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.

Pain and Fatigue

Jed says pain and fatigue are his faithful companions......I'm sure they are. I was doing some weeding in the garden today....it was hot and it didn't take long to wipe me out. I came in from my yard work feeling like I had been chewed up and spit out. Thought about the last post I read on Jed's site....."34 miles in 92 degree heat..." YUCH!!! I have never been a summer person. I like fall and winter. It is sickening to me to be hot. Can't imagine running in it. Of course I am not 31, I'm sure I would have been better at things then, but even so,...I would be wimping out you can be sure.
I also don't like to be super hungry and have no way to get food. When I read that Jed was brought to tears at the sight of a Pizza Hut on the horizon, I did remember a day long ago when I was so very hungry. It had been days since I had eaten, and I had really gone past the hunger point to the point where food was hard to eat without getting ill. I remember and never want any of my children to be hungry, but I know he is. I'm not sure how many calories you burn up running 20-40 miles per day, but I think it would be hard to eat enough to maintain weight at this rate. I think my son will be pretty thin by the time I see him again. After thru hiking the Appalachian Trail, Jed took a bus back from Katahadin in Maine to Kansas City. I remember clearly going to the bus station to pick him up that day. My husband and I were so excited to go get him that evening. When he emerged from the bus, he was shaggy and wan. I threw my arms around him for a hug. They went too far around. I felt as though I could have circled him twice with one arm. That was a little over two thousand miles......this will be over four thousand. I pray he will be able to eat more this time around, or I will be taking a twig home for a little R&R before he returns to the mountains where he works changing lives. A phrase was coined concerning Jed. It is TAKING THE "I CAN'T" OUT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE...ONE STEP AT A TIME.

When I am not feeling well, am tired or discouraged....I remember..and say "I can do this." "Yes, I can!"

Thank you for that Jed. Thank you for showing me I can. mom

Right Back at Ya Governor!!

I absolutely LOVED this message from Jed, so I re enter it here:

"Met the Governor of Illinois today. He gave me his business card, and I wrote my charity website info on it and gave ir right back to him."


I wonder, governor, what you thought about that....? Maybe you should go to the site, and lend a hand. That would do more good than public relations. Have you ever watched someone die from cancer? I have. Have you ever loved a little three year old child who is battling brain cancer? I have. Perhaps one less latte, one less soda pop, one less fancy dinner or show or new suit. One less beer or martini at lunch......who's to say what the turning point will be in the search for a cure. Isn't it worth something? Isn't it worth the sacrifice of something, anything you won't really even miss in a day?

Jed is running...daily...through rain and wind, pain and hunger. He is doing it on his own dime. No one is driving along behind him to feed and shelter him at night as they do with so many runners. So, Governor, if I could will it to be so, I would make the image of Jed stick with you till you went to this site and sacrificed just a few dollars, so a life might be helped. And to anyone else out there who might read this.....please do the same.

www.firstgiving.com/jedediahbrown

God Bless this Country...and God bless all who have the courage to do what others only dream.