Almost home !!!

I believe that someone commented that after over 1,500 miles running, with few places to "freshen up", that things were beginning to "grow" from you. Ha ha!

catching up again

Ok, I am so far behind it isn't funny. I have been on here more times than I can count, trying to load a picture of you, Buffy and the little girls at the end of the Katy Trail in Clinton. I have a great video of you coming in, and with this slow speed dial up, I am sure I will not live long enough to load it. I'll write, then try to load the pictures later.
It's hard to explain how I felt when we came down to get you in Clinton. You have to realize that life is so much different when you're getting old. The anticipation of seeing loved ones is stronger than that of a child on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa.....you look out the window a thousand times....convincing yourself that you really do hear the bells and the hoofs on the roof. That's what it was like. Buffy had of course gone down the evening before..to get a room, (no trail sleeping for her) and to ride that last 25 or so miles with you as you got into Clinton and prepared to stop your run for a while to visit us. As Ande was out of town, we had the little girls and prepared a little snack basket to take with us in the car. They were so excited to see "Uncle Jed", and to tell you the truth I was so happy they were here the night before we left. The time flew by with them here, their exuberation keeping me busy, and keeping my thoughts from running too far ahead. I hadn't seen you Jed, for a long time, and my mind was crowded with a jumble of emotion. Children outgrow their parents, but we parents never seem to outgrow the need to be who we always were to you. Funny how that works. In our hearts we know, but in our minds we tell ourselves we are indispensable, and we will always be a critical component in the lives of our children. In reality, we have prepared you so that you won't need us, then we ourselves have the problem letting go. I am doing pretty good I think really. I worry now, but I don't obsess. Don't laugh....it took a while to get here. Every now and then I see that little curly haired boy looking out the back window of the school bus transporting him to kindergarten, with a tear rolling down his face and his little hand waving goodbye. What you didn't see was the tear soaked face I wore into the house that day. I had to get my "calm face" on now, but as we pulled into the parking lot at the trail end, I didn't feel that way. We were early it turns out....imagine that!....the kids and I walked around a while, we threw the blanket out on the ground and had snacks....they were restless... You know how kids are,.. "Is Uncle Jed here yet?" "Is mommy with him?"

Roger's leg was hurting pretty good, so he sat under the shelter house, and I walked up and down a section of the trail with Ellye and Aeva. Old eagle eye Ellye found a mulberry tree, and I pulled a branch down and shared berries with them. We found a nickel, and Ellye invented a "shell game" out of trail dust and fine gravel to hide the money under a little mound, while we tried to guess which mound it was in. We played till they were quite dirty, then all of a sudden Ellye looked up and said "I see something! Maybe it's Uncle Jed and Mama!" I could make out a speck which continued to get larger, but I could not tell what it was. In time I could see a bike rider, who as she got closer, turned out to be your sister. A short distance behind, I saw a runner! I didn't have to see....I knew it was you! I ran back to the car to get my little camcorder while the little girls ran to meet you. When I got back to the trail, I got you running in with them. My heart jumped out of my body. You were home.

bittersweet

Well it's been a while since I wrote anything here, and I think I better get up to the current day. The photo you see here is of Jed cooking waffles at a motel where he stayed with his sister in Missouri. The town of Green Ridge is about 30 miles from the end of the Katy trail in Clinton, Missouri, and Jed's sister Buffy wanted badly to ride her bike beside Jed for the last 25-30 miles of his run on that trail. She packed up her bike, brought the little ones to our house, and started for Green Ridge from Kearney Mo. where she lives. Her husband Ande was away on a school assignment. When she got to the general area she found the trail, and not long after, she saw Jed running down the trail. She was pretty excited to see him. She packed him up into her car, and they drove off to the motel she had reserved for the night. After a much needed shower for Jed, he was taken out to eat, and eat, and eat. You burn up an obscene amount of calories running 30 or so miles a day. The next morning after a continental breakfast of waffles and more waffles, they set out for Green Ridge where Buff had picked him up. Parking her car, she unloaded her bike, hoisted his pack onto her own back, climbed onto her bike and they were off for the last leg of the trail. My husband and I planned on meeting them in Clinton with the little girls, doubling back to get her car, then making the drive back to Kansas City for a much anticipated reunion with the rest of the family. Excitement!!!

Crazy weekend

Saturday (yesterday), Jed was able to be interviewed on the Pat McAvoy radio show out of Lake Placid, New York. I am thinking that would have been a blast to have heard. Wish I had been able to hear that!

