A WALK ACROSS CALIFORNIA - PART FOUR

DAY 8

12/6
19.0 Miles

SUNRISE

Cathie dropped me off in downtown El Centro this morning at 6:00 so I could get an early start and avoid some of the heat. Also this afternoon we need to check out of the RV park by 2. We then will move the RV to Yuma. By 7 am I had removed layers and had to stop and tape up one of my toes due to a blister, again on my right foot. About halfway to Holtville a man stopped and asked if I needed a ride into town. I said that I was walking to Yuma and he said he wasn’t going that far. I explained what I was doing and thanked him for the offer. So far he is the only person who has stopped and offered a ride.

 REACHED HOLTVILLE AFTER 11 MILES

GETTING CLOSER



DID YOU KNOW THIS?

I stopped in Holtville at the local park for a 10 minute break and to get something to eat. When I started back to walking, the blister I had already taped started hurting again, so once more I stopped and re-taped it. It seems every time I take a break, my feet stiffen up and it really hurts to get started again. Most of my breaks have been less than 10 minutes and usually I go for 4 hours before taking my first and usually only break.  I guess I'm in a hurry or could it be there's not much to see around here.  I did manage to cool off some today as some of the fields were being irrigated and the sprinklers were watering the side of the road in some places.  The pause that refreshes!

My camera stopped working today, so a lot of my photos were just a blur. I would have to manually pull out the lens to get it to take a photo. Finally it quit working all together. Bought a new Nikon Coolpix at the local Wal-Mart. I sure hope I made the right choice.

DAY 9

12/7

19.2 Miles

It looks like I'm stuck on 19 miles each day.  Usually at about 15 miles the back pain between my shoulder blades has really start bothering me.  I adjust my back pack different ways, but the pain stays with me.  At 19 miles I'm pretty glad to see Cathie.  I could push on, but this is not a race.  After today, I'm about 21 miles to the finish, but the plan is to take two days to get to Yuma.  If I feel ok, I might push on, but I'm figuring on 15 miles tomorrow and 6 miles on the final day.  We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

HERE COMES THE SUN

Today was almost entirely on pavement.  I'm on old US Highway 80 as it parallels I-8 and acts as a frontage road.  The sides of the road is soft sand for the most part, keeping me on the pavement.  My shins are complaining as a result.  In the 19 miles I walked  today and the 7 hours it took me to do it only one car passed me.  Now that's a lonely road.

NOT MUCH OUT HERE

Several readers have asked me why on earth would I want to do this walk.  Well, for one thing walking to the refrigerator wasn't providing me with enough exercise.  I had found  myself getting lazy and wanted to do something to jump start myself into getting more active again.  I've been pretty regular in riding my bike, but since hurting my foot, I had quit walking and was doing a lot of sitting on my butt.  Also I am very interested in walking the Camino in Spain sometime in the future.  That's about 500 miles over 30 to 35 days.  So I figured that if I could walk to Yuma, I could walk the Camino.  Why Yuma?  I didn't want to go to LA.

 

COUNTING DOWN THE MILES

Someone else asked me what I had done in the way of preparing for this walk.  I really didn't do too much.  I bought some new hiking shoes, walked 6 miles in them, then took them back.  They just were not comfortable.  I also bought some sock liners, which are suppose to prevent blisters.  Well, that didn't work, but I still wear them.  I walked 12 miles around home the week before I started.  For the past couple of years I've been riding my bike about 140 miles a week, but walking uses a whole different of set of muscles.  The bike riding did provide me with the stamina I needed.  I guess the only other thing I could have done was to have someone beat the bottoms of my feet with a mallet to toughen them up, but I didn't think of it in time.

CATHIE WAITING FOR ME - NICE