it were sopping wet mud, and Rainlin pokes along the water's edge in her swimming shoes. Two neat things about Biloxi's coastal water are that it is always nice and warm, and you can walk a long ways out and not even be up to your knees--perfect for little kidlets to splash around in.

A little while later, Daddy comes down and joins us on the beach. He has the wagon and a couple of beach towels. (Whoops! We forgot towels!) We relax together, just enjoying being on vacation, watching the kids play in the warm sunshine.

It's lunch time, and we look down the coast to our right a little bit, and Treasure Bay Casino is there. Buffet lunch! We go back to the hotel and rinse the sand off everyone in the tub. While we're getting dressed it starts to rain pretty steadily. In the few minutes it takes us to get down to the pirate ship, the rain stops.

Yes, there's four kidlets and two daddies in that picture! I took two pictures of the Treasure Bay Casino and used Roxio Photosuite to stitch them both together. It gives you an idea of how massive the castle is and how cool looking the pirate ship is.

It is still not raining outside, but there is a bit of a chill in the air. We have the kids put on their light jackets, and we head to the mini-golf course.

This amusement park is a great place to bring little kids. They love the mini-golf, and they love the little kids' rides. Inside the main building are video games, pool, and ski ball that the kids can play. It's one of the great, fun things to do in Mississippi that don't cost a lot of money.

Later on that evening, we decide to stay in the hotel and eat a pizza there while we watch TV. I run out to the Pizza Hut by Keesler's back gate to grab a pepperoni pie, and I pause a few blocks away. There, down by the gate, is the tattoo parlor where I got my tattoo done when I used to be stationed here. On a whim, I go in there, and lo and behold, there's the guy who did my tattoo! He had chopped off his long, black hair now and looked a lot more clean-cut. I showed him my tattoo, and he remembered doing it. He even showed me where he had taken a picture of it and put it into a book of his! Just think--my tattoo is Biloxi-famous!

I get back to the hotel room, dish out some pizza, and drank some Coke while I read a little email on my computer. Just a short time later, I'm ready to turn in for the night. Scott takes care of getting the kidlets to bed while I snooze the night away.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 2.

2005-08-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

I wake up the next morning to the sun poking in through the plastic hotel curtains. It's pretty bright outside. I look over at the clock, and crap! It's almost 9am. That's when the front office stops serving continental breakfast. I nudge Scott awake, and he pulls on his shorts and white t-shirt to head down to the front office to grab breakfast. I doze off for a minute or two until he comes back, stuff stuffed into his arms. He has two bowls, cereal, and milk for the kids, a waffle for himself, and a couple tiny blueberry muffins for me. It's a great breakfast, and best of all, it's free! The kids ask me if we can go over to the beach, and I figure that first thing in the morning before it starts getting really hot is a great time to go.

One of the reasons I'm so enamoured with Biloxi is because we used to live there. Scott and I met in Virginia, but I already had orders to go back to Korea; I found out they needed teachers at Keesler AFB, MS, and I found out if I volunteered for that I could get out of my Korea orders, so I volunteered. Even though I was halfway across the country from Scott, at least I was in the same country. We got married, and I moved to Biloxi--well, an apartment in Gulfport. I drove up to see him several different weekends, and one of those I became pregnant with what would become our daughter, Rainlin. One weekend he was going to come down to visit me; but before he left, a day or two before he got on the plane to come see me, something terrible happened--a teenage kid got shot right outside my apartment/townhouse. My hormones were reeling from being pregnant, and I was a mess. In that one weekend that he had come down to visit me, he moved me into a new place. We ask the kids if we could go galavanting for a while, and they said ok; so we bring my camera and take some pictures of places we used to live. This is the townhouse in Gulfport that we had lived in, the one on the right hand side, the end unit.

After we take a couple of pictures there and leave quickly (that place still gives me the creeps), we drive the 20 minutes more out to Pass Christian to the townhouse Scott moved me to after the shooting. I miss the tin roof, where it sounded so cool when it rained... I miss standing on the upstairs balcony on cool nights... I miss Jabba, MOW, MOW, meowing at the top of his lungs at the top of the stairs... I just miss that place.

The kids start to get bored and fidgety after lots of driving and visiting places they don't know, so we decide to spend a little time for them to play. We find this playground nestled up against the beach in Pass Christian that we had never been to before--we had never been there because we didn't have kids when we lived in Pass Christian before. We let the kids swing on the swings and run between the two slides, and this small little grassy playground turns out to be a place full of great fun for them.

Afterwards, we walk ten steps down to the beach to pick up shells along the water. There's never been a whole lot of good shells to be found down there--not big, whole shells anyways--always just pieces of them. Scott called out to us from back near the playground, and we wandered back and up onto a pier there.

The pier was a long, beautiful walk out over the ocean. Right near where we were standing, we saw the occasional dolphin jump up, and Rainlin would say, "Oh! Oh!" and point at them as she saw them. We watched as a shrimpin' boat lazily whirred by us on the way back to its pier.

The sun began to set, and we all decide we were hungry. On our way back towards the hotel, we see Ryan's steakhouse--a place we used to love to go to when we lived down here. We turn in and park, and I walk slowly and take a couple pictures of the beautiful ocean just across the street as Scott and the kidlets run towards the restaurant.