Later, around 3:30 this morning apparently, as Jed was trying to sleep a few hours before resuming his run, there were a bunch of drunks tearing around in cars. They continued with their bombing around till one of the cars literally exploded and caught on fire, burning completely up. Jed got it on video. Perhaps one of these days it'll show up on YouTube, or at the very least on his Facebook page. He had a moral for that story......don't interrupt his sleep, or your car may explode.

I hope he will have some uninterrupted sleep when he gets home for a day or two of R&R. He'll need it. He has come a long way, with a long way yet to go.

The really cool news?

One of the television stations here is going to do a story on him, as well as the Kansas City Star newspaper. I know he will welcome any help to raise money for the V Foundation. Perhaps in his lifetime a breakthrough will be made on cancer, and he will know that he did his all to assist in that cause.

Rock on bunny!!!

More crazy stories!!!

As Jed said goodbye to his St. Louis friend, he switched to the Katy trail to run to Clinton, so more of his friends and family could run a little of the way with him. He had a rough schedule of 25-35 miles per day he wanted to run. Now the crappy thing is..... he is running alone, without support....and it is HOTTER THAN HADES outside this first week of June. Nearly impossible to carry enough water, and run the distance he wants to cover each day.

Of course I don't know about other people, but I get pretty sluggish in the heat. I guess Jed wanted to take a break for a short time because of that very fact, but the other factor here is that it has been a horribly wet spring, and the mosquitoes are out in Biblical proportions......

A post on Friday said ...'the good thing about swarms of mosquitos is that you get to where you are going faster....it's impossible to take a break......'

And then later.....

"When it's close to 10,000 degrees outside with a billion percent humidity, a piece of watermelon is as close to heaven as you can get on earth."

Oh bunny, hope you actually got to have a piece of that melon, and didn't just have to fantasize about it....

In Missouri

Once in Missouri, a friend retrieved Jed and had him spend the day for a meal, some welcome conversation and a real bed to sleep in. Thoughtful person that he is, Jed washed the unique trail run odor off himself in advance. After a day of 35 miles running on only 4 hours of sleep, I bet it felt pretty invigorating. Dang ! Looks like nature's perfect jacuzzi.

Coming home

Ok, this is pretty close to evening, and I don't know if you can see the sign on this photo or not, but it says MISSOURI STATE LINE....Jed had a two word comment with this photo he posted on the internet. It simply said "Homeward Bound".
This simple comment caught me kind of off guard. Why should that be? Well, for some time now, Jed has been a traveler...a vagabond if you will. He wants to drink in life, and not just taste a smidgen of it. I recall clearly one evening he stopped out to the house, a Friday I think. He had been telling a friend of his about the Boundary Waters area in northern Minnesota where he had gone to school. A cold, wild place. A wonderful place. A place that was a good 13 hour drive from our house. With a smile on his face, he told me that as soon as he got off work he was going to pick up his buddy and take him up there. They'd go out tracking wolves in the Superior National Forest, perhaps get to see a pack along with other beauties of the north woods, eat, and be back home for work Monday. Friday to Sunday night!!! I was exhausted just thinking of it, but they did it, with him driving both ways. When he decides to, he can do just about anything. On another occasion, he grabbed his brother and set out to see the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore. Once they were there, they continued on to the Pacific coast, then to Arizona with its many sights and down to Texas to relive the days of the Alamo, before turning northward and coming back to Missouri.......or the time he was working with Chef Will (spelling?) at the Elms Resort and hearing from the chef about a fabulous crab shack in New Orleans. You got it, with a rattletrap of a car, and very few dollars in his pocket, he set off for Louisiana to taste of the flavors of that crab shack. Coming back, he side tracked through Graceland with it's Elvis lore, then to St. Louis and the famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses. When he got home, he had a shaggy face, a lean look, and 50 cents in his pocket. Good thing the car didn't need another tank of gas. He had decided having gas money to see the sights was more important than a meal or two or a place to lay his head. At night he just slept on the ground, and ate occasionally when it was absolutely necessary to keep going. Self discipline? IN SPADES !!!

He has been so many places. Seen so many things.....so when I saw the post "Homeward Bound", it hit me with a force that he calls this place home. I don't know why I thought that....perhaps because I know Missouri isn't his favorite place....he has seen such beauty, such grandeur, and yet the word "home" looked so absolutely beautiful when I read it in his post, that it brought me to tears. It conveyed a feeling that spans time and place. It brought the most important things in life to the forefront of my mind. My family.....my friends....my children and grandchildren.....that is 'home', and I believe that is what he saw when he put his foot on the bridge that spans the Mississippi River
and brought him into his home state of Missouri. When all is said and done, when the trail finally is finished, we always come home.... in our minds or in our hearts, home is where we love...and where we are loved. I love you Bunny. I'll see you soon.