Day 31 – Sound Of Da Police

01 Jun Day 31 – Sound Of Da Police

Firstly sorry this blog is delayed, James, I am sorry your train journey home was boring without it and yes Vicki, I am alive and well. It was such a fun filled day yesterday that when we finished for the day I couldn’t even think about blogging. So much stuff happened!

Irregular Legs

I set off at 6AM to what I thought would be a usual days walk, but I couldn’t be more wrong. I am alway keen to try and keep my structure of four, ten mile legs. Leg one saw me get to 14.5 miles. I had managed to walk straight past the RV. When they caught up with me I was just plodding along as usual. Then I received a phone call from Pappa Beebs telling me he had woken early and was a couple of miles north of Springfield. We set a destination of 12.2 miles away. Again, changing the format of my walk. This left 13.3 miles remaining which I decided to do as a single leg. I think I have found that my original plan of four legs are better then three. The Last leg of the day seemed to take forever. Exhaustion set in, pretty bad dehydration along with a heat rash that went right up one of my legs. I am not doing that again, but i did do my 40 miles and the last mile i did in 13mins 25sec which is fast. I just got annoyed with how long it was taking and pushed through.

Pappa Beebs

Dad arrived yesterday and what an amazing 30-40 mins. So when I was in my final mile before I met him and the RV i walked past a car crash on highway 3. Everyone was ok. Anyway as I walked round the corner Dad appeared out of the RV wearing his Robert Duvall ‘Apocalypse Now‘ hat. I thought I looked ridiculous, it obviously runs in the family! Anyway I sat down to my usual, 5 eggs and beans lunch, when we got surrounded by two police cars. Everyone panicked and I jumped out the RV, not literally but to talk to the officers. Seems we had parked in the most drug filled area of Granite City and we had been reported for loitering. As I got out the first officer said ‘hey you were just walking weren’t you?’ I told him briefly about the walk. He was exstatic that he had won a sportsman bet with a fellow officer. Anyway after much charming and a quick present from King of Shaves & Remington (I gave them all a new Azor 5) they let us take some photos and then headed on their way. I went in to finish lunch and 5 minutes later they were back. Being the cheeky chap I am i swung the door open and said ‘oh just handcuff me and lets be done with it’. His retort was not quite as amusing as he simply asked ‘ when are you leaving?’ I thought this was a change in tone and trust me the next words that came out of his mouth astounded me! ‘So we got you some baseball tickets for the Cardinals vs. Giants game tomorrow night’. I can’t get over the enormous generosity of these guys, the last people I meet prior to leaving Illinois and what an amazing leaving present. I have loved Illinois and I appologise for not getting the officers names, so guys, if you are reading this please get in touch through the contact page. Would be great to thank you personally and let everyone know who Illinois’ finest really are! (Just looked at the photos and it has been been verified that two of the Police officers are Officer Klumpp & Officer Maue. We still are awaiting the name of the best looking officer in Illinois!)

St. Louis

I have made it here and after another 8 day stint with no day off I am totally burnt out. St. Louis is far more beautiful than I was expecting. Ok so there are some run down areas, which i believe are due to the economic downturn, but the general feeling and the people are amazing. We decided to stay in a hotel. I needed to get out of the RV as we all had cabin fever. The support team, Ali & Helen headed off out into town for a night of debauchery. I on the other hand ate a streak bigger than my head and caught up with dad. We sat up chatting till about 1 am and then I just passed out. But then happened to be rudely awoken form my slumber as my godfather, Richard, phoned my dad at some ungodly hour of the morning. Anyway it didn’t take long for me to resume my coma!