5-17-06
Start: A little past Portland, MO
Destination: N. Jefferson City, MO
Miles: 26.0
Weather: wind at our faces and scattered showers
Last night we stayed at Steamboat Junction. It's a campground near the Katy Trail, and we were very impressed. First of all, we were the only ones there - I assume because it was a weekday. Everything was done using the honor system. There was a fridge full of drinks and snacks, with a bowl of change in case you didn't have an exact amount. Even registering for the campsite - the sheet we filled out read, "If BILL ME is checked, please fill out entire address." I don't know that I've ever seen that before at a campground. It was very comforting to know we were in an area where people can be so trusting. And this campground was very clean, grass trimmed, and organized. The little shower house was so nice - I'm not kidding - nicer than a lot of the apartments I've lived in! So this is something Dick did for us - he scouted a few places as we hiked and chose this one. It is really working out great having him here. We are very thankful.
Yesterday at lunch, we did a phone interview with our first magazine! It's a Sports & Leisure magazine out of New York. We are pretty excited about that. And Marianne was very easy and fun to talk to. We also made some other calls. I spoke to Brad Leonard, who is an AA survivor - he wanted to drive down from his home state of Iowa to walk with us. He will probably meet us on Friday. His company is Septagon Construction, and they, along with some contacts in Jeff City pulled together and got us a hotel room for the night, along with a gourmet meal!
We also got in touch with another gentleman who is an AA survivor. Yesterday was so insanely busy, so we weren't able to hash out any set plans yet. I'm hoping something might work for today. It's so nice to talk with these other patients. So I'm very excited to meet him.
Yesterday mom and I both started feeling cruddy. We had the wind in our face, and we've been told this area is one of the worst in the country for allergies, so with those combined, we chalked it up to being nothing serious. But as the day wore on, mom's frog in her throat caused her to lose her voice, and mine got terribly scratchy. Now we're both feeling pretty lousy. We think we may be getting a little cold. We just hope they don't last - or maybe it is just something blooming. We're going to take it easy today.
We saw a lot of wildlife: turtles, a large salamander, a possum, 2 shrews, big fuzzies (caterpillars), a deer, turkey vultures, and lots of other birds. We also had a large white dog follow us for quite a while. It was a good hiking day - the end was just hard, though. We were just very tired. We took the long lunch, so we hiked until 7:30. We are just going to take good care and stay hopeful that whatever bug we might have will just pass on.
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