2010 3 Day – Day 3!

It was Day 3 and we were SO excited to start our last 17 miles of our 60 mile journey!  We knew we would leave Livonia and end in Dearborn… everything else was a mystery to discover along the way!  We woke up early again – about 5am – packed our duffels and took down our tents.  It was a little sad to say goodbye to tent city but we were eager to get home to flush toilets, AC and fluffy beds!

The humidity had come down but the forecast called for sunny skies and temps in the 90s’s!  Another hot one!  We started the last leg of our journey walking straight into the sun… not exactly one of my favorite moments for sure!  Our first cheering station was only 5 miles in and our family wasn’t moving fast enough to catch us so they found us at Pit 2… the Boob Bees & home to our med crew!  At Pit 2 Heather & I also found the flags we were searching for all weekend…

  We then headed out in search of future pit stops and the all important lunch stop!  It was getting soooo very hot out and the bandages and moleskin from the morning just weren’t sticking anymore.  We just needed to find the cool down bus and fast!  We finally caught up with one at Pit 3!
Where we were treated to not only shade and air conditioning but… Dirty Dancing on the tv’s!

Next stop was the Las Vegas themed lunch stop where we took some time to lay down in the shade and enjoy the breeze a bit.  Of course we stopped by the porta potties on the way out… the 2.5 miles before and after lunch were really rough… lots of sunshine, little shade, and just really HOT but people came out and made impromptu cheering stations and brought bags of ice to keep us going through the heat.  If you know the area at all, we were walking through Hines Park for a long while which has great pathways but very little tree coverage over the paths.  We then headed into some more neighborhoods…
  At Pit Stop 4 we caught up with Ashley, Ethan and Noah and the rest of our walkers: Murt, Penny and Sandy.  We decided we wanted to end our journey the same way we started it: walking together.  So we headed out for our last 2.5 miles together.  As we got closer to the closing site, we saw many familiar faces cheering for us for the last time… the Kid Crew, Marine Man, the Dancing Lady… and right before we crossed the road we saw a young mother with the shirt “Yeah, they're fake… the real ones tried to kill me!” and the tears started to well up again. We had finally made it… these were the last steps of our 60 mile journey…
  
And then it was time for our closing ceremonies.  The crew walked in first to line the way for the walkers… then we walked in arm in arm to celebrate with our 3 Day family…
 
Once we were all in the ceremony area, in walked the survivors who had shared our journey and we raised our shoes in tribute…
    The ceremony concluded with Candy Coburn singing her song Pink Warrior with the survivors dancing on the stage.
We found our family and slowly parted ways… I was starting to feel dizzy because I had been out of fluids for the last

1.5hrs and there was none to be found at closing.  My mom grabbed my arm and was helping me hobble to the car and get my flip flops on.   As we were walking back to the car to go home, I couldn’t help but think…

Where will I be walking next year?