The road ahead is anything but predictable.

Later today, I’m hoping to speak to another elementary school– this time K-5, where Darcie goes to school in Vail.
Darcie is the nine-year-old daughter of James & Kimberly, the thoughtful thirtysomething couple who invited me to spend some time with their family as they saw me making my way out of town, WALKING ACROSS AMERICA signs attached. Kim told me she’d been aware of the story from around the time I’d first begun the Walk. While it’s not uncommon for someone to see a news story in some given city and later stop to chat when they see me walking the road, it is very rare for someone without just a couple of degrees of separation to have already been familiar with the story weeks or months before I ever approached their city. Nonetheless, this is the case here.

After the lovely massage they hosted me to, and the follow-up invite to the Saturday sweet 16 birthday party of a dear family friend of theirs, Sunday morning I met Kimberly’s pleasant parents, Clyde and Linda. Later came a couple of hours of super-fun, intense bicycling with Kim, slaloming through a very prickly desert cactus obstacle course near a local Air Force base, barreling down bone-breaking bluffs at many points. James had lent his sturdy mountain bike to me, and though a loss of balance on any one of countless cactus-clad corners would have easily translated into an ER visit, those trails were sooo much fun!! Bicycles seem so fast to me, that I’m entertaining the option of actually riding one home from the White House. (No quick decisions on that one, however!)

Sunday evening James, Kimberly, and their three children, Darcie, Calvin and Ellie hosted me to the local Sweet Tomatoes Buffet. I arrived with quite the appetite; however, I really don’t remember ever experiencing so much post-buffet stomach pain upon departing. I felt about ready to pop! A nap was in order once we made it back home…

I truly hope that speaking to some classes at Darcie’s school comes to pass later today, as speaking to schools has suddenly become far more attractive an idea to me– one I plan to spend ample time organizing for this fall, during my summer recess. Whether today’s school appearance happens or not, I’m about back on the road east, ready to walk a series of main roads, side roads, dirt roads, and desert floor to reach to and through New Mexico. Daytime temperatures are rising again (Monday 88; Tuesday 89!), and though the heat may retreat for a reprieve here and there through the miles, it’s far more likely to just keeping rising as I keep pushing east.

I can predict that I will be making it further east on foot this week, walking across a variety of surfaces, and meeting many new souls. I cannot yet predict how far I’ll make it by week’s end, or how great the challenges I face may become. I simply know that I’m loving this chapter through the Southwest, and as the saguaro sunsets slowly recede as I step into the hills and higher elevations ahead, I’m determined to take the best attitude into any given situation– for better or worse, once again this week, I will surely enjoy the walk!!