Back on the road,,,and back OFF the road...

So I went back on the road for a couple days, after recuperating for a couple of weeks. The night before I was to resume walking a vicious storm had blown through town (Jackson, Georgia) and many huge trees were blown over. One of them happened to fall on top of a duplex, where a family of four were sleeping. The dad, a 28 year old man named Alix BonHomme, and his 3 year old son, Alix III, were killed almost instantly, the dad’s body found in a protective position atop his son’s little frame. The boy’s twin brother and their mom were not injured. Around town, many many trees, and houses sustained damage, and though a tornado apparently was not officially recognized, it was one hell of a storm. I watched from my bedroom window as the wind and rain became a solid wall of fury, and was silently grateful to my intuition for telling me to wait an extra day to leave. I would have blown away in my tent had I been out in that mess.
I drove around town, saw the damage, took a few pix, and left. I went not back to Kite, Georgia, where I had left off a fortnight ago, but instead decided to start again a bit further west in Georgia. Cheating? Yes. Do I care? Yes, but with a caveat: one particularly scary evening down south made me think that maybe getting out of there would be best for my own health. So I’ll work on getting to Alabama as soon as I can ( as if Alabama is less scary than south Georgia…)
So I hit the road, leaving from Barnesville, Georgia at noon, on Tuesday, March 5. I actually managed to cover almost 20 miles by the time I stopped walking, taking a rest for a half hour in Zebulon, Georgia before heading back out, calling it a day at about 8:30 pm.
I thought I was well prepared. After the blister debacle of the first leg of my journey, I acquired some new and much better shoes, three pairs, two New Balance and one Merrells, and also a solar panel charging device to keep my phone charged so that the worries of losing contact with the world would be a thing of the past. And socks. A lot of cotton socks, which I was always lead to believe were the best things to wear---White cotton socks, the gym teachers said. They are absorbent, light and airy. And they were right, for short term events like a track meet or baseball game. Not for walking 3000 miles though. Because my cotton socks were just soaking up the sweat, they got damp and made my left foot develop a rather severe blister on the bottom behind the three middle toes. Every step felt like there was a grape or marble in my shoe, and it seemed to get bigger every step of the way. The blister that formed then popped and became much less painful. But then my cheap sneakers crumbled and awful blisters formed on the right heel and that was it for the first leg of the trip, and home I came for a week and a half. Now back on the road, I felt so much better, and all seemed well, until the night came, and as I lay trying to sleep in my tent, cold as hell, (I later discovered it had only been about 30 degrees outside) I felt a sore spot in the same part of the foot that had been blistered and by morning another blister had formed there, fairly large. Delayed blister reaction?? I packed up my tent, managed to get my cart and belongings out of the woods where I had set up blindly the night before, and headed down the road, freezing and sleepless.
I walked about 2 miles. I was still freezing and the pain in my hands from rolling up an icy and frosty tent, and just the general cold had made fine hand maneuvers almost impossible, and I had been unable to connect my phone to the solar panel charger, instead putting it in a pouch of the backpack I have slung over the handle of the stroller. Now, 90 minutes down the road, I discover that the phone is dying and needs to be connected to the charger. Digging in the pouch I find no charger, much to my dismay, and all of a sudden panic of a very real kind sets in—my lifeline to the world is gone. I realize that it must have fallen out as I was walking for the last two miles and now was probably a pile of smashed materials from the zillion cars that seemed to be going by at a quick rate. I turned back and figured that if it was missing, or broken, that I would have to stop my walk and get home until I could get another one.
It was on my trip back to look for the charger that I met another rather remarkable person. About halfway back to where I had camped, a man in a truck, with two small boys in tow, pulled up and asked me if I was homeless. I told him that I was not, and explained what I was doing. The man, named Jody Thomas, immediately expressed best wishes for my venture and handed me a nice donation for WhyHunger. He also asked me about my blog, and if I was hungry because he and his boys had seen me walking on their way to get biscuits for breakfast. He had gotten a sausage biscuit just for me, which I gladly accepted ( a diet of granola bars and apples is lacking in that factor called “delicious”) and I inhaled it. Mr Thomas told me he would be back in a few minutes to help me look for the charger once he dropped his boys off at home. He left and I continued, knowing I wasn’t going to find it on the road in any kind of usable shape. I made it all the way back to where I had camped with no sign of it on the road. If someone had picked it up, it was gone. Then I looked in the grass near the gate blocking the entrance that I had illegally (sssssh) gone around and there it was---pristine and undamaged.
Jody Thomas returned a few minutes later. He apologized for not bringing me a drink earlier (as it he had to apologise for anything. ) He presented me with a choice of Coke or water. Being the water hater that I foolishly am, I chose the Coke. What can I say? I’ll learn.
Jody Thomas went on his way and I continued on towards the next town, Hollonville. I reached the small country store there in a couple of hours, after having to go back the 2 miles I had just revisited in the search for the charger. By now my foot was really pounding and when I looked at the blister it was now filled with blood and coming up between my toes…an alien looking to get out (a great movie scene from my past) and actually making the skin between my toes stretch and separate from the foot. I knew the time to stop would be soon. After getting several admonitions from a group of cross country cyclists that I ran into at the store, I decided that if it got any worse during the day I would call home and give it up. I honestly figured that it was over. Several miles further I encountered a couple out landscaping their property, Ginny and Robert Hilton, and they kindly let me rest a bit on their porch and allowed me to charge my phone (ironically the charger I had wasted so much time and energy retrieving as not functioning well due to a very cloudy day. After making arrangements to be picked up in Haralson, Georgia, 3 miles further on, I left the Hilton’s house at exactly six PM, figuring that it would take my ride a lot longer to get there. I was amazed to discover that with my gimpy and blistered foot I made the three mile walk to Haralson (I checked and it was indeed three miles ) in exactly an hour, a good pace even for starting fresh. The future for my walk looks good. I just need better equipment, new batteries for the phone, and some good socks and I will try again in a few days. I can’t wait.