Day 44 -1,000 Miles In The Books

We woke up today at around 7 o'clock. We only had to pack up one jogger for the day because Tommy and Vicky Lewis had offered us to stay in Paris, TX for tonight as well! We were pretty pumped for that. We loaded up on the day's supplies in our red jogger and got ready to go by 7:30.

Tommy took us first to a breakfast buffet a couple miles from his house. The food was very enjoyable as we had a wide variety of breakfast foods to choose from. We stocked up on food this morning and Tommy returned us to our ending position on Thursday.

We had about 25 miles to go to Honey Grove. We had to run through the center of Paris before we got "our shoulder" back. I say this because I see the shoulder as my own. When the shoulder goes away...I feel like I have lost a personal item, or it's almost as if my own child is going away to college for the first time. I am always sad to see it go :( But it returned for good after we exited Paris!! Unlike your first born going away to college...I was glad to see it come back for good!

We were CRUISIN' TODAY!!! During our running segments, we really "dropped the hammer" so to speak. All three of us felt on top of the world today. At one point...Andy turned to me and asked me if I "felt as good as him" and I was so glad to hear that come out of his mouth. For the first time this trip...I think we were wondering who felt the best! The entire trip before now, there was always one of us three who felt the worst that day. But today was not to be one of those days. All three of us were ready to go!

We didn't get started until 9 o clock, yet we rolled into Honey Grove: The Sweetest Town in Texas, at around 1 o clock. We loved the fact that we got a late start and still were able to get to Honey Grove very early.

We decided to get some lunch at the Red Brick Grill, which was right in the center of town. We sat down to order our lunch, and were immediately told by our waitress that our lunch was being paid for by the Chief of Police around the corner from us! We placed our order and went to go meet the Chief. Mark Johnson was his name, and his wife Kathy had seen us in the newspaper the night before. We talked to them for about 10 minutes and we told them our story. Mark and Kathy also ended up donating money to the Philip Diaferio Scholarship Fund! Our waitress also hooked us up with Donna Trotman, who was part of the Ladies Auxiliary of VFW Post 7875. They also donated to the Scholarship fund. It is safe to say we had a very successful and friendly stop in Honey Grove...which, to me, was definitely the sweetest town in Texas! By the way, Andy and I ordered the club sandwich, and Durkin had the Bacon Cheeseburger. It was all exceptional.

As we sat at the lunch table, we were trying to decide which route to take over the next 2 days. Seeing as how we will be looking for food tomorrow night, and we found out that our scheduled stop of Randolph had nothing to offer for us, we found another town named Leonard that we will be stopping in for the night tomorrow. It is about 2-3 miles out of our way, but we're willing to make that sacrifice so that we can have some food!

After lunch was over, we decided that we all felt really good, so we continued down on Route 56. We were immediately stopped by a women named Judy who saw us in the paper the day before and promised herself if she saw us on the road she would make a donation to help us along the way. We were again blown away by the kindness of strangers and their willingness to help us succeed. We ran another 5-6 miles and finished our day at a nice 32 miles. I actually said to Andy and Matt when we were around mile 30 on the day that I could probably go another 30 miles if need be. This caused Durkin to enter hysterical laughter mode. Soon after I said that, I actually thought about it, and I am very confident in that statement. Our bodies are pretty much mileage machines these days. 30 miles today was almost easy! This makes me look at the rest of the Nation and realize that our 46 mile days are more doable than ever. IT'S COMING SOON!!

Tommy picked us up 30 miles out at around 3 o clock this afternoon and took us back to Paris! We got showered up, phone calls were made, and food was eaten. I feel pretty good right now! We're looking forward to tonight, for Mary Beth and Lauren are coming back and bringing us to a concert tonight. We're supposedly seeing a blues prodigy. He's 17 years old and people around here seem to be very excited that he is going to "make it" someday. So we'll be heading out for that tonight and hopefully have some fun! I'm sure we'll be telling you all about that in tomorrow's update!

On a side note, I just got off the phone with my dad....and my ENTIRE family, immediate AND extended are all heading to Hawaii in exactly 1 week. Everyone, that is, with the exception of me. I am very bummed that I'm missing this vacation of a lifetime...but I have to sit back and think to myself for the millionth time that I am where I want to be, and that's out on the road living my dream. Not now and not ever will I ever have any regrets for doing this. There were a million reasons for me to stay home and not chase a crazy dream...but I went against the status quo and did what I thought was right and good for my own self. There were also countless people said that "He won't do it!" or "Ken won't make it out of Georgia" but I stand 1000 miles west of the Atlantic Ocean; proud of myself, proud of Andy, proud of Matt, and almost giddy to a point because we're playing all this out when there were so many doubts from so many people. We could have NEVER done it, however, without the love and support from so many people. All the positivity we have felt throughout this trip is what has given us the extra strength mentally to make it this far. The most difficult part is definitely behind us. GO NATION!

I am completely free :)
Ken