I think might have been my fastest walking day yet. 20 miles in 6 1/2 hours. It was a fairly busy road all day so nothing too exciting. I think one of the neatest parts of my day was when a man with his grandson stopped too talk, and I found out that he was a train conductor who waved to me the other day while it was cold and rainy and I had a funny feeling that I would see him again... and here he was! haha! Pretty cool! We just chatted for a moment and he gave me a donation before he drove away.

I got to the Lexington fire station 9 around 4:30 and met a reported from ABC channel 36 and we did a quick interview before I went inside to warm up. The guys all came back not too long after I arrived and I got to go on two ride a longs before the night was done. They made really great dinner with some awesome pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans. And dropped me off at Krogers while they got gas for the fire truck... not too often do you get a ride to the grocery store in a fire truck!

The rest of the evening I spent blogging and telling my stories. Pretty good day.

As I sit here and write this blog in Microsoft Word with no TV and no internet, watching a family I only met yesterday go about their Thanksgiving Day, I find myself feeling quite a mix of emotions. Very anxious that I can’t work on some much needed routing to get me through Kentucky, sad that I’m not with my boyfriend, and my parents and brother and his wife (who happen to be in Tucson this year for Thanksgiving), but very happy to be staying with a wonderful family on a beautiful farm in the middle-of-no-where Kentucky. Who were kind enough to take in a perfect stranger on a day meant to be spent with those you love the most. The kindness people share with me amazes me still everyday, and I am forever grateful for the support and love I have received by so many people in this beautiful country we all share.

It was one year ago, a few days past Thanksgiving Day, which I first wrote in this blog. I wrote about being thankful for my wonderful family and all my friends who support me in my wild adventures. Now, 12 moths later, I am more thankful than ever for all the people in my life. I have sooooo many more people that I can be thankful for; every family who has taken me in for a night (or 4, or 5, or 6), for every person who has stopped on the side of the road checking to see if I was OK and giving me a $1 or 2, or a bottle of water, or a bag of fresh, home-made cookies. I am thankful for the BOC families I have met, they help remind why I am out here walking everyday; in sun, wind, rain, or snow.

I have spent 201 days on the road, and if all goes well, I have 65 days left on my journey; I hope to finish on Tybee beach in Savannah, GA on February 1st with my parents, brother, and my boyfriend Richard (and hopefully more friends and family) there to celebrate with me. I have raised nearly $20,000 for Beads of Courage, which honestly, I can’t believe I’ve done! Thank you to EVERYONE who has donated, every penny, quarter, and dollar counts, so thank you for giving what you could, it all adds up!

Now as far as my Thanksgiving goes, much of the day was spent preparing food, and we had a little excitement when the power went off for a bit and we all thought that we might not be having dinner at all… But Katie’s dad found the correct breaker and all was well. The dinner was amazing, and the rest of day was spent relaxing and taking a short walk around the property. Great way to spend Turkey Day. Too bad I gotta start again tomorrow!

I woke up around 8:30 this morning to 2 inches of snow. I showered, ate breakfast and filled out cards for the hospital with Katie. We went to Target and I bought a new ‘day off’ shirt since my pink Sturgis shirt is getting a little worn out. Along with a few other odds and ends. Then she dropped me off at the hospital and I met Rachel. We met a handful of kids, and I was there for 2 hours! I think it went really well. It’s nice when I get to meet older kids who understand what I am doing and I can share my stories.

Katie came and picked me up around 3:45 and we stopped by the house to pick up my stuff, and grab some pizza and then headed for the family farm out in Columbia, KY. It took about an hour and a half to get there. We listened to “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed, which I have read already, and LOVED. Great book, I highly recommend it.

We got to the farm as the sun was setting and were greeted by Katie’s mom, dad, 2 aunts and uncle and cousin. We ate a light dinner of venison shishkabos and assorted fruit with some cheese and crackers. There’s no TV service, and no internet here, so some of us sat around and played cards, well, I watched them play cards, and told stories and just had a really relaxing night. I shared the upstairs loft with Katie, her cousin, his girlfriend, and one of her aunts.

Allllllllmost didn't walk today... They were calling for snow and rain all day, and highs not much above freezing, maybe 35. Luckily there was no wind, so even though it rain all day, it just fell straight down and was pretty light all day.