I ask Scott if we can make one last stop before we go back to the hotel, and he pulls in across the street from our hotel at Sharkhead's gift shop. It's a really neat huge pink gift shop--you walk into the store through the shark's mouth. I collect keychains, and I'd like to pick Scott up a new tank top to wear on the beach, so we poke around the store and let the kids check out all the neat beach toys too. Dylan picks out a rubber dinosaur, and Rainlin finds a beach shell necklace that she likes.

By the time we get back across the street to the hotel, nightfall has completely fallen, and the air is breezy and warm. We all shuffle lazily up the hotel steps and around the corner to our hotel room. I shrug the kidlets out of their clothes and into their pajamas, and after a short scuffle about kicking each other in the queen bed they're sharing, they both give up and flop asleep in opposite directions. Scott and I cuddle up to watch the late night news on TV, and shortly afterwards we turn it off to go to sleep ourselves.

Biloxi Vacation, Day 1.

2005-08-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

On a normal trip to Biloxi, it takes us about ten hours to drive there. We drive east to Shreveport, then south to Baton Rouge, then east to Biloxi. We stop once or twice for gas, then we stop once or twice for potty breaks, then we usually stop for one good meal on the way. It's somewhat of a long drive, but those little TVs that we velcro to the back of the seat rests, they're a lifesaver. The kidlets get to watch movies with their headphones on, and Scott and I get to listen to soft music in the front seat.

As finally get close to Biloxi, we start to see familiar road signs. I perk up and start to get excited... we're almost there! The highways are two lanes each way, rolling over hills, with hundreds of billboards on each side, one after another, telling you of the treasures that await at the casinos.

We turn off of highway 10 onto 110, which is a little stretch of road south that brings you down to highway 90, along the beach. 110 is only a few miles long, and spans one large area of water. It has a bridge with one of those things that lifts up so boats can go underneath. We BRR-BRR-BRR go over that, then follow 110 down towards its end. It goes down a little incline and under an overpass, curling around to bring you west on highway 90.

Once we are travelling east bound on highway 90, we are greeted by the Biloxi Lighthouse. It stands in between the east bound and west bound lanes of highway 90, and we get a beautiful glimpse of it in the sunshine as we drive by.

Just a few more blocks down the road, we come to our hotel. It's a great little place for us to stay, complete with a pool for the kids to play in and a continental breakfast offered in the front office each morning. A family with two kids can't argue with a free continental breakfast! The rooms all have high speed internet included, and also a mini-fridge, which we use to store a gallon of milk that the kids drink while we're there. We check in, park, and get our bags to bring them upstairs to our second floor room with two queen beds.

The kidlets beg us to go to the beach, and we decide we have just enough sunlight left. Scott changes them quickly into their bathing suits after fishing them out of the suitcase, and I grab my camera as we head out the door. We walk across the relatively busy two-lane highway 90 and across Sharky's parking lot to get to the soft sand thats part of the beach. I have the kids stop for the mandatory Mommy-pictures, and I snap this adorable picture of them standing by the beautiful beach grass.

We spend about an hour, letting the kids putz around in the shallow water and dig in the sand, before we decide it's time to get some dinner and go back to the room for the night. We've done a lot of driving, and everyone's a bit tired. We could walk down to Sonic, but we opt to just take the van there. We pull into the drive-in place, designed like a 1960's roller skating car hop, and eat a burger as we watch the ocean roll by. Sonic is right there, built into the beach, with a beautiful ocean view. After eating our dinner with the windows rolled down, Daddy drives the van back down the street to the hotel. Upstairs in our room, the kids play online games thanks to the high-speed wireless Internet, and we catch a little news before shuffling everyone off to bed.

Welcome to the story!

2005-06-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hi there! Thank you for taking the time to read about my 2005 Breast Cancer 3-Day walk. I've broken this story into chapters, so you actually need to read from the bottom-up. Let me list the chapters for you here...

chapter 1: arriving.

chapter 2: opening ceremonies.

chapter 3: the walk begins.

chapter 4: pit stops and scenery.

chapter 5: our first lunch.

chapter 6: the redneck pit stop.

chapter 7: first night camp.

chapter 8: the second day.

chapter 9: the bus to camp.

chapter 10: a brand new day.

chapter 11: the hobblers.

chapter 12: we made it!

It's not too late to donate! Visit this link and make a donation towards this wonderful cause. Thank you very much! We are all looking forward to a future free of breast cancer!

Chapter 12: We Made It!

2005-06-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

Finally, after three long, hot, painful days, we made it to the Dallas Convention Center. We turned the last block, and the streets were lined with people, cheering and clapping and crying along the edge of the sidewalk. At the entrance to the convention center was a huge mass of people, and a bunch of fold-up chairs.

Apparently people had been walking from the hundred-degree heat into the forty-degree air conditioning of the building, and passing out cold; so they had each of us chug a bottle of water before we were allowed inside.

I stepped through the doors, and I didn't see the hundreds of people that I was expecting; but then I was pointed towards an escalator, and I went up to the top floor. that's where everyone was.

There was a long line of people, clapping and cheering for us as we walked in. We had done it! One of the crew guided us towards tables where we picked up our (long-sleeved!) victory shirts.

