Hang on, I think I've got a rock in my sneaker

 Quick recap -

After walking about 18 miles in 95 degree heat we finished our walking for the day in the back corner of the parking lot of the Southern Maine Healthcare Hospital in Biddeford. We had essentially been walking lost for the last five miles or so in search of the elusive second leg of the Eastern Trail. Well, we found it, but we were about an hour past well done and we had to get out of that oven.

We had a half hearted discussion about going on, since this is what we had been walking towards for the entire second half of the day. Make that quarter hearted, if there is such as thing. Mayday call to John to come pick us up...within five minutes he was there.

All five of us piled in to his truck...this was our first go round with the best seating chart for all of us to be the most comfortable. We were kind of like tetris, trying to get these odd shaped walkers to manage the perfect fit for the ride. (For future reference, every time we got in the truck for the rest of the trip, Pete was up front with John, then Tom, Denise, Link, and Joe filled the back row. Sometimes being the biggest has its advantages).

Our domicile for the night was a condo in Old Orchard Beach that a friend of Denise's offered up for us. One example of many of the kindness sent our way for this whole adventure.

This is A condo in Old Orchard, this was not OUR condo in Old Orchard.

Our condo is OOB was a "fixer upper" and if the stages of being "fixed up" are 0 being unlivable and 10 being pristine, I'd put this one at about a 2. It had electricity, which was nice, and running water, which was crucial. But that was it. Despite that we were incredibly thankful to them to offer this up to us for our first night of sleep from the road.

Keeping brevity in mind - here is a recap of that first night

• Discuss sleeping arrangements-

• Denise got a queen size blow up mattress in a separate room
• I was on two full size mattresses in an open room off the living room
• I stacked the mattresses on top of each other looking for maximum comfort, what I got instead was the feeling that I was in a boat on the water all night. Come to find out the ocean is surprisingly rough in an OOB condo. Not the best night of sleep.
• Tom was in the kitchen on an enormous blow up mattress. I think this was his own, brought down by his son (along with a selfie stick, that would be a valuable tool for the next couple of days...that is until it got left behind on day three)
• Link and Joe were on couches in the living room
• John got his own room in a hotel down the street. If you didn't need a reminder, John was the smart one. John would sleep in other accommodations from us each night until we made it to the Marriott in Peabody three nights later.
• Can't swear to it, but I think the first thing most of us did was have a beer..to unwind...and cool off...and to just have a beer god dammit.
• Walked (yes walked) to dinner that night at Jimmy the Greek's, just down the street from the condo. We must have been a sight, five un-showered walking wounded and a relatively fresh driver.
• Met an old friend of John and mine - Dave Ham. We had run into Dave a week prior when we got honored on the field prior to a Sea Dogs game (not sure if I already mentioned that or not, but now is not the time). Made mention of where we would be night one and planned to meet up.
• Dave might have appreciated it a bit more if we had showered first
• At this first meal we made the decision we would not be shy at any of the meals we would have for that week. Lot's of carbs out, so we weren't hesitant to put carbs in.
• Nice meal, stayed longer, ate and drank more than we should have, but finally hobbled back to the condo.
• Shower for all of us (That's showers - plural- not one individual shower for all of us)
• A little discussion about the day (this was what I looked forward to the most while planning the trip). Lot's of laughs with a dose of commiserating.
• We made the plan to be AOP at 6:30 the next morning...get a good day of walking in early, grab some lunch, then maybe walk a few hours after. End of day goal for day two was Flo's Hot Dog stand in Cape Neddick (you can ask why there, but I couldn't tell you...and I planned the route). Actually - I'll try,
  
• Sounds a little arbitrary but the guy planning the route (me) tried to make each day's walk as evenly dispersed as possible
• Flo's was 22 miles out. Seemed doable when I planned the route about a year earlier.
• We'd see about that.

WEDNESDAY JULY 7th

AOP 6:30 AM

As would be the case for the entire walk, getting out of bed, prepping for the day (lot's of first aid triage going on) and hitting the road early was never a problem. To accomplish this, we had some work arounds - like showering the night before. The reason for this was twofold - 1) we were pretty well cooked by the end of each day and not showering then would have not been an option, and 2) this allowed us to hit the road with minimal prep each morning. Not my usual routine, I'm a shower every morning kind of guy, but when in Rome...well, you guess the rest.

                      

  We decided our starting off point for the morning would be at Bentley's Saloon in Arundel. We fast forwarded what we decided was the extra mileage we had done the day before in search of the Eastern Trail. Bentley's was about right. So John meets us promptly at 6:15 and we were off. Climb into his truck (in our new formation...Pete up front), say goodbye to the condo, and we were off to Bentleys.

                               

This was going to be a straight shot down Route 1. So our goal for day 2 (pre-walk) was the before mentioned Flo's Hot Dogs in Cape Neddick. That was 17 miles out. Despite the hell we had put ourselves through on day one, a cautiously whispered goal for us was the NH border. That's 29 miles out. 

Got off to a good start. Did my daily WBLM radio spot just as we were leaving...they got a kick out of us starting at Bentleys. You see, Bentley's is a bit of a biker bar...actually a Harley Davidson bar. The assumption on the radio was that we stopped the night prior there. I did not confirm or deny that assumption. Made for good radio. Give the people what they want.

So, straight on Route 1....early in the morning, sun was not at full force yet. It would be in a few hours.

Not to diminish what we were doing but it went like this...

