Two-Heel Drive

From an e-mail that came in this morning regarding Robin Grapa and Patty Laatsch finishing their near-5,000 mile hike of the American Discovery Trail:

They finished 8 months, 23 days and 5 hours after they started the journey at Cape Henlopen, Delaware in February. Along the trail, they encountered bears, wolves, coyotes and the kindness of total strangers!

Shaky hand-held video of their Pacific Ocean swim is here.

From their Trail Journals entry:

Mom and I stood for a bit, waiting for just the right moment to step out onto the sand toward the beach. Our stomachs weren’t full of butterflies any more - they were full of knots. We were nervous, not having any idea what to expect, but we were so excited, too. We were mostly anxious - the anxiety was making our stomachs go crazy. Finally, we stepped out onto the sand and started walking toward the small gathering of people at our finish point. It was slow-going through the sand, but it felt good to be moving. I even accidentally bumped mom’s stick, causing her to drop it. That made us laugh. So we got to the banner that had the ADT logo and another that read “Our Hike for AA&MDSIF.” We actually took a minute to take off our shoes so we could feel the sand between our toes, then took our backpacks off. Then mom and I went arm-in-arm and stepped our toes into the salty Pacific Ocean - FINALLY!

Oh, yeah, they dived in head-first, too. Congrats, ladies, it’s been an amazing walk, even for those of us just following along at home.

Bobby & Poot, at mile 1655 of the American Discovery Trail

Then our ADT turn-by-turn told us to follow the levees into E. St. Louis. So that’s just what we did. Now, we were warned of the dangers that lurk in E. St. Louis (which is actually in IL, by the way). So we hiked by old railroads and industrial areas. No more corn for a bit. But at one point we even walked by a group of prisoners moving some brush on the side of the levee. Boy did we get some googly-eyes! We knew we weren’t in the safest area, so we just booked it.

About a mile later, a police SUV pulled up and stopped us. The officer asked what we were doing up on the levee, so we explained, and then handed him our IDs. He ran them to see if we had any outstanding warrants - whew, eh? Squeaky clean! He continued to tell us that we weren’t supposed to be on this levee at all - there’s no trespassing allowed! We asked if we may be on the wrong one, but he informed us that if there was another one, we aren’t supposed to be on them, either. It had something to do with them intersecting major highway and railroad bridges. He said we could keep going to the Eads Bridge - it was only about 1/2 mile ahead. BUT, we needed to get over the river as quickly as we could because “you really shouldn’t be hiking through E. St. Louis.” So we rushed on and quickly jumped on the train across the river.

So we are now in Missouri. A NEW STATE!! We walked right up to the Arch - the gateway to the West. So we are officially in the west now. Craziness! Pretty soon we’ll be at 2000 miles!

I must have a guidebook somewhere that