After a few minutes of wandering around, I figured out where the bathrooms were. I went in, and there was a short line of about five people. It was the first time in days we flushed toilets and washed our hands with running water. It felt weird. It was in that bathroom that I came to the realization that all us hobbling walkers looked like the monsters from the "Thriller" video.

Back in the main room, one of the crew members stood up on a table. She was hilarioius and had kept us laughing on the whole walk. She said "Family members and friends, we really love you, but GET OUT." Everyone giggled, but they got the point. Fathers, mothers, little children, and all kinds of people in-between that looked healthy and uninjured walked out of the room and out of the convention center. We were told that if we wanted to stand next to someone in the closing ceremonies, to stand behind them, because we were going to be filed out there in lines. Suddenly, there right beside me was that girl--the one from the very first day, the opening ceremonies, with the blue baseball cap and her mother's picture pinned to it. (At least I assumed it was her mother's picture...)

So there's that lady, walking right in front of me, and the Canadian lady was walking behind me. The one with the sprained ankle had found her sister, and we hadn't seen her since. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people lining the street. I was stunned by how many people were there, cheering for us. I knew that my Scott and the kidlets weren't there, though; they had just gotten into Plano, and they were dropping stuff from the long drive off at home before coming to pick me up.

I had forgotten about the shoe thing until I saw people doing it at the stage. They were playing this great, upbeat celtic music (think running through the mountains in that movie Braveheart), and people were taking off one or even in some cases both sneakers and waving them in the air. I didn't take my sneakers off. In fact, I was afraid to, for fear that my toes would fall off, or worse yet, I would never get my shoes back on.

It was hot--really hot. The people running the show got up on stage and did their little speeches, and I was just about out of water. Then, suddenly like a miracle, a gallon jug of water started circling around the walkers, and I got an inch of water in my bottle before passing it on. I really needed that.

Someone behind me said, "Hey, look up there!" and pointed at the glass of the convention center. It took my breath away. It gave you just a tiny grasp of how many thousands of people were there.

After the closing ceremonies were over, we all kind of wandered around for a moment. No one knew where our luggage was. I began to follow a stream of people around to the other side of the building, and I saw giant letter-signs marking off our luggage. I found my giant green military bag and just sat on it. Scott called my cell phone, and eventually he found where I was. I saw him pull up, and I got up off the bag and started walking towards the van, a few hundred yards away.

Scott got out of the van, and he walked around to the sliding side door, letting the kids out. I began to well up. I hadn't seen them in two weeks. Very slowly, very painfully, I got down on my knees on the edge of the sidewalk, stretched out my arms to them, and started bawling my eyes out. They ran to me, just like in a movie, and held me tight. I stood up, ever so slowly, and handed one kid my water bottle and one kid my phone. Scott had gone to get the bag and bring it to the van. I walked, holding my kids around the shoulders, giving them squeezes and still crying. "You did good, you made it," I heard a man off to the side say. I just smiled; I couldn't see much through the tears. We got to the van, and I helped the kids in and shut their door, then got into the passenger's side. I was so, so happy that I can't even describe it to you.

Dylan was apparently pretty konked out, and he fell asleep just a few minutes into the drive home.

So that's it! I hope you enjoyed this walk story; maybe one day you'll even take part in a walk yourself.

Chapter 11: The Hobblers.

2005-06-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Chapter 10: A Brand New Day.

2005-06-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Chapter 9: The Bus to Camp.

2005-06-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

A lady got out of the front seat of the sweep van and helped me up into the inside. There was already four other walker-passengers inside. I took a seat in the back, and I was handed some kind of tiki-coconut man. I got to hold him, since I was the newest van passenger. ;) The van was dressed up like a Carribean island, and the driver and passenger were dressed up like Gilligan and Skipper. The crew does lots of fun things on the walk to keep the walkers smiling.

I wasn't smiling much at that point, though. The sweep van brought us to lunch, since we were almost there. From that point, we could either take a bus to camp or keep walking. I went down and picked out some lunch--which included macaroni salad, my favorite--and sat down to slowly eat. I took off my socks and found two new blisters, one on the heel of my right foot about the size of a penny and one on the pad of my left foot just below the big toe. While I sat and ate, I watched an older woman pull off her shoes and socks. She had just about every one of her toes wrapped. I'm not that strong, I thought. This heat is just too much for me. They had been telling us this whole time that it was better to get to camp via the bus and be alive and well, than to pass out on the side of the road. I was heeding their advice when I sat down by the sign for the bus to take us to camp.

You'll notice at this point that there aren't any pictures taken for a while. I was not in the mood to take pictures; in fact, I wasn't feeling like doing anything at all. In fact, as I sat Indian-style with my head in my hands, I had several people walk up to me and ask if I was all right. I'm telling you, the crew is awesome--they take care of everyone. Finally at about 1:30pm, we were shuffled onto two buses that were sitting in the parking lot. They had air conditioning; that was all that mattered. I went to the very last two seats of one of the bus, put my head up against the cold plastic window, and dozed off to sleep.

