Yesterday I actually backtracked, walking from Abilene to Salina, Kansas, to meet with a YMCA there. I spent the day walking with my friend, Jim Nihart. Jim is a videographer and is making a short documentary of our experiences on the road across the US (he’s also getting help from our friend, Zach McCabe, who is a photographer). Jim drove down all the way from Minneapolis to spend some time getting some footage of Dina and I. 

Jim plans on walking with me a bit tomorrow to possibly get some more footage and possibly have a little interview with me as I’m walking. Speaking of videos, I started carrying a video camera with me, and I plan on getting a video put onto my blog now and then. Just give me a while to get the wires I need to hook up my camera to my computer…and to figure out how to use it.

 

We were really grateful to be able to meet with the kids at the Salina YMCA. They expressed their disappointment when we told them we wouldn’t make it back to Salina due to our route and our meeting with Operation Purple in Kansas City. Well, we rearranged our route to bring us straight across I-70 to Salina, rather then heading SW back down to El Dorado. We didn’t lose any miles doing this, and it opened our route up to meeting with more kids in Northern Kansas as I make my trek east towards Topeka and Kansas City.

 

The kids at the Salina YMCA were fantastic. It was the last day of camp for these youngsters, and we showed up to talk with them in the very last hour. Closing out the summer YMCA camp with writing letters to their new friends in Iraq…I think the kids really enjoyed that.

 

 

 

This morning I left our campground in Abilene, and made my way towards Junction City. Here is an important lesson: take google map’s “walking directions” with a big grain of salt. You may end up on some strange highway in the back woods that turns into nothing but a minimum maintenance road.

 

I feel really good. I feel like I can walk 20 miles a day if I needed to, but just haven’t had the chance lately because of horrible road conditions. For instance, a road you are walking on for 5 miles may all of the sudden become so thin that you have nowhere to go but the ditch when cars pass you. It’s really frustrating when you are really getting into your stride, and you have to call to get picked up because it’s more dangerous out here in the middle of nowhere, than it would be walking on a major interstate (which is against the law if you were wondering).

 

 

 

 

 

I’m excited to knock out some real miles tomorrow, and within a week, I’ll be halfway to 1000miles!!!!

- Gunnar