The Pacifist
The early morning stretch is the staple of the beginning of the day. It is always there, unlike my roommates ability to wake up on time (although we always do move fast once we do get up), a good full size complimentary breakfast, or a sunny morning. It is during these stretches that the team gets together and shares their aches and pains with one another. During one of my stretches though, I looked up and saw a cute cat standing in the middle of a gravel parking lot. Jacob, Kiet, and I decided to swarm and blitzkrieg the cat to see if we could catch it. Problem with all of this is that the cat kinda wanted us to. Oh, of course kitty went into the defensive stance as it saw us surrounding it, and once we were within attack range, it did the one thing it thought acceptable for the situation it was in. Kitty rolled over. And we were stunned. How brilliant of a defensive maneuver; psych out the predator by acting like you’re theirs already. This trick would have worked if we didn’t feel like having cat in the morning. But we did. So we started to pet, rub, and pick up Kit the kitty (not to be confused with Ron and Nancy Burt’s Kit–considering this Kit v2). Kit did cause us to lose our stretch time, but it was well worth it.

Uncalled For Blessing
We didn’t ask for it. Or maybe we did. We didn’t call any media. Or maybe our previous calls did it for us. It just kinda happened. Nathan and Adam had just finished their 6 mile run when a man walked up behind the two. He did all the talking, as he told them he was a reporter for the local newspaper and had heard through the grapevine about our relay coming through his part of the country. This man did what no other press organization had done outside of Kansas; he took down notes and listened to our tale of wanting to make the term genocide more mainstream to the public. Not only that, but he promised to have the story in the next day’s paper and would also contact other media outlets along the way to D.C. I don’t know his name. I do know that he drove a Ford Focus, and a nice one at that. I don’t know exactly what paper he worked for. I do know that he was sincere in promise to spread the word about us. And I know that if only more people were like him, then maybe this relay wouldn’t be necessary as the atrocities in Darfur would possibly have already been handled.

Victorian Flare
The small towns that litter the sides of U.S. 40 are those left in time. After I70 took over as the main artery in the U.S. transportion network, the old national highway began to be forgotten. And so were the citizens that lived near it. Some of the towns these people lived in died along with the highway. But towns like Greenwood, Ohio were able to weather the storm of a lack of vistors. This town today has stood the test of time, and in more ways than one. Not one building that the vans passed by on our way through the city were any way near recently built. That’s not to say they were run down buildings. Not at all. These edifices showed their victorian roots, proudly displaying their tall windows and pillars. It’s towns like these that make taking the scenic route worth it. The next time you’re thinking about traveling by car across the country, try out U.S. 40.

Text Only
For our faithful followers, you might have noticed that after the first few blogs, the pictures have been noticeably….nonexistant. Don’t worry. Collectively, over 700 photos have been taken on this trip, and they are all being held captive on Matt’s computer. The reason behind the lack of pictures correlates with the lack of time and the lack of upload speed. Matt just can’t upload the pictures to the server in the time we have at the hotel every night. Instead, the time we spend mulling around in D.C. will be dedicated somewhat to getting pictures up of every day that has transpired. Stay with us. We promise we have some good, great, and amazing shots to share with you all!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm by Adrian Love and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.