I woke up again when the bus started moving. They had to wait until a certain time in the afternoon to start taking people to camp, when the camp opened, which I think was about 2pm. We passed by lots of walkers, but not as many as you'd think there'd be. There was no shade along the route. There was more gravel. I was finding myself very glad to have stopped walking for the day. I don't think I could have survived all that. I found out later that people were walking--and probably being swept up--right up to the 7pm curfew when they close camp. People were just taking it so slow walking... the heat was absolutely brutal. And apparently there was a three or so mile stretch of road towards the end that just had people calling for the sweep vans left and right.

At camp, a medical volunteer climbed up on the bus. "I just want to tell you thank you for what you have done; thank you for being smart enough to know that your body couldn't walk on today. Save yourself up this afternoon, and you can make the whole day tomorrow." We all told her thank you, and then we were hobbling off the bus. There was a group of crew members there, cheering for us while we walked into camp.

I had it in my mind that I was going to make myself useful, even though I had some blisters that I didn't really want to walk on. Not many tents were set up yet. I went to our gear truck, and all the luggage was lied out on the grass behind it. I found my own bag and my tent-mate's bag, and I set up our tent. Her bag was easy to find, because she had borrowed her daughter's Barbie bag. ;) I talked to a couple of the volunteers for a minute, describing to them briefly the fiasco of the night before. Just a minute or two after I finished telling them, that man (who apparently didn't have a tent-mate) walked up, got his stuff, and began to set up his tent. After I popped up my tent and plopped my tent-mate's and my bags in it so the tent wouldn't blow away, I walked up and randomly grabbed someone else's bag. H39, it said. So I grabbed a tent, walked downt o G39, set it up, and put that person's luggage inside. At about that point I threw in the towel; even though I really wanted to help out more, it was just so stinking hot that I couldn't do it anymore. I walked off to the great big tent, the only real piece of shade in the place, and dozed on and off for the next couple of hours while laying my head and arms on a table.

Around 4pm they began to serve dinner. It wasn't as good as the spaghetti from the previous night, but it was still pretty good-- fried chicken, rice, carrots, and a dinner roll. Also, once again, Suzy ate salad.

Our camp was apparently located on a baseball field outfield, and in order to get to the great big tent we had to skirt the edge of the baseball field. Nobody wanted to walk across the kind of blowing, hot, orange dirt.

After eating, I headed in that direction back towards my tent. The white tents to the right are the medical tents--luckily that night we were camped right near there. As I was grabbing my clothes and such to go take a shower, I noticed that man's tent--pitched at a 45 degree angle and in-between two rows. Wonderful, I thought. It's like when you see someone with the tag sticking up in your shirt--you want SO BAD to walk up to them and put their tag down--I wanted so bad to just pull his tent where it should have been. But I didn't.

The showers were way clear across the camp--exercise in itself to get there. I suppose I got there about 6pm, as the sun began to set, and there was a very short line to get in the shower. I took my time, got a good shower, put on my pajamas, and brushed my teeth. It felt good to be clean after such a gruelingly hot day.

I took some time and went back to the entrance of the camp, where amazingly walkers were still arriving. There was a whole big group of us. We cheered and clapped as each new walker made it into camep. Cheering on other walkers was so much fun! A little while later, I headed over to the main tent again, where now they had a band playing. They were from the local college, actually part of a rock class or something, and they did a really good job.

After a while of listening to the band, I headed back to the tent. My tent-mate's gear was gone, and she was nowhere to be found. I don't know if her husband showed up and she just decided to leave, or if she got hurt or sick, or what. She just apparently came, got her stuff, and vanished. I was kind of sad, in a way, and I hoped she was all right.

Just as it was getting dark, I took my cell phone and called my best friend, Emily. I sat up on a little hill much like the one I had been sobbing on the night before. I told her about the walk, about the great cause, and asked her if she would do it with me one day. I told her I missed her. She let me know that the Tech Sergeant list was coming out soon, and she would find out if she was getting promoted. I sure hoped she would.

After one last stop to the porta-potty (about the twentieth of the day), I headed off to bed. I rolled out my sleeping bag, zipped up my tent, and quietly dozed off to sleep.

Chapter 8: The Second Day.

2005-06-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

That night was anything but peaceful. I awoke to tap, tap, tap in the middle of the night... rain! I said something to my tent mate half-asleepedly, and she hopped out of the tent and put the rain cover on. We had been avoiding putting it on because it was so stinking hot and muggy. The very tip of my sleeping bag and pillow got damp, but that was about it. After she laid back down, it rained for a while, and then the loud thunder and lightning started. I was kind of scared, in a way; we're out here in the middle of an open field in a thunderstorm; but so are thousands of others, I guess I thought, and I fought with sleep. At one point I woke up long enough to take an allergy night-time pill because my nose was all stuffed up, and that knocked me right the heck out.

In the morning, I woke up and headed down to breakfast. This time I didn't wear my slippers; I just braved it in my bare feet. While in line, I noticed that they had music playing--my favorite band--the police! I stopped, closed my eyes for a moment, and sang along. It was like a little "mental refuel" and made me feel really good. In line, I got a plate of scrambled eggs, a piece of bacon, some hash browns, and a bowl of rice crispies. I kind of picked my way through everything, and the only thing I really ate was the hash browns--with a little bit of ketchup, of course. :) After breakfast, I headed back to my tent to change my clothes and grab my toothbrush and stuff. My tent-mate had left to go to breakfast, apparently, so I changed in the tent, then headed down to the shower trailer in my bare feet to brush my teeth and put my hair up. I had put on deodorant the night before after showering, but it wasn't until a few hours later on the morning of the second day that I realized I didn't put on deodorant in the morning. ew. It didn't really seem to make a difference, though.

