Day 2 – Familiar Places

After a few hours (or perhaps 15 minutes, I’m not sure) of restless sleep, I finally crawled out of my sleeping bag and bright pink tent around 5:30 AM to greet a cool, crisp Saturday morning. It was still dark and dew covered the ground…and pretty much everything else.
I met a couple of my teammates, Deb and Sheri, for a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, oatmeal and orange juice. For others, hot black coffee was definitely the order of the day!

Shortly after 7:00 AM, Dawn and Maria and I started walking. We followed the path out of the park, through a quiet neighborhood, and turned onto the Gateway Trail, which extends east into downtown St. Paul and west out to Stillwater. The trail passed by my old junior high school, now known as John Glenn Middle School, and through parts of Maplewood and North St. Paul, where I lived with my family for more than 12 years.

I lost Dawn and Maria in the busyness of our first pit stop, but I enjoyed walking on my own (note that I did not say “alone”, as I was in the company of dozens of other women…and a few men). I noted familiar places, like the streets where the parents of my high school classmates still live and the private country club that used to remind my friend Eric of the movie “Caddyshack”. Our walking path took us off the sidewalk and onto a trail through a quiet, wooded park

By the time I passed through the second pit stop, the thin clouds had drifted away and the sun came out. We followed a narrow sidewalk for several blocks, walking close together along a road that lead to the first cheering station of the day. Hundreds of people lined both sides of the sidewalk, cheering and clapping and offering candy, popsicles, high-fives, and hugs – all of which were most welcome. My parents and sister and two young nieces were there and I stopped to say hello for a few minutes. Although my parents had been to the closing ceremonies in years past, my family didn’t really know what it was like to be along the route and see the long train of hundreds of walkers. They were amazed.

After the cheering station, we got off the main roads and walked through a semi-quiet neighborhood, then entered Battle Creek Park in St. Paul. I met up with Tricia, a breast cancer survivor who I’d met last year, but hadn’t yet seen on the walk this year. We walked on the gently rolling path, snaking our way through the woods, under a clear blue sky.

The trail left the park, where we took a break at another pit stop. The break was much needed, as we then began walking up a long incline – okay, it was a big damn hill! At the top of the hill, we had to walk up to a pedestrian bridge that crossed the road we’d just been on. And on the other side of the bridge, we walked up few more small hills, to Indian Mounds Park. Even though the park afforded a scenic view of downtown St. Paul and the Mississippi River, we were pretty well sick and tired of walking uphill for a while. Fortunately, it was really the only significant hilly stretch of the path all day.

I stopped for lunch – and to get out of my shoes – around 12:30. I finally found a few of my teammates, including Dawn and Maria, some of whom had been troubled with blisters and had gotten a much-needed ride from one of the pit stops to lunch. Some of them knew they couldn’t walk comfortably any longer and they wisely chose to just take the bus directly to camp. They were a little sad that they couldn’t at least walk to the afternoon cheering station, where a couple of our friends would be waiting, but it was the smart thing to do.

The afternoon was warm and sunny. I walked with teammate, and first-time walker, Ali. The route took us through the east side of St. Paul, to Lake Phalen, where I’d spent my summers during college with my three best friends – walking around the lake, hanging out at the beach, hitting tennis balls from inside the court ,over the fence and out onto the road. (Hey, I wasn’t always a perfect citizen.)

We were greeted by hundreds more well-wishers at the cheering station near the lake, including Renata and Arlene, who walked in the 3-Day each of the three previous years, and members of our teammate Nancy’s family. It is such an uplifting feeling to have so many people cheering people they don’t know, as well as seeing friends and loved ones.

We left the cheering station and made our way around most of the lake, pausing for a few minutes at the final pit stop of the day. After that short break, we continued on for the last few, seemingly interminable, miles. We finally reached our campsite shortly after 4:00, cheered once again by crew members and fellow walkers who had already arrived, ending a long, 21-mile day.

A hot shower…an acceptable dinner…relaxing during the evening program in the dining tent (wonderful stories told by three inspiring walkers)…and falling fast asleep in the relative comfort of my sleeping bag.

Two days down, one more to go!