Day 46

The weather called for heavy rain in the afternoon and we all wanted to get on the road as early as possible. We were kind of worn down from the previous few late nights and tough days on the road which made waking up harder than usual, especially for Ken. As we packed the joggers and prepared for the possibility of rain Ken remained in bed. This was not his normal routine. Just before we had everything packed away he asked Matt and myself if he could sleep an extra hour and catch up with us later in the day. This was not something that I really wanted to do but I also didn't want to get hit with rain if I didn't have to. After a few minutes of debate we decided to leave Ken in bed with one of the joggers as Matt and I started our day. We were to call him at 9 to wake him up.

We found a Sonic for a couple of breakfast sandwiches which Durkin was not a fan of. He was really looking forward to a biscuit sandwich and when we opened the bag to find two burritos Matt could no longer contain his anger. He eventually ate the burrito but claimed he did not have to like it.

The morning was going along smoothly as we went up and down a number of steep hills and around many twists and turns in the road when suddenly my phone rang. I expected it to be Ken telling us he was already awake and getting ready to leave or Kaitlyn seeing how my morning was going but was excited when I found out it was Glen Turner - The Legendary Zzzoomer. For those of you that are not familiar with Glen he is currently zooming across the country. He has created a device where he is part running, part scooting and part zooming his way from California to Tybee Island, GA. This is the exact location where the three of us started our journey 7 weeks ago. Originally, we thought our paths would cross but it turned out that "we missed each other in the night". Nevertheless, this phone call thrilled us as we talked to Glen about what we have seen and vice versa. As we hung up the phone Durkin and I felt like we had another zoom to our step and rolled for the next few miles.

At 9 we called Ken for his morning wake up call. Unfortunately, he did not answer. We called his over and over until finally around 10 he answered. He was finishing up packing and heading out the door, probably 10 miles behind us. For the next hour or two we took back road after back road before dumping out to route 121. We followed this last 11 miles before linking up with 380 which will take us the remainder of the way across Texas. For the next 2 weeks this road will be our home.

With 5 miles left in the day Durkin and I stopped at a Sonic in the town of Melissa, where we met up with Brent Jones, Kaitlyn's cousin's husband. For the next three day we will be staying with her family just outside of Denton. He was in the area for work and wanted to meet up with us a bit early. We explained to him that Ken would be another 2 hours before he caught us and since it looked like the rain would hold off we decided to go and get something to eat. Brent treated us to Mexican, Durkin's favorite, and it was nice to sit down and relax. After our meal we drove back to Sonic to meet up with Ken. The three of us finished off our 30 mile day and were picked up by Brent on the outskirts of McKinney.

Brent told us we could drive directly home or check out his boss's* ranch a few miles away. No one was all that interested in seeing a ranch after another long day and an hour drive ahead of us until Brent mentioned we might be able to shot a few guns. We all immediately agreed that we could not miss out on this opportunity. From here I will let Durkin describe what happened on the ranch but let me preview it by saying...unbelievable!

We totally abused The Second Amendment today, and I loved every minute of it! Les, the caretaker of the ranch showed us around, and let us enjoy some of his firearms. We started off with some skeet shooting on the pond. It was the first time any of us had ever handled a shotgun, and most of us handled ourselves pretty well. I nailed my very first shot, and ended up 2/10 on the day, Ken took down the record with 3 out of 9, and Andy limped in with a pathetic 0 out of 10, we were all pretty disappointed in him. After the shotgun we tried our hand at a pistol. There was no accuracy with this, we just took turns unloading clips into the pond, trust me, way more fun than it sounds. We hung around a little while longer waiting to meet up with the infamous "Machine Gun Mike". Brent assured us we wanted to stick around for this, since it isn't every day you get to handle automatic weapons. We drove up to the shooting range and met up with Mike. Les and Mike told us that if we were shooting we had to load the magazines so we got a quick lesson and got to work. Mike is a big gun collector and told us the history of each of the guns in the small arsenal he brought. He had many different machine guns that have been used in various wars of our military past. Some of these guns had quite the kick and unloaded before you knew it. The most notable guns we fired were the M-16, identical to the one being used by our soldiers overseas, and a 45 calibur Dirty Harry style pistol, that thing packed a punch!

After spending 3 hours at the shooting range we headed to Elyse and Scott's house for dinner (another relative of the Skelley/Hale family...I know they are everywhere). When we arrived a banner saying Welcome Runners was hanging in the doorway. The kids had designed the entire thing and even drew pictures of us. Ken was the only one with hair. It was 8pm when we finally arrived and we quickly showered before we ate. Dinner was amazing and the company was even better. Everyone was interested in our journey and had a million questions. It still feels good to explain to people why we are out here and what we are doing. Our dream is continuing to affect people as we go and it amazes me still.

Tomorrow I am predicting rain. Before we left for the trip I told the guys we would only encounter 10 days of rain. We have been lucky enough to only see 2 days out of 46 so far. Tomorrow, I am afraid will be day 3. 1,000 miles and 7 weeks living on the road. We have had an amazing time so far and I know it will only get better from here. Keep reading and follow your dreams.

Keep Zoomin'
-Andy

*We later found out that Brent's boss was the 136th richest billionaire in the country according to Forbes Magazine.