After cleaning up, my tent-mate was back at the tent packing things up, so we folded the tent up together and brought our stuff to the gear trucks. After that, we kind of went our separate ways, and that would be the last time I ever saw her. I don't even know what her name was.

Walkers are allowed to start walking at about 6:30am, and it was sometime shortly thereafter that I began walking for the day. I turned around and snapped this picture while I was leaving. We left camp at the opposite end of the field from where we entered it. The sun had begun to rise, and on Saturday it was unrelenting.

After walking for half an hour or so, I saw Las Colinas off in the distance. I wonder if we're going to walk by the horses, I thought to myself.

At the first pit stop, there was lots of people lining up at the medical tent, and it was already early. People's blisters were beginning to take a toll on them, from what I could see. I'm sure the heat had a huge part to play in this.

A mile down the road, I wasn't disappointed, we got to walk right by the horses! I don't remember what the significance of these mustangs in the water was, but it's a spectacular sight. I had someone take a picture for me...

...then I took a picture of other walkers taking pictures of other walkers.

Next we started walking towards this beautiful walking trail that led into a park. I had to stop and take a picture of this beautiful sign, though now I wish I had been a little bit closer. It's hard when you're walking; you don't want to stop and get in other people's way taking pictures, and you also don't want to stop if you have a good momentum built up.

The walk down that trail was beautiful. The path was wide, and the trees provided us with lots of shade.

Soon the shade ended, and so did the paved road. This was when our trouble began on the second day.

It was hot--very hot. Without shade, we were all having a hard time staying hydrated. I don't know many of the roads we walked down, but none of them had shades on the sides anymore. They also didn't have sidewalks. One road, that I had heard of before called "Harry Hines," had gravel on the side of the road, and it was on a slope. Gravel is very, very hard to walk on--never mind for people who have already been walking for a day and a half. I made it halfway to the last pit stop before lunch, and I could feel my heart beating really hard in my chest. Finally, when a sweep van came by, I flashed them a thumb-down, and they pulled over to pick me up.

Chapter 7: First Night Camp.

2005-06-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

There's only one thing that you like to hear screamed at you more than "Welcome to lunch," and that is "Welcome to CAMP!" You're finally done walking for the day--at least in your sneakers, and you can eat some dinner and relax. Often, people who show up at camp early (you know, those power walkers) will eat, shower, then go back down towards the camp entrance and cheer us slowpokes in. By the time I got into camp each night, there was quite the cheering entourage waiting.

The first night's camp was at a college campus, and the road down to the camp was downhill and a bit windy. I could feel my big toes pounding into the front of my sneakers, and that was when they first began to hurt. These were my brand new sneakers, broken in well enough, but I hadn't heeded one important warning: I hadn't bought sneakers one size bigger than I normally wear. Let me tell you, I won't ever make that mistake again.

I was tired, and I went in search of my tent. I knew I was in row H, but it was a bit confusing because some tennis courts were splitting the campsite in half. I finally had to ask for directions (I am woman, hear me roar), and they told me the H row was on the other side. After finding where they had unloaded our bags, I grabbed my big military green A bag and headed towards the tents.

I had no idea who my tent-mate was going to be, but I wasn't really worried. In many cases, especially the heat like it was now, I wouldn't see my tent-mate until it was time to go to sleep. So I found the tent that looked like H1, saw that it already had someone's sleeping bag in it, threw my bag inside and pulled out my slippers, changed out of my sneakers, and headed down to dinner. I didn't really think any more about my tent. There are stakes in the ground that are supposed to demark where the tents go, and they were all a bit crooked, but oh well.

Now in slippers and feeling a tiny bit better, I headed down to dinner. We had to eat dinner before taking a shower; people had been known to go straight to the showers before and pass out from dehydration. I wasn't going to be one of them. It had become brutally muggy, and hot enough to make it unbearable. The slippers had been a good idea for the 2002 walk, which was in April; but in June, they were hot and too fluffy. I found the chow lines and hopped into one; there was about three people in front of me. The man just in front of me was a blue t-shirted crew member, a rather tall gent with a fishing-type eyelet straw hat on and... pink Converst All-Stars sneakers. "Nice shoes," I said.

"Nice slippers," he retorted with a smile, and gave me his place in line. I kind of hesitated, but when he gently pushed me forward my tummy wasn't about to argue. Dinner was spaghetti, an orange soda, and salad. Yes, that's right, you read that correctly folks, Susan ate salad while on the walk. Those of you who know me well know that this is an unheard of feat; I never eat salad. But the house vinaigrette they were serving just made it taste really good.

