Day 62

Today was our last full day in Texas. We were sad that it has finally come to an end but at the same time excited to be crossing into our 6th state! Tomorrow we have about 15 miles until we reach the New Mexico border and step into "the unknown". We have been told that tomorrow's stop is the last thing we will see until we reach Roswell, a good 70 miles away. We received an email tonight from someone willing to help us out as we approach Roswell and he took extensive notes as to what we will see as we travel those 70 lonely miles. Here is a quick preview of some of his notes: mile 38 - ruins of abandoned bar - four small trees. Mile 49 - dead tree. Mile 57 - small dead tree (ranch house 500 yards south of road.) It only gets better from here. These next few days are going to be a true challenge for us but I am confident that something magical will happen for us. I can just feel it...

Today we woke up around 7 and began to pack the joggers. We turned on Sport Center to watch the first few games of the MLB season. We are all huge baseball fans and this is something that we will all miss over the next two months. It was even harder to watch the Mets lose in 10 innings as well as see Pedro leave the game early with another leg injury. Lets just hope he comes back quick. We grabbed as much food as we could from the continental breakfast and headed off down the road. The police chief told us they would have an escort out of town this morning but we called him and explained it would not be necessary since we usually walk the first 20 minutes of the day.

As we exited town Ken and Matt posed in front of an Aaron's (rental store). They both use to work at Rent-A-Center before we left for this trip and as I found out during the early stages of the run Aaron's is R.A.C. biggest rivals. After fooling around for a bit and taking some more pictures we finally hit the road and started running. For the first 5 miles of the day the shoulder was lined with cones. They are currently in the process of widening the road and it was nice to have this barrier protecting us from oncoming traffic.

The weather was perfect today which made running easy and the day fly by. It was in the low 60's with hardly any wind and overcast. Probably the best weather to run in. It wasn't until 1pm that we all took our pants and long sleeve shirts off. The scenery was the same it has been for a few days now, flat! The road was also incredibly straight. As we approached town we could see the water towers a good 8 miles outside of town. We kept running but it seemed like the towers weren't getting any closer. It was frustrating at times but I knew we were making progress. Durkin found two license plates (well he found 4 but 2 of them were from Texas) as well. Our first New Mexico, which we were all excited to see because it was a sign that we were getting close to leaving Texas and a Utah. The Utah plate was kind of ironic that we found it today because our friend Kyle is currently driving out to Utah in order to start a new job. It was neat to think he was making his own journey across the country only a couple hundred miles North of us...and at a much faster pace.

We arrived in town around 2:30 a great day on the road for us. We covered the 32 miles in just under 6 hours something that would have been impossible only a few weeks earlier. It's great to see how well we are all feeling. I hope it can continue. As we arrived in town we met up with Mayor Pam Redman and Terry Howard. The whole town was expecting us after the city council of Brownfield contacted them. There was a scrolling marque across the street from the court house that read: Welcome Ya'll Nation Run Guys! It was our 3rd sign of the trip and we were super pumped to see our name in lights once again.

After meeting everyone at the court house Terry treated us to DQ for a delicious meal. We all put away this quick "snack" before dinner in a few hours. We needed to send home a few items that we have picked up and made our way over to the post office. While outside a lady and her kids came up to us. She had heard about our journey and they all wanted to meet us. We signed their book titled: See the USA-The Easy Way and took a few pictures with them. Terry then brought us to the Bed & Breakfast in town which the city graciously paid for us. The place was amazing. Once an old ranch house, it was recently remodeled.

We were given the tour of the property which included 80,000 acres of vineyards. This was something that none of us expect to see in Texas. Who would have thought that wine was produced in Texas? We got a close up look at the fields of vines as well as the equipment used to pluck the grapes from the stalk. The whole process was incredible.

After we got cleaned up, Pam and her husband Jeff picked us up for dinner at the church. Ken however stayed at the house to sleep as he was extremely tired after the last few days. Every Wednesday the church cooks a huge meal for anyone that wishes to join them. We were told it averages about 280 people a week and sometimes even up to 400! The one thing that I loved during dinner was the fresh fruit. I haven't had any in so long and it was a great treat. We meet a ton of people in the community and got to listen to their own stories about town. It was very enjoyable as well as filling.

After dinner we were asked to speak to the Girls In Action (G.A.) group that met for about an hour after dinner each week. The girls ranged from 2nd to 6th grade. Matt and I did a great job explaining to them what we were doing and answered all their questions. We showed them on a map where we started and how much we have left. It was amazing to me to actually look at the United States and see how much ground we have covered. I guess when you are only concentrating on 25 miles at a time it is easy to lose track of the bigger picture.

We asked them to guess how far we had run so far. One girl shouted out 4 miles! Another answered 10,000. We also asked them to guess how old they thought we were. It ranged between 15 and 44. Finally after several minutes someone got it right. It was funny to listen to them and I had a great time talking about our adventures. Before we left they all sung me happy birthday. My birthday is in exactly two weeks. They told us when they meet again they will be thinking about us. Even more people praying that we succeed...

Before we left, we were given hats and visors to remember Plains, TX. The greatest city we have traveled so far! (unless you are from some place else and reading this, then your city is the best). Pam brought us back to her house to do laundry and use her computer. Thank Pam for this great write up.

Tonight is our last night in Texas and we made it though without putting up a tent.* This state has been so great to us from the first day we set foot in it. I hope this good luck can continue and we continue to meet amazing people. They say don't mess with Texas but I think that's because they don't want everyone to find out how generous people here truly are. Take it from me...mess with Texas as much as you can!

Thanks for reading. We'll see you in New Mexico.

-Andy

*We haven't had to put up our tent since March 5th.