• Arundel
• Kennebunk
• Kennebunkport (maybe? Does Kennebunkport come after Kennebuk on Route 1?).
• Wells

Those four bullets covered nearly ten miles. Maybe two stops along the way...once in a shady park in the central town square in Kennebunk (where Link did his WPOR interview) and then for sure on the outskirts of Wells in the breakdown lane of Route 1. Water, fruit, protein bars, chatter, and then we were off. Planned for our next stop was to be at the Hannaford in Wells, maybe three miles ahead.  Dave Ham (you remember Dave, don't you? If not, scroll up about six paragraphs and reintroduce yourself). Dave is the store Manger there and thought that would be a nice spot to see a friendly face , grab some supplies, seek out some shade, and take five.

                                    

Here's Dave and Pete (see, isn't he a great guy? Dave, not Pete)

On we went. Made it to the stop, and Dave was a very gracious host. We all popped in for certain things like bathroom breaks, talcum powder (not for me, and I will respect the privacy of the purchaser in regard to the why), and to pick up some copies of the Boston Herald, to read the interview from the beginning of day one with that crackerjack reporter Marie Szaniszlo  (and if you don't remember her, unfortunately you have to go back to the first post in this saga). What was about an hour interview between the four of us got whittled down to a quarter page in print. Whatever, we'd take all the press we could get.

All freshened up we continued on.

*Alert* This is where the title of this post comes from, so pay attention because it must be important. Actually, it's not important at all.

As we start to walk across the parking lot to get out to Route 1 I announce, "Hang on, I think I've got a rock in my sneaker"

Not sure if anyone actually "hung on" but I proceeded to do one of those sneaker removals without letting your un sneakered foot touch the ground balancing acts. Mind you, this was ten miles into an already 90 degree day. So, standing on one foot, I proceed to shake out my sneaker. No rock. Not even a pebble. OK, maybe I've got a wrinkle in my sock. Visual inspection and a quick pull on my sock. No wrinkle. That's when I realized I had my first blister, or should I say major blister. 

It was inevitable. My Dad's calling card on the original walk was the infamous blisters that he earned in 1973. I say infamous because even all of the other walkers had at one time made mention of the blisters that my Dad accrued on his walk. They were fairly legendary. Maybe it's genetics, but before noon on day two, it appeared that it would be my destiny as well. Crap.

Come to find out, we all had our own version of discovering our first blister, this was just mine. We triaged these nearly every night, or morning, depending on the walker. Come to find out the Wildes blister curse was not handed down to me...Tom, Link, and Joe actually all got worse blisters than I did. But let's not minimize this...I was feeling it, and I would for the next 70 miles or so.

                                    

Here's the Governor of Maine at the time (Ken Curtis) with my Dad, with his leg in the air, just after arriving at Fenway, probably talking about that blister.

Notice I didn't mention Denise's blisters, That's because she was a machine...for the whole walk...always willing to go longer...always (almost always) the person up front...never (or seldom) any complaints. If there were five Denise's walking, they would have made it to Fenway in three days. OK, enough Denise love, we've got the rest of day two to cover.

Somewhere along here we ran into a woman looking for directions. She was from out of state and thought we might be locals so pulled over in a parking lot to ask where so and so street was. Neither of us knew, but somehow Denise got to talking about what we were doing, and sweet talked the woman into donating to our cause, right there on the spot. Did I say God love Denise yet?

Long stretches of road ahead of us. Somewhere on this stretch Joe mentioned something like "This is were Norm made all of our Dads put their feet in the salt water to take a break and help them heal". We could see the ocean from this stretch, so this wouldn't have been inconceivable for us to recreate that, except for this. We aren't our Dads. We were barely a shadow of our Dads, so, guess what? No salt water ocean break for us. 

As we got to Ogunquit there was quite a gap between us. Somewhere along the way Denise and I got separated from the others...enough so that we could not see them behind us. It was getting close to high noon and it was hot. You could tell by the sun being directly above us, our bodies casting no shadows, and the unsettling flock of vultures (or maybe it was seagulls) flying in a circle directly above us. We (Denise and I) were looking for options for some lunch along the road. We had no idea what the others were doing.

What they were doing was they were about to get into trouble,

Here's a selfie Tom and Joe took (with Tom's selfie stick that was delivered the night prior) at the town line of Ogunquit.

                                    

They look happy, right? Let me recap the next, oh, I'd say 45 minutes after this picture was taken, Unbeknownst to the walkers at the front of the pack.

• Tom and Joe fall a bit behind. No big deal
• Tom and Joe hop across Route 1 to commemorate the Ogunquit town line. That's nice.
• Tom and Joe re cross Route 1. Had to.
• Tom and Joe start down the road again, maybe to make up some ground between them and the lead pack. Hopefully so.
• Tom and Joe are about a mile in when Tom realizes he no longer has his phone (I think it was his phone that he lost). Not good.
• Tom and Joe start walking back to where they took the selfie. Not ideal.
• Tom and Joe are searching that entire mile for the phone. No luck.
• Tom and Joe find the phone . Miraculously.
• Tom and Joe make a call to John along the lines of "We had an emergency, but everything is ok now. Come pick us up".

And that's a wrap. These posts are getting ridiculously long despite my effort to be brief. No one wants to spend an entire sitting going through these. What a way to lose an audience. So, promise, the wrap up of day two will be much shorter.

...and what a cliffhanger, right?