After dinner, it was shower time. I went back up to my tent and got a t-shirt, shampoo, conditioner and stuff for a shower. I purchased "towel service," which I would recommend to anyone on the walk. For a mere $12 it meant I didn't have to pack a towel and worry about drying it out overnight. I had a special little stamp on the event credential that I hung around my neck every day. I got my towel from the towel person and got into the shower line. The line consists of five or so plastic lawn chairs, which people scoot-down until it is their turn to get into a shower. One person comes out of the shower trailer, one person goes in. The trailer is like an 18-wheeler trailer with about six women's stalls on one side and six men's stalls on the other. (The man-to-woman ratio on the walk is about 1 to 20, and we always joke about taking over their unused showers.) Showers always felt so good, though they were so small--only just wide enough stalls to put your elbows up at each side. Hot water is hot water--I don't care. The one problem, though? I forgot my brush. Darnit. I had to go back to the tent with my hair all in tangles after changing into my jammies. Jammies, by the way, was just a t-shirt and shorts, nothing fancy. Nobody cares--after you've been walking 20 miles, everyone just wants to be comfortable! I brushed out my hair, then headed back down to the main camp tents for some entertainment. I stopped by a memorial tent and signed this banner for a friend of mine...

...then I walked towards the main tent. The main tent is where we eat our meals and watch some of the entertainment they have for us at night. Guess what the entertainment was that night...

...me!

I got up on stage and sang karaoke--"Goodbye Earl," to be exact. It was hilarious.

What happened next wasn't hilarious, though.

After having some fun and listening to a few more karaoke songs, I headed back to my tent in my fuzzy slippers. The sun had gone down, and it was twilight. At first, I couldn't find my tent... more exactly, I couldn't find my stuff, and I was kind of walking around a half dozen tents for a few minutes. Finally a girl about my age stuck her head out of her tent and said, "Are you looking for H1?" I told her I was. Then a man from another tent said, "Susan Kirkpatrick?" I turned around and walked towards his voice. He was in the tent just across from where I was standing. You put your stuff in the wrong tent, so I brought it back up front, he told me. I started welling up with tears. "You couldn't just turn around and put it in the right tent?" I said to him boldly. He said something else I don't remember, and I started walking back to the luggage drop-off area. Instead of turning around and literally putting the bag three feet away, he had walked the bag five hundred yards back to where the luggage drop-off was.

It was getting late, and the crew was getting things ready for night time. My bag was the only one out there on the grass, and my sneakers and fanny pack were strewn on top of it. By the time I got to it, I was in tears. "This is my bag," I told the crew. "Someone brought it back up here." One man asked me to let him take my bag, and I said, "No thank you, I have it." I was upset and I was in the mindset that I wasn't going to let a single person help me. While walking to my tent, another two people seeing how upset I was offered to take my huge bag for me, and each time I said, "No thank you."

I can't imagine what kind of freak my tent-mate must have thought I was. Here I was, crying, though now trying to suck it up while I unrolled my sleeping bag in the tent. I got in and just laid my head down and closed my eyes. She changed the subject and started talking to me. Come to find out, we have two children about the same age, and she also had a one-year-old. Her husband was also in the Navy, like mine was. This was her first 3-Day walk. She was very sweet, and I was thankful for her kindness.

When she picked up her phone to call her husband back, I took my own cell phone and stepped out of the tent. I climed up a small hill near where our tents were, but out of eyesight of everyone. Scott was driving down from Dallas to San Antonio to pick up our kids. They had been with Grammy and Papaw for two weeks, and I missed them very much. I told Scott everything that had happened, and I shed a few tears when I told him how much I missed him. My spirit was a little bit broken; this wasn't exactly the most wonderful way to end what had been a pretty wonderful day.

Scott's phone was cutting out a bit because he was driving in the middle of nowhere Texas, so I let him go and went back down to the tents to my tent. My tent-mate talked to me for a few more minutes, and she gave me a little pink notebook that she had gotten for free as a promotional item from New Balance. I thought that was really nice--my daughter will really like this, I told her. Shortly thereafter I drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 6: The Redneck Pit Stop.

2005-06-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

One of the first pit stops after lunch was set up to look like a western corral. They gave us pink bandanas as we walked into the park, and even the porta-potties were similarly coordinated.

I had noticed my mole skin had been rubbing a bit while I walked, but I didn't dare take off my socks--once they were on from lunch, that was it, I wasn't putting more friction on my feet. I did notice the sweep vans dropping off people at this pit stop; the sun had come out, and the heat began to take its toll on the walkers. I would later find out that over 60 people had needed IVs on the first day alone.

I noticed people taking their bandanas and soaking them in ice water, so I followed suit. It felt nice and cool on the back of my neck. Then I took a moment and snapped this picture before I left on my way.

Many times, the way we went into a pit stop was not the way we left. This was just such a case. Sometimes walkers kind of wander around a bit, trying to figure out which is the way out. I usually stopped and asked the person at the snack table which way to go. ;) In this case, we crossed through the rest of the park and onto a different road. I noticed these hippo statues in a pond, and I also noticed quite a few walkers stopping to take pictures of them. We're such tourists!

One of the coolest things (literally, I suppose) about the walk is sprinklers. People can stand out and offer you bottles of water and drinks, and that's nice, but that kind of stuff is already furnished for us by the walk; but if you can take the time to turn on your sprinkler, or even stand out in your front yard with your hose and soak walkers as some people do, that makes you the coolest person on the face of the earth. Here is just one of the many sprinklers we were lucky enough to walk through.

