Sunday, January 4, 2009

Day of Rest

Scott and Cody are sitting in the lap of luxury in Lubbock, Texas. Ed and Colleen Johnson picked up the guys Saturday so they could be in a meeting this morning. They're related to some friends of ours up here in NY, and are all around nice folks. Cody reports he had pumpkin pie after supper last night (and for breakfast the next morning, and for snack later... Cody does love pumpkin pie.) They had lots of fellowship today, with a gospel meeting and hymn sing this evening. Cody and Scott are going to stick around tomorrow and help rake pecans off the lawn, and then some other friends are taking them back to their point of departure Saturday. Cody sure is a stickler about that-- I'm impressed he doesn't get discouraged about starting to walk Tuesday so he can maybe hit Lubbock again Thursday or so.



I've been advised by legal counsel not to mention where Cody and Scott spent their New Year's Eve, but they had a good time, including hot baths. They drank sparkling grape juice and played poker until four in the morning, then they found a mound of peanuts out in a field somewhere for a bed. They burrowed into the peanuts (he claims this was safe!) and slept a bit. Their sleeping bags still smell like peanuts. There are lots of other crops that probably wouldn't have been as comfortable!



I don't know if it's because they're getting into more inhabited country, but they've been offered meals several times. They slept in the field of some Mennonite farmers the other day, and were awakened by the people there offering them breakfast-- coffee and some cookies. A guy named Oscar met them somewhere west of Hobbs, TX, and returned the next morning with breakfast burritos and hot chocolate.



I ran some mileage estimates this evening, and Cody's been over a thousand miles, with about 1300 to go. Getting awful close to the halfway mark! It would be interesting to sit down with him sometime and plot his exact route and calculate more exact mileage.



I was informed by FactChecker.Org (i.e. my brother Owen) that I totally screwed up the horse pictures the other post. The pictures I posted were of another Belgian horse Owen owned, Mary, with her foal Heidi. That definitely is Cody in the picture, just not Molly, the recently deceased horse. I did think the pictures didn't really look like Molly (who, I've been informed, was also half Owen's horse) but the details of who foaled who were lost in the mists of my mind. Anyway, here is a genuine picture of Molly, with Cody riding her bareback. (Don't tell Owen, who owned Mary, but Molly was much prettier than Mary).


I wonder if it would be more or less comfortable to try to ride a Belgian mare coast to coast bareback than to walk it...? I better not pose the question to Cody, or he will have to take up that challenge!