The traffic was quite for most of the day too, which was really nice. It only started to get bad when I was about 3 miles from Georgetown. I stopped at the fire station there since that's where Les from the Williamstown fire station dropped off BMW for me. I showered and hung out for a few hours while I waited for Katie to come get me.

Katie came around 7 and we took off not long after. We ate dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and spent the night at her families house in Lexington since I have a hospital visit tomorrow. Considering

Today I got started around 8:30 and moved pretty slow. I was pretty tired all day the just wanted to sleep, but I just kept walking. Nothing too exciting to report. I walked down the gravel road that follows the rail road for a lot of the day so I could stay off the road. Never got caught, so that was nice.

The coolest part of the day was when I realized that all the hill sides where some type of sandstone, and FULL of fossilized coral and sea shells! It was so amazing! There's soooooo much of it! I am going to send some of the prettiest stuff home that I could find.

Jacob found me around 4:15, about 20 miles outside of Georgetown. We went out to eat at a chili restaurant that was pretty good, and I said good bye to his girlfriend, and Jacob took me back to the station where I said my good byes to him as well. Thanks for all your help!!! Cold day, but not bad. Glad to be warm in my bed writing this though!!!

Coldest day of MY LIFE. Not kidding. Being from Arizona, I've never really had to experience cold before. Today the high got up to 27, but when I started it was 16 degrees, with a wind chill of 14 and I was going to be out in it for the next 8 hours.

Thank goodness I have great gear!! I LOVE my Mountain Hardware jackets, and my awesome new bright, red ski pants. I started of the day with BMW and I stopped at fire station 2 in Independence to ask what route I should take to Crittenden. They all recommended highway 25. I meant to stay for just a moment, but ended up staying at the station for over an hour! It snowed while I was there and we just spent most of the time talking about my walk and having them help out trying to figure out where I would be sleeping that night. In the end, we got Mike to shuttle my cart down to Williamstown, KY and Les from Williamstown was going to come pick me up.

I was happy when Mike stopped by so we could meet. He knows a lot of people and I am hoping he can be a great connection for much of my remaining route. He was also the one who shuttled my cart ahead to Williamstown for me. Which was AWESOME because highway 25 is not very conducive to pedestrians. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon racing towards Crittenden. I was only a mile away when Jacob and his girlfriend, Kara, came to pick me up. They took me back to the fire house, where I met Les and his wife, and Matt, a local police officer. We all went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel, and I nearly died laughing! What a crazy, fun bunch of people... I had a great time just listening to their conversations and watching the faces of people around us... lol  it was fun.  

I went to bed after Matt came back to the station and did an interview with me for the local paper. That would normally be the end of the story for the day, but not tonight!

I was woken up around 2:30 in the morning by the guys downstairs. Of course anything could happen at any time, so I just laid there for a minute and listened, and heard "She won't start!" and some other yelling before the engine finally kicked on. Then it just sat there... and I wondered to myself  "Why haven't they left?? What's taking soooo long??" So I got up. I went downstairs and into the office and listened to the dispatcher say that there was a car on fire in the parking lot of the fire station?? What?!

I stepped out into the bay, and watched until Matt and Jacob noticed me. They said that some guy had been driving down the road and noticed smoke from under the hood, so he stopped in front of the station and popped the hood to see that his car was on fire! Ha! Good place for it I suppose.

What a crazy day. 23 miles...

Today started off back at the Harrison fire station. The first half of my day was fairly boring, but when I got to Miami, OH, I found the most interesting set of stairs... They led into the trees and what looked like no where.

I have no idea what it use to be, but now it's nothing more than run down, dilapidated ruins of the past. Lots of stone walls, and cinder block walls that had fallen long ago. Trees and shrubs growing on what looks like roof tops? I was walking on them at the time, but as soon as I realized what it was, I found some solid ground. I found the drive way, and an underground dome thing? No idea... It was pretty big, I didn't even check it all out because it was so over grown, but there were some steps that now led to nowhere, and a lot of buried walls with old bottles everywhere and one pair of old shoes (one in the picture above). Pretty cool find. Checkout the rest of the pictures under "pictures and videos".

Then, the strangest thing happened after I left those ruins... Just the other night, I was staring at the full moon I asked "God" to prove he/she was real... I joked with myself out loud and asked him/her to give me a bill (dollar bill of whatever domination) because during my 190-something days on the road, I had not found a single dollar bill. Lots of change, but no bills... and what did I find right there on the side walk on this very windy day? A $1 bill. Just sitting there on top of a pile of leaves, in the wind. I looked around, and laughed out load, as if it were some mean joke. But no, there it was. My first "bill" on the road, less than a week after I asked "God" to put one in front of me. 

I often feel like people are following me, not just one person, but many, many people, and it freaks me out and every once in awhile, I spin around to make sure I am alone and I feel a little crazy for even saying it, but after today, it makes me wonder if just that many people are watching out for me... I still don't know, but it made me feel good.

Next was the ferry!!! On to Kentucky! and state number 12! I can't believe it, just under 800 miles to go. The ferry was fun, but SO COLD, the moment I stopped walking I realized how cold it actually was; in the low 30's with a wind chill in the low 20's, yuck. My Aunt was picking me up, and we had quite a time trying to figure out exactly where I was. My phone was about to die, and I was still in the river valleys hills, and the damn 275 interstate has the weirdest exit numbers... Bunch of ridiculous b.s. but we figured it out and she found me at the Enterprise by the Cincinnati airport. NOT the road I wanted to be on, but that's okay, it all worked out, and tomorrow we'll get me back on track. 

For dinner we had leftover home-made chicken noodle soup and broccoli-slaw. It was so perfect and delicious. I'm going to miss my Aunt, her and I are a lot a like.

Today was a nice lazy day. Woke up at 10, for another night of 11 hours of sleep.

<------ This is my Aunt Anita by the way.   :)

I spent the morning working on the computer working on routes through Mid-December..... talk about time consuming..... two hours later.... I started working on my blog and emails and what-not.

It was a rainy, cool day so it was perfect for doing this work. This afternoon we went and saw the second movie of the Hunger Games. I thought it was really good. Then we came home and I worked a little more on my blog, and we had dinner kinda late, but that's okay, because Aunt Anita made an AWESOME home-made chicken noodle soup. Great do nothing day, love it.

Felt like I could have slept for days this morning. My Aunt had to wake me up at 9, I slept 11 hours, guess I needed it?

My appointment was at 1:30 with Ashleigh. She was great! Very sweet woman, and a nice hospital. I got the chance to meet 3 kids, one cute little boy, maybe about 4 or 5? A little girl around 12 years old, and another girl who was 16. She was awesome, she had so many questions we could have talked for hours. All-in-all a very good visit.

After the hospital, we came home and ate a snack before heading out to dinner with some of Aunt Anita's friends at TGIF, then on to a paint and wine party! That was a lot of fun. Been wanting to do that for quite some time now. We went to a place called Cheers to Art and painted a 'Partini' and drank wine. It was so much fun, I highly recommend it!

Busy, busy day. Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in again and catching up on some much needed Zzzzzz!

Today turned into a short day even though I had 22 miles to walk.

Sean left around 5 AM, and I helped him load up BMW to take down to the Harrison Fire Department, where she will be waiting for me this afternoon when I get there. I left Tyrone and Kayla's place around 9:15 and had a great breakfast at The Pioneer, had a interview with the local paper and was off around 10:15. I walked about 10 miles before I got stopped. I ended up skipping 7 miles of the walk today because a sheriff stopped and was insistent on giving me a ride. He said that the hills coming up were very dangerous, and there were sections of guard rails that had ZERO room for a pedestrian and there are quite a few bad accidents on that stretch of road.

I know my safety comes first, so I took his offer, and he dropped me off at at the next safest location. I asked him if I could get on the freeway to get a picture of the Ohio state sign, and he offered to take me out there and to take the picture for me! Yay! So much easier when there is someone there to take a picture for you. Then he dropped me off, and I only had 2.5 miles left to the fire department.

I had also been contacted by channel 5 in Cincinnati and met them at the fire department around 2:30. We had a great interview, and I stuck around for a bit and had some coffee with the guys at the department while I waited for my Aunt Anita to come pick me up. I got some more shirts from the department and a cool beanie to wear, thanks guys!

Aunt Anita came around 3:45 and we got home around 4:30. We went out to dinner to a great pizza place and just relaxed the rest of the night, big day tomorrow visiting kids at Cincinnati Children's hospital!