Though it was hot outside, the sun was still poking in and out of the clouds, and that was just enough to make the day pleasant. We walked by a lot of beautiful fields and green trees. Without the hustle and bustle of cell phones, TVs, and radios, it was a very peaceful environment.

Chapter 5: Our First Lunch

2005-06-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

Everyone cheers you on when you come into pit stops, but lunch time is a much bigger event. When you get to lunch, your day is half over. The volunteers are screaming and using their bullhorn, and shouting, "WELCOME TO LUNCH!" and for just a split second, you're proud of your accomplishments.

Then you realize how hungry you are. My feet were tired, but I wanted to pick up my lunch first. I got into the lunch line, and I was handed a white plastic bag. When I got up to the table, I grabbed myself a chicken sandwich, some cookies, and a small cup of COLD potato salad. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of potato salad; but on the walk, if it is cold, you will eat it.

I found a nice patch of shady grass on the side of a hill and sat down. First I pulled off my socks to let my feet breathe while I ate my lunch. I rested my somewhat-swollen feet on the socks I had just pulled off and settled my lunch on the ground in front of me.

After I finished eating, I pulled up my now-somewhat-relaxed feet to have a look-see. No blisters on the left foot. On my first 3-Day three years ago, I didn't get a single blister the whole walk; and, naively, I didn't think I would get them on this walk either. However, heat didn't play in our favor, and I would probably say that there were close to zero people who actually didn't get blisters. I pulled up my right foot, and there it was--tiny, but there--on the pad of my right foot, below my big toe, my first blister. It was about the size of a pencil eraser, not very big; but I still had 50 miles to walk, and I was worried. I threw away my lunch trash (which, conveniently, I had that plastic bag they had given me for it) and walked towards the medical tent.

I had never really had a blister like this before, so I wasn't sure what to do. The red t-shirted medical lady cut me a square of mole skin to stick on it, and I did just that, then rubbed Body Glide all over my feet before putting my socks back on. Body Glide is a substance that comes in what looks like a deodorant roll, and you rub it all over your feet, and it prevents friction between your feet and your socks. Great stuff. I would never do this walk without it.

Chapter 4: Pit Stops and Scenery.

2005-06-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Every two or three miles, there is a pit stop on the walk. We were encouraged to observe the three R's at each one-- "Refuel, Rehydrate, and Relieve." To many pit stop volunteers, this translated into them shouting, "Drink and pee, avoid the IV!" Pit stops are one of the fun things about the walk. You never know what new world you are going to walk into. Some pit stops were dressed up to look like a Texas farm, complete with hay bales and cow hats; some, like this one, were set up to look like beach getaways.

After porta-pottying, we stepped up to the table with a box of handi-wipes to germ-free ourselves. Oh hey, look! Just to the right of the table, in the blue baseball cap, that's the lady I was standing next to in the opening ceremonies.

A little later on, we passed over a highway bridge...

...and whoa, was it high up!

Along the route, black circle arrow signs pointed us in which direction to go. We had to pay attention, because if there was too much of a "break in the line" (remember Bug's Life? That was us...) we didn't know which way to go; and if you got into the "walker's trance," it would be very easy to miss a turn and go in the wrong direction.

Also, orange signs told both us walkers and the traffic around us what was going on. These pink signs had cute sayings on them, and put smiles on our faces. They were posted by one of the teams, apparently, because they each said "California" something or rather at the top of them.

There was lots of beautiful scenery along the way.

Though I didn't want to stop for long when I was on a roll walking (which is why you will see fewer and fewer pictures as the days go on), I did pause to take a few pictures of the scenery.

At one point while we were walking, we approached a orange t-shirted safety guy, standing by some train tracks. The bells started dinging, and the gate started coming down. "I'm sorry, ladies," he said to a group of us, but you're going to have to wait for a moment." I was expecting it to be a long freight train, and I pulled out my camera.

What I got instead was actually a really good picture of the TRE train. It brings people from Fort Worth to Dallas, mostly business commuters.

At points where you have to stop, like for this train, or for a red light, it can be one of two ways. Either you're like "aww, darn it" because you were on a roll walking and didn't want to stop, or you're like "thank goodness" because you were sore and tired and had to stretch. At one red light, I remember even sitting down for ten seconds. Sometimes ten seconds with your butt on the ground can do you a world of good.

Chapter 3: The Walk Begins.

2005-06-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

We turned around from the stage and began on our adventure, walking back towards Arlington Ball Park.

You can see some of the walkers taking off, and some of the crew members in their blue t-shirts cheering us on. The red t-shirts are the medical staff, and in particular the man with the straw hat was the medical lead.

The beginning of the walk is nice, because no one is injured, everyone is happy and excited, and the weather is still cool. Either way, I'm a slow walker even on a good day, and I just amble along at my own pace. I watched as pairs of walkers sped by me, "speed-walking" I guess you would call it, and I wondered how many of them were first time walkers, and how many of them would even make it to the end of the walk.

From a distance, we began to hear a car alarm going off, but we couldn't see the car. As we got father down the road, we saw this woman standing in front of her car, cheering us on as she walked. She had her keyring in her hand and she kept setting off her car alarm to cheer for us. We laughed and smiled and said thank you, and some of us wondered if her car would start later on. It did, because fifteen minutes later she drove by us, waving and honking her horn!

