Day 48 – 22 miles – 691 total

We had to get up and leave by 7 am so that my brother could drop us off and then still get to work on time. Cameron has been great. He made us dinner last night and is doing everything he can to help us with our mission.

We got back to our carts and continued the walk. It was really cold but we knew that it was supposed to warm up today. The first 8 miles were all on the backroads. It was great.

Shane started the day with a blister but he wrapped up his foot and was doing fine. The first few hours were great. Just hanging out and talking while enjoying the freedom of being able to safely walk in the middle of the road.

Today marks 4 years that my sister died. I hate this date but I was determined to walk hard and not let it keep me down. I did need to have a moment to myself so I stepped back and walked alone for a bit. I felt better after that.

About 10 miles in we were back in civilization and on a road with heavy traffic. We decided to stop for lunch. Shane’s blister was getting worse. After eating he redressed it and we got back to it.

We ran into a cross-country cyclist who was riding South from Canada. We stopped and talked to Tom for quite a while about stories from the road. He had ridden across the country twice before. Shane had walked and kayaked across the country. I had walked across the country. Stick now has over 1,000 miles of long distance hiking. There were a lot of miles standing there on the side of the road.

There is a certain kind of peace that a person who has walked or rode a bike across the country has. We all understood each other in ways that others can’t. It’s a very special thing to be a part of. Tom was great.

After that Shane was done. He made it nearly 18 miles with a blister and finally decided to call it. He didn’t want to hold us up though so he understood me and Stick continuing to walk ahead. We made plans to come pick him up when we were done which would only be about 2 hours.

Stick and I pushed on to try to get more miles and closer to Savannah. We passed a school bus that was stopped to let some kids off and the kids in the back read my cart that said “overdose awareness”. One of them yelled something out the window in support. I couldn’t hear what but it sounded like “do not overdose”.. something like that. It was definitely a good thing. They were excited to see us and were being supportive. That perked me up a little to know that those kids were aware of what an overdose is and hopefully it will stay on their minds as they get older.

We made it to a good end point for the day and Cameron was on his way to come pick us up. He got us and then we went back for Shane and then we grabbed dinner on the way back and my brother picked up the whole check.

As soon as we got back to the apartment I got a phone call from my friends at GRASP Gwinnett. GRASP Gwinnett is a grief support group that I started up in honor of Brittany last year. It really has been great to go through this with such amazing people and they are still keeping the group going while I’m gone. It was so nice to hear from them, especially on this day.

I was exhausted and felt a good sense of accomplishment and gratitude for all that occurred today. I laid down and went right to sleep.