Walking today - or "Revenge of Last Night's Mountain!"

So the mountain last night was a monster. I walked 17 miles and nearly all of it was up hill to the summit of Stevens Pass. I was a little sore this morning but took a hot shower and felt pretty good. Then I started walking. About half a block into my walk my legs began to scream and shout in anguish. Legs can't actually do this but they tried. My calves started to charlie horse about half a block into my walk. Then my ankle started to "feel" sprained but only if I stepped on it at the wrong angle or pushed with the wrong ankle. Then my shins began to hurt. Then the blister on my foot that had nearly disappeared from the day before came back in full force. Lucky for me we got a late start this morning and I only had to walk 9 miles before we had to run to an evening mass. Day shift only made 19 miles today, a sad moment considering we got 34 the day before and nearly all up a mountain. So my one hope is that my legs recover by tomorrow so I can walk.

Tomorrow we take Tim to Seattle so he can go home. It is already difficult to get decent coverage with the men and losing him will be hard on us. Well I guess I better remember the training and start offering it up.

Here is a picture of Justine and I finishing the day walk. Justine made extra sure we covered every step and so she walked over and touched the mile marker.



Here we are riding home to go to sleep for the night. I am sooooo tired.

Picture time... working backwards...

OK. Things have been pretty busy the last few weeks so I will now post some photos from before my last post...

Here are some pictures of arrival day (Wednesday the May 21st). On the left is Holy Family Parish in Seattle. On the right is the Albe house at the parish where they generously let us stay for a several nights.



Here is a shot of us hanging around in one of the rooms they let us stay in.



Here is a picture of us the next day after we got back from our first prayer vigil in front of an abortion facility. I forgot my camera and did not get any pictures of us praying but others had cameras and hopefully I can get some pictures.



And last here are a few "action" shots of us in Pikes Place Market in Seattle on Saturday afternoon. We did actually do a lot of work the previous few days, but we all work hard and play hard.







Well that's all for now. I am running out of time. I will try to post some more comments and pictures from the road to fill in the gaps still remaining from the last couple days.

May God Bless you all.

Walking in the mountains...

OK. So I'm walking through the mountains. It's beautiful. I finished a 5 mile section walking with Justine and Joe and Bess are now walking their 5 miles. We stopped 5 miles up at a gas station and to my surprise I found that I had wireless access. Who would have guessed?!

I walked over 20 miles yesterday. I am not sure of the exact number but I think around 23 or so. My legs were pretty sore this morning but they are feeling pretty good now. After walking my first 5 mile section today my legs actually loosened up a bit and they feel even better.

Last night we camped in an RV park. We (the day shift) arrived around 9-ish PM and waiting for us was a campfire and corn on the cob roasting over the fire. It was fantastic. We sat around the fire, had dinner, visited a shirt while, and then prayed evening prayer by the light of the Van headlights. I had a quick shower in the RV park showers and then crashed into my sleeping bag. There was no waiting I think I must have fell asleep as my head was hitting the pillow. I got a nice 8 hours of sleep (for the first time in days) and woke up 10 minutes before my alarm feeling great, a little sore, but still good.

This morning we went to a local Catholic parish in Monroe. Mass was at 9:00 AM and they had mass in a little side chapel. They were obviously not expecting us because we filled up almost every seat in their chapel, it was a tight fit. I love starting my day with mass. After mass the priest asked us if we would like to pray Morning Prayer with their community. Perfect! We were just about to go and pray together anyway so now we were able to pray Morning Prayer with the local community.

So far the trip is working out just great.

Training Day

Ok. Training Day.
We started the day with mass. This is the best way to start any day. Then Tim, Joseph, and I went shopping. We had breakfast, then did Morning Prayer, and finally training. Training went really well and we paused to go out to lunch. We came back and finished training and now I am blogging. Whew! We will be doing Evening Prayer soon and some of the walkers are going to cook dinner, I think it's pasta tonight. I'm not sure how often I will be able to blog but I'll try to keep it up. Also I have been trying to take a lot of pictures but haven't got any put on my computer yet. I will try to post some on the web soon.

Airport Day

Today (it's after midnight so technically it was yesterday) was pretty much airport day. We got up and went to mass, then went to a Vietnamese restaurant for breakfast. Then we started making trips back and forth to the airport picking up the Crossroads walkers. I spent most of my day hanging out in the airport. Probably the odd thing so far was picking up people that we didn't have a cell phone number for. We basically just hung out at the luggage area looking for someone who might be Pro-Life. Tim was the only one with a Pro-Life t-shirt and so he had to walk the luggage pickup area with his shirt proudly presented hoping someone would notice.

We got the time wrong for one of the walkers who was scheduled to arrive at 11:55. We thought AM and it turned out to be PM. So for about an hour Tim had to parade around the luggage carousel proudly presenting his Pro-Life shirt until we finally figured out we were 12 hours early. Woops! So far however it has been great meeting everyone at the airport and swapping stories about why we decided to do Crossroads this summer.

We all went out and had dinner and then met back at Holy Family Parish and prayed Evening Prayer. Everyone was exhausted but Shanon had to make a trip to Walmart with a few of the walkers to pick up a few things and Ted and I still had our elusive 11:55 walker to pick up. Tim and I headed over to the airport early and went through some of the training material for tomorrow. Rosanne (our 11:55 PM friend) arrived safe and sound on the ground and we headed back to the parish. Good Night.

Last night I met Brendan, Shannon, and Tim driving the Crossroads van on their way out to seattle. I actually met Tim last summer when Crossroads walked through Spokane. We hung out for a while in their hotel room. Curt Seidel one of my seminary brothers was also there and he introduced me. I have lived with Curt for a few years now and he has told me a lot about Crossroads. It was great hearing all the shared stories of these veterans of Crossroads and I'm excited to start the walk myself.

I have been staying at the seminary up until the night before last but last night I had to stay in the new temporary seminary building. They are preparing to tear down the old seminary to build the new one. I am sad that I won't be there to see the construction. They are actually moving one of the buildings accross the street which should be an engineering marvel.

This morning Brendan, Shannon, and Tim picked me up and we headed to Seattle. Things have been busy since we arived in Seattle. We got the oil changed in the van, picked up a new rental van, and they even spent some time at Kinkos. We got to Holy Family Parish in Seattle and unpacked. Then we inventoried our things and made a late night trip to Walmart. I'm exhausted and going to sleep.

OK.

I obviously haven't been blogging very actively (2 posts in 2 years). I hope to change that now that I will hopefully have something to post about. I am about to start walking accross the United States with Crossroads (taking steps to save lives). Over the summer I will walk with Crossroads from Seattle to Washington D.C.

Right now, I am hanging out in Spokanistan waiting for the Crossroads RV to come through on its way out to Seattle. Training starts on the 21st (Wed) and the walk starts on the 24th (Sat).

I have been training a little for the walk and managed to get a pretty good sunburn yesterday.

Well that's all I have to say about that... for now.