Shortly after that woman drove by, we saw the sweep vans gearing up. These vans drive by us all day every day. If we are doing ok, we give them a thumbs-up, and they drive by; if we don't feel like we can walk anymore for whatever reason, we give them a thumbs down and they stop to pick us up. I didn't know it at the time, but the sweep vans would be very busy on this hot weekend.

I stopped for a moment and turned around to take a picture of some of the walkers behind me. They asked everyone to wear the white 3-Day walk t-shirts they had given us on the first day. Some people had the great idea of cutting off the sleeves of the shirts, and some even cut them into tank tops! I wish I had thought of that. It's hard to get the magnitude of the 1,500 walkers from this picture, but at least it shows a few hundred. We were like cattle, corralled onto sidewalks by signs and by the sweep vehicles that drove by. There were also orange t-shirted safety people at the intersections directing us and controlling traffic.

We walked by this parked train, and it made me think of my father, one of the original reasons I did this walk three years ago. I took a picture of it for him.

Arlington Ballpark is right next door to Six Flags, and I snapped this picture of the Six Flags Drive street sign as we walked beneath it.

Chapter 2: Opening Ceremonies.

2005-06-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

I wandered around in the mostly-empty area where the opening ceremonies would be, and I took a couple pictures.

One of the things we were greeted by was this big rectangle blow-up, that said "every mile makes a difference." Now I knew what I had done, and what I was doing, was making a difference; but this saying would mean a lot more to me after walking a full day.

In this picture, you can see about a quarter of the large area where all the walkers stand in front of the stage during the opening ceremonies. This huge trailer is what they transport around the main stage and equipment in. "We walk because we believe" in a cure for breast cancer. Shortly after I took this picture, more walkers began to show up and fill in the enclosed area. I turned around and saw the sun beginning to rise from behind Arlington Ball Park. It was beautiful.

As the people began to pack in around me, a woman that was next to me said hi and started to make conversation. She had long, auburn hair in a pony tail beneath a dark blue baseball cap. Pinned to the cap was a picture of an elderly woman that I can only assume was her mother; very likely the reason that she was there. I never did ask her, and that morning I didn't ask her her name.

The opening ceremonies began, and we learned that we had about 1,500 walkers, and those walkers had raised over four million dollars. It was astonishing. Then we were introduced to some of the foundation leaders and the medical staff for the walk itself.

Next, the crowd became silent as the survivor's circle made their way down from the stage. They hold in their circle the spirit of those lost to breast cancer. They hold hands as they slowly walk towards the flag pole and raise the 3-Day flag. Once the flag is up, everyone goes crazy happy, and the walk begins!

Chapter 1: Arriving.

2005-06-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

I woke up to a silent house at about 4am on Friday. The kids had been visiting Grammy and Papaw for two weeks. Scott would be picking him up this weekend, and hopefully I would get to see them at the end of the walk. I couldn't wait to give them hugs again.

After checking what I had packed in my big old military bag, I got dressed and started getting my feet ready. I used my stick of Body Glide to completely lube up my feet--the top, the bottom, the sides, my toes, everywhere--until they were very slippy. This would hopefully prevent me from getting any blisters. I pulled on my special walking socks (ten bucks a pair!) and then my new sneakers, and I was ready to head out.

Scott drove me to Arlington in the van. He had it packed from ceiling to floor with stuff; while he was down at his parents' house for the weekend, he was going to sell a bunch of stuff in their yard sale. After he dropped me off, he was going to work, then leaving from work to Kerrville.

The drive to Arlington was dark, and traffic was light. We made our way to the home of the Texas Rangers, then drove around looking for the 3-Day festivities.

Finally we rounded a corner of the stadium and saw the gear trucks. I was to be in tent H-1 (like the hummer! I joked), so we found the H truck. As we drove up to it, we passed by a couple of volunteer ladies, wearing their 3-Day t-shirts and shaking pom-poms and cheering. "Oh, I'm starting to get so excited!" I told Scott.

He pulled up behind the gear truck and got out of the van. There were hundreds of people there, pulling their gear like little ants and tossing the bags up into the trucks. The trucks were basically Ryder yellow moving vans that the 3-Day had rented for the event weekend. I handed my bag up to the loading ramp of the truck, and the guy up there checked my tag and said thank you. "Need a water bottle?" he asked. I looked down into the box next to him, and there were orange-capped water bottles in there--promotional items from Motrin, with the 3-Day logo on them. Sure, I smiled, and took one. That right there was one of the smartest things I did all weekend; you'll understand that better later.

The crowd was flowing across the dark street with the help of orange t-shirted, 3-Day safety staff, and I followed along with everyone to where the opening ceremonies stage was set up. I already had my event credential, a badge that I would wear around my neck during the whole event, since I had signed in online a few weeks ago and had them mail it to me. That was one less line I had to stand in that morning. It had a little barcode on it, and as I approached the stage a lady scanned it BOOP with a little price-gun looking thing with buttons and an antenna. It was 5:30am, and at least 1/2 hour before the opening ceremonies would begin.