Tuesday July 6th - 12:30 PM or so
After much fanfare, we're off. We were already about a hundred yards to the good by not starting at the very end of NY Ave, but what's a hundred yards over a 110 mile walk? Actually, just did the math...1,760 yards in a mile...193,600 yards in 110 miles, divided 110 miles by 193,600 yards and the number was so small I couldn't understand it
Can someone explain that to me? Anyone? Didn't think so.
The fab five. This was the best we looked until our first showers post walk sometime Sunday afternoon or evening. Actually I'll take that back. This is the best we looked for probably ten days or so. Blisters have a way of aging you a bit. I saved this picture as "the walk virgins". By the time we finished we had been around the block a few hundred times...both literally and figuratively.
The police escort we were hoping for didn't materialize, but we did get some public works vehicles (unless the timing of the start of our walk just happened to coincide with the street sweeping schedule in Sunset Park that day). There were a few antique cars, which was appropriate because you also had five antique walkers making their way down NY Ave.
* Side note*
This was the street I grew up on, so the memories are flooding in. The home run I hit in Little League tryouts when I was nine years old on that very baseball field (side note to the side note - when your athletic career peaks at nine, can you really call yourself an athlete?...and how sad is it that you still find a way to mention this story any chance you get? Yeah, pretty pathetic.). Thinking of all of the times I'd crisscrossed this same street, and all of the surrounding streets, while trick or treating as a kid. How many thousands of times I'd walked, or rode a bike, or a skateboard, or a car up and down this street. Which of these houses I'd been in over the years (most of them), I slept over in (many of them), or delivered newspapers to (a lot of them), or mowed the lawns of (some of them). The multitude of touch football games and wiffleball games on this road, shots taken on hoops in these driveways, the games of hide and seek, capture the flag, and God knows what else in the front and backyards. That was the Richard's house, and the Jipsons, and the Cooks, and the Millers, and the Wildes - yes, those Wildes.
There were well wishers all along the road, both sides. I guess the word got out after all. Walked past the house I grew up in, where one of my big brothers and my sister were waiting for us at the end of the driveway. My brother handed me a badge that was my Mom's when she was a crossing guide when I was a kid. That might come in handy, knowing we had my Mom watching over and keeping us safe on the hundreds of roads we had yet to cross ahead of us.
First turn of the day took us in front of Link's house for our last photo op before things got serious.
Some history -
After the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 , Link got the idea to paint a giant logo of the Sox on the landscape of the giant sloping hill of his front yard. Here's a photo of a clipping from the newspaper with the original paint job. Sorry for the scribble on the pic. Some guy named Johnny Pesky thought he'd write a personal message and sign his autograph on the photo - In case you can't make it out, it says "To Link. Great job, Johnny Pesky". The nerve of some people.
This became a bit of a local attraction. Link and his wonderful wife, Michelle, said people would drive by day and night to take pictures of this and ask questions regarding what this was all about. Even though Link's house is on a side street in Sunset Park, this logo was visible from Main Street - also known as Route 1- So I can't imagine how many people drove by this on their daily commute, or the number of tourists on their way to Pine Point, or Old Orchard, or the Holy Donut (trust me, tourists love the Holy Donut), or wherever else a drive on Route 1 in South Portland might take you. I know I went out of my way more than a few times to see this in all its glory.
Here's the photo op...might be the last picture of us on the walk when we weren't drenched either in sweat or rain.
If I knew that's the way we looked when we started, I would have doubted we were going to make it. I have this pictured saved as "If they only knew". What a crew. Jesus, this was me after losing a significant amount of weight with all of the walking I'd done over the last year. Still a big boy, The only one that still looked this fresh by the end was Denise. The rest of us would resemble the Walking Dead.
Finally we were leaving the safety of Sunset Park. Right on to Route 1 (right was South, right?) and 109 miles later , we'd be there. This was where our first missed opportunity from our plan took place. For months Link wanted to take a picture of one of us heading one way and another heading the other way...to show just how a bunch of amateurs would start a 100+ mile walk. We mentioned getting this pic halfway down NY Ave., ten minutes later we had forgotten all about it. So it goes.
