One of the things that has been really great about this walk is all the kind words of encouragement that people have given me. In fact, I think I'll save them for when I'm feeling blue. Really. Anyway, I wanted to share with you what Carol's office did. They came up with words to Do Wah Diddy Diddy that Carol shared with me on the day. Pretty fun!

Click on the picture below to make it readable.

The donations for 40 at 40 now total an amazing $10,428. Wow! Thank you all SO much!!

I've been writing thank you cards to all who have donated. If you haven't heard from me within a few of weeks of giving, please let me know. I want to make sure your donation was credited to my walk. Can't trust those computers!

I've decided to stop counting donations to the walk on my actual birthday which is at the end of November. That gives any of you nice people who stumble across this blog an opportunity to send a little love should you be inspired.

There are still a lot of folks who mistakenly think that I walked on my actual birthday. I wrote a post a while ago about why I was walking on Memorial Day, quite a few months before my birthday. Well, now I've thought of another reason. I love that I was able to walk basically from sun up to sun down. It seemed fitting to get to my destination at sunset.

I want to share with you a story that has been inspiring to me. I posted on the forums over at About.Walking.com thinking that the community would be interested in, well, my walk. One of the responses was from Butch. Butch, it turns out, walks a lot. He walks because a medical condition prevents him from driving. Unfortunately, where he lives, in suburban Birmingham, AL, there is a distinct lack of public transportation. So, instead of sitting at home feeling sorry for himself, he walks. A lot. Here are a couple of his posts.

I'm 53 and have never had the opportunity to drive and live in a metro area (Birmingham, AL) that sees no value in public transportation. Well, I loved walking anyway, and have been walking 40 miles in the same day for all of my adult life. Though these long treks were forced on me through my community's resistance to decent mass transit, they have also enriched my life immeasurably with the many different kinds of experiences I've had.

I'll share one story that made our local papers. My other great love is baseball and our local Double A minor league team used to play in America's oldest ballpark, 4 miles from I live. That was a nice 8 miles to walk to see the games. But aging Rickwood Field kept having maintence problems so the owner moved the team to a nicer area of the county 20 miles from where I live. Hoover, AL, where the Barons now played, also refused bus service. So I did what I always do in these situations - I walked. The year was 1994 and the Barons had a very famous player that year, Michael Jordan. The ushers had seen me walking to the ballpark and told the owners who had the local press there along with MJ when I got there. With the press there I did some politicking for transit and the owner gave me several free season passes. Even Michael asked the community to help its carless citizens so they too could make it out to the old ballpark.

Then a few days later...

Down here in this part of Dixie, I get 10 thousand steps just by getting up and usually end each day between 30 to 50 thousand steps. I'm unable to drive because I have complex-partial seizures and the amount of walking I'm doing has not gone unnoticed by transit planners in Jefferson County where Birmingham is in Alabama. The Chamber of Commerce, the Regional Planning Commission, and the Metropolitan Planning Organization have asked me to assist them as a transit-dependent citizen. One of the officials last year even gave me a ride over to Atlanta to see the Cardinals and Braves play each other. It's like I said in my first missive, the stories and experiences that have happened added much to my growth that made me. Eric, get a friend to do a 50 miler and tell us about that one too. It ought to be fun...

I find Butch inspiring because he has taken what life has dealt him and has chosen to make his life and the life of those around him better. And that, quite frankly, is awesome! Thanks Butch!

I'll continue to post my donation total as it continues to grow.

Thanks for checking in!

This is short because it is a video about, you know, spending a day walking. And how interesting could that be?! Now I need to figure out how to get a more flattering picture as the poster frame! (Note to self: Be careful about making goofy faces to the camera!) The music is Walk the Line by Johnny Cash. Thanks to Todd for shooting the footage.



The video is here on Google Video.