I am greeting you all from a hotel room donated by our own OfficerRabbit. Today was rough and the last week on the whole has been more down than up. But this is life. Everyone can go on when things are easy. One week from One and Oh, so heeeeere we go.
Day 99- This was a pretty boring day. A relatively easy 23 miles from Central City to Grand Island. Grand Island was a cool little town. A family who noticed my stay at the RV park a week prior but wasn’t there donated a room for the night.
Day 100-23 miles from Grand Island to Shelton. Shelton police granted me permission to camp at their baseball Diamond/park. Today I hit rock bottom. My mental game tanked. This was a tough day to finish. I’m not sure what triggered this depressive episode but I probably haven’t felt as “low” as I did on this day. I pitched camp on a concrete part of the park (with two sleeping pads it doesn’t affect me much to do so) and I’m glad I did, because sprinklers kicked in around 2-3am and I’d have gotten soaked. They also had an EMT/Fire call and their alarm sounded like legitimate tornado sirens, so I was awakened around 1230am too.
Day 101-21 miles from Shelton to Kearney. My friend Mike, whose podcast was the first to interview me, has been calling ahead now attempting to get me the best possible accommodations for as free as possible. Today he managed to wrangle an employee discount at Microtel so I booked two days, in the hopes I’d be able to bounce back mentally a little. I felt like I was doing a little better, I think it’s the grind of walking everyday, being alone, and the boring ass terrain here that makes it more monotonous and tougher to deal with.
Day 102- Joe hath resteth.
Day 103-17.5 miles from Kearney to Elm Creek. The 4 Seasons RV park allowed me to put up camp for the night. En route I ran into a gentleman, Wade Williams. Wade and I had talked a few days earlier on a post in a group from the supplement company I prefer to use MtnOps. He was asking about running shoe brands and we had some dialogue. Turned out he lived in Kearney. He hopped out and walked about a half mile with me, he won MtnOps 2021 year long fitness challenge and lost like 125lbs. An older couple saw me later and pulled up to drop off a Little Caesars pizza, a water and five bucks. Seeing as how there wasn’t much in the way of stopping for grub. I gladly took it. I crashed pretty early this night.
Day 104-22 miles from Elm Creek to Lexington. It was a good day, it got warm later, not really humid so it was tolerable. Had an older gentleman heading to work stop by. He asked where I was headed, I told him Lexington and he replied “Get in that’s where I’m going!” I told him I can’t and we talked about me and my why. He gave me money for dinner and wished me luck. Later a couple pulled up to check on me, I told them what I was doing and why, and the woman began crying. Her 14 year old son has survived two suicide attempts so far. They wished me luck as they took off. I had permission to crash at the Dawson County Fairgrounds and I hit the hay pretty early. Sleeping outside is getting easier with the late night temps calming down some.
Day 105-Id planned on doing 27 miles to Gothenburg where Mike had pulled off a cabin sleeping arrangement. Ten miles into the day my gastrointestinal tract had other ideas. I spent 4.5 hours covering the last 5 miles. Having to ninja-dump twice within an hour along a highway. I pulled my chair out along the shoulder and had a sit down. I decided to call it a day at 15 miles in Cozad and try to rehydrate, eat and recover. Again thanks to OfficerRabbit for his room donation! I’ll take them whenever I can because soon, in Wyoming,Utah and Nevada I won’t have many options for anything indoors.
this week was a test for sure. From being in the absolute gutter mentally to spewing the remains of what’s in a gutter out of my body. It’s enough the aches and pains I have daily I don’t like dealing with the bubble guts too. Luckily they’ve been few and far between on the walk.
on the bright side, it’s furthering my mental strength with all of these obstacles getting thrown in my way. Hopefully it’ll help someone out there struggling to persevere a little longer and find the good.
the mission this week is to make sure I’m somewhere with either enough cell phone signal, or find a sports bar to watch the first game of the season. Thanks again to all of you who follow along on all the socials or on here. I’ll never accurately convey how much it helps. Plus I enjoy answering questions as we go.
gonna finish eating, shower and crash out guys. Enjoy the remains of the weekend!
GO BUCKS!
Joe