This was our new reality...walking in the breakdown lane with traffic zooming past us. Oh, and had anyone noticed how hot it is yet? Just past where the old Humpty Dumpty potato chip plant used to be was our first big hill and the first coordination of getting five walkers semi synchronized in crossing the road in tandem, sort of. At the top of the hill we still had one of the local tv stations taking some video of us...still looking fairly fresh...seeing we were only about two miles in. First rest stop/water break was at Lois' Natural Foods store on Route 1 in Scarborough. Did I mention it was getting hot yet? My youngest daughter works here and she wanted us to stop by. So we did. Went in and bought the only water the walkers purchased on this entire trip (John, our savior) would handle this for the next six days, which he did exceedingly well. One last visit with various Erskine's and McHugh's and we were back on our way. Why the bag Pete, why the bag ?
This is where we made a route decision we had discussed more than a few times in our pre-walk conversations - stay on Route 1 or take the Eastern trail and reconnect with Route 1 somewhere in Saco? Almost the same mileage - about 11 miles to our next proposed stop - the Hannaford in Saco. Route 1 would give us more exposure, the Eastern Trail would take us through the Scarborough Marsh and some wooded back trails. Who needed the exposure when it's over 90 degrees. At this point we were shade seeking missiles and we chose the trail. One of the best decisions of the entire walk.
It was at this point - between our stop at Lois' and the decision to take the Eastern Trail, that Joe realized he no longer had his wallet. Joe's our financial guy, so he, of all people, needs to know where his wallet is. Oh, and he, as had a few of us, had left his phone in John's truck. Using someone's phone, Joe got ahold of some family members and commenced to dispatch instructions like "Check Dad's house" or " look in my truck" or "check my dirty clothes pile" or some other similar wild goose chase type directions. One of us, can't recall who, had eventually gotten ahold of John to let him know that Joe's wallet was MIA. Handsome Joe was trying to recall when he last remembered having his wallet on his person, and the best he could come up with was "sometime this morning". Huge help Joe. As we're walking South, John is now walking North, retracing the three miles we've already covered back to the start, scanning the ground in search of Joe's wallet. The thing about this, in our pre meetings, John often called out how he was the smart one because he was the only one of us riding to Boston and not doing any walking. I'll be damned if he didn't walk the same first three miles as us...just in the other direction. John was now matching us step for step in the opposite direction looking for that god damned wallet (at least I imagine that's what John was calling it at this point). John was doing this unbeknownst to us. Did I mention it was hot?
Meanwhile the walkers are settling into a groove. Hot but finding some shade on Eastern Road, across Black Point Road, and then finally on to the Eastern Trail. If you've never walked the Eastern Trail, I recommend it. At least this beginning portion of it. Here's a snip from a brochure of the Eastern Trail. Gives you a flavor of this portion of our walk. Just like the brochure says, we were relaxed and we were enjoying. Still.
And here's a couple of photos of us, somewhere early on the trail...See? Still relaxed.
- despite the missing wallet.
After we crossed the Marsh we met up with John. This was the first of dozens of John's telepathically timed meet ups with us. Always when we needed a quick break. So just over the marsh we did what would become our quick stop routine...get some fluids in us, grab something to eat (usually a banana, or a tangerine, or a melted protein bar - did I mention it was hot?) and assess what we just did and what we had ahead of us. The focus of this conversation was Bob's (see what I did there) still missing wallet. Laugh, complain, recap, plan, and then head out. At this stop I had grabbed an ET (Eastern Trail for future reference) map. This guide served us well, for awhile, and would then fail us miserably, by the end of the day.
This is when the the trail (and map) was still our friend. We were currently at the parking area at the intersection of the trail and Pine Point Road. You can find it on this map. Based on this we had about an eight mile leg ahead of us before we'd intersect with Route 1 again. So, with food in our tanks and freshly and fully watered, we had our plan for the next few hours until we'd meet John again. And we were on our way.
This continued to be one of the nicer parts of our entire walk, despite the heat. Wooded and shady, we continued on our way, locking into the rhythm and cadence that we would find ourselves settling into over the next six days. At times we'd walk as a entity of five, or pair off into groups, sometimes having conversations, frequently falling into spells of quiet, one would walk a bit ahead (ahem, not naming names) , one or two or three would fall behind..it was all very fluid and worked for us on the entire walk. Despite the heat (have I mentioned the heat already?) we had put about ten miles behind us and were feeling pretty good. Could the entire one hundred and ten miles (see how I spelled that out instead of using numbers? - makes it seem even longer that way) go like this? A guy can dream.
I didn't expect day one to take three posts, but it looks like that's exactly what's going to happen. The rainbows and unicorns from the start of the walk will turn into - well, whatever is the opposite of rainbows and unicorns.
Stayed tuned.
