Thursday, January 15, 2009

Halfway There

Thanks to Emmy, one of the ladies who drove Scott and Cody back to their starting place after their weekend in Lubbock, we have pictures!That is some impressive packing job. According to Emmy, the back of this Prius contained "2 young men, a baby stroller, sleeping bags, tent, backpacks, huge plastic bag of food, American flag, plastic flowers, coats, old shoes, Yvonne’s suitcase & my backpack."
The two young men in question... or is it the two questionable young men?
All packed up and heading down the road again.

I talked to Cody Tuesday, after their day in Abilene. They had quite a tour of Abilene-- they came in on the northeast corner, and by the time they had visited a Wal-Mart and a shoe store (site of the news interview!), and got on the road out of town, Cody had figured they walked about 24 "non-progress" miles-- almost a complete circumference of the city. I asked if it was cheating to take the city bus on errands, and Cody said no, but it was too complicated to figure it all out. I guess he's just more energetic than me. Maybe the next time he's heading into a city I'll look up the bus routes and call him with some information!

Cody and Scott were unable to get to a Sunday morning meeting on Sunday, so some folks met them for breakfast Monday morning at a cafe in Hawley. They took them back to their house so Scott could take a shower (Cody had already bathed in a cold horse trough that morning!) and so they could press food on them! I guess they loaded them up with pudding cups and other non-perishable food. Always appreciated by the guys!

Speaking of food, I think Scott and Cody have sunk to abysmal depths in the culinary field. When I was talking with Cody, he told me that Scott had just bought a propane can so that they could use Scott's little stove for "hot Ramen." That seemed like an oxymoron, so I probed a little further and discovered that Scott and Cody have been eating Ramen noodles COLD! They add water to their cups and dump the noodles in, and after about 40 minutes of being jounced around in the stroller cup holder they are edible. Not good, but edible. Since they've figured out that Ramen is cheaper than PB&J, they've been having a LOT of cold Ramen. I don't know whether to beat them over the head until they come to their senses or airlift them in a 20 oz. T-bone! Either way, I'm sure they have appreciated the meals that have been served to them!

The 24-mile trek in Abilene ate up a whole day, so the boys were determined that they were going to up their daily mileage. Before Cody and Scott met up, Cody was able to average about 32-33 miles a day. With the increased luggage on the stroller for the two of them, though, Cody has been carrying a backpack, which cuts down on the miles. Now that Scott's more into the rhythm, Cody has decided to really abuse the stroller and just heap his backpack on the stroller and see how far they get before the stroller breaks down and they have to figure out a new strategy. Their goal, as of Tuesday, was to get to Glen Rose for Sunday morning meeting. That's an insane average of about 36 miles a day, so we'll see how well they do with that.

The trip really is about halfway behind them now. Since Cody started in the beginning of November, it's taken him about two and a half months to get halfway. Between working and visiting friends, though, Cody figures he lost about 3 weeks. Their goal now is to reach the Atlantic by the end of March. His long range (for Cody) plans are to spend the month of April on Mom and Dad's farm, then go to Minnesota for a few months to help out some farming friends there who are going through some difficulties. At this point, barring an accident or injury, the real limiting factor on how fast they can walk is finances-- Cody's going to have to find a job at some point to give him enough money to reach the coast.

The news interview that I linked in my last post has a print counterpart (for folks to access Cody's blog (here!) and fundraising site). It doesn't cover any really different ground, but if you have dial-up, it might load quicker! So here's the print component of that news story...
http://bigcountryhomepage.com/content/fulltext/?cid=91471&shr=addthis