Our first daily update from Arkansas! I write to you from a Ramada Inn in Lake Village, a couple miles north of Eudora, AR, which was our ending point for the day. WHAT A DAY IT WAS...I will now recap our day in the form of words:
We woke up at 7am once again. The three of us meandered our way down to the continental breakfast and had ourselves some cereal, donuts, toast, muffins, orange juice, and some other goodies that escape my mind right now. It was a good one. Now, we have experienced some fine continental breakfasts in our time on the road, but this morning's was the best in my opinion. We had warm glazed donuts, fresh orange juice...I personally loved it.
We got all of our stuff ready, and were then driven back to our starting spot. The weather was overcast...but not too cold. Our pants and long sleeves were off in about 15 minutes. The running was really flat and easy for the first 9 or so miles. As we neared the 9 mile mark, we saw our first major intersection off in the distance a little ways. Andy asked us all "how far away do you think we are from that road?" Matt and I looked at the road and figured we were about 3 or 4 minutes of running from the intersection. Andy guessed we were about 8 minutes....and Matt and I thought that guess was absolutely ludacris! We then timed the run (and we were going at a pretty good speed) and we hit the road at exactly 8 minutes. We blamed Matt's lack of depth perception on his inaccurate estimate.
Instead of taking Route 1 to the bridge that crosses the Mississippi River, we decided to follow our GPS's suggestion of a different road to take. It was going to cut off about a mile of our daily mileage, so we decided to go for it...I mean what else have we got to lose at this point? We've experienced it all because of this GPS it seems this far.
The GPS lead us to a road that was actually a levee for the Mississippi River. We came onto the levee and immediately saw miles of livestock roaming free around the with no fences. As we entered the levee area, we started passing cows and horses left and right. Some of them were even hanging out on the road, sometimes even sitting! As we would pass them, most of the cows and horses would run away. Many times our presence would cause major stampedes, with as many as 50 cows parading the land around us. One time as we ran, there was a bull standing in the road in front of the rest of the cows. We slowed down as we neared the bull, only then did the bull start walking towards us! Durkin and Andy turned around to walk to the other way...but I, being the heroic and brave man I am, stood my ground and faced my adversary. The bull soon saw that I was not a force to be reckoned with and turned around and ran away as I stood...proud and content.
The three of us kept going. The levee took us along for about 8 miles. It was a nice run, as the weather was warm and there was absolutely no traffic (car traffic that is.) We eventually found ourselves at the foot of the bridge that crossed the Mississippi River. The bridge had no pedestrian walkway, so we had to have Mama and Papa D help us transport the joggers across the Bridge for us. We dropped off the joggers in their van and figured we would be on our way...but standing before us was a giant Casino...just begging for us to come give them some money. We decided we only lived once, so we would go in and put all our money on red. I'm just kidding about that, but we did go in and explore. Andy lost 10 dollars and I lost $2.99, as I redeemed a 1 cent voucher at the end of my day. I didn't want to give them that last penny, so I kept it for myself.
Mama D, however, won 46 dollars playing the Deal or No Deal slot machine. Lunch was on her...and we ate at the casino buffet. The Hostess, her name was Anita, immediately took a liking to us and our adventure. She was very interested in our journey, and asked a million questions. We were happy to see someone so excited and animated. After filling our tummies, we were back on our way.
We exited the Casino, and got back on the road. We immediately got onto the bridge and crossed the Mighty Mississippi River. It took a while, as we took many pictures. To me, crossing the Mississippi River is quite the landmark accomplishment for us. Not only is it a cross into our 4th state, but the river itself is a symbol of moving westward. No longer are we in the far eastern United States. We have moved completely into the Central region of America, and the river only acts as a testament to all of our hard work and dedication to this dream of ours. I look at a map of the United States and I am completely stunned when I realized how far we've come. It's exciting to think that we are 1/4 of the way across this amazingly huge nation of ours. I can't wait to see what these next 5 states have for us.
After we crossed the Miss, we got the jogger back and Papa D joined us for the last 6 miles of the trip. We had quite a large shoulder going for us. It was such a nice end to our day. We only have one more day of running with Mr. Durkin. We have thoroughly enjoyed him running with us. We are so grateful for everything him and Mrs. Durkin have done for us. It has been so great. Friends and family visiting us throughout the trip have and will really make this adventure something special.
We finished the day with another strong 25 miles. All of us felt very good today. Andy's shins are continuing to improve with each day. We are enjoying our runs each day more and more because of our continuing improvements in health. The three of us are finally starting to act more like ourselves during the day...being goofy, fooling around and laughter is a major part of our runs now, whereas, a couple weeks ago, you could find pain and limping along more in our daily updates. We have all made it this far, and there is no doubt that we have passed the point at which our bodies have been able to adapt to all the mileage we put in. I have a huge smile on my face when I look forward to meeting new people and doing new things with our days. The days are not as hard when you're not worried as much about your legs recovering. The best is definitely yet to come!
Thanks again everyone. Your homework for today is to tell a friend about our journey. Inspire them to chase their own dreams. Thanks again :)
-Kenny
A couple of quick side notes on the day: Only minutes after crossing into Arkansas, Durkin found our first state plate on the side of the road, probably our 20th total of the trip. For diner, we experienced our first Sonic drive in of our lives. However, unlike those witty commercials that you see on TV debating the shade of color of a raspberry sherbet smoothie in their cars, we ate our meal inside. Nonetheless, the meal was everything that we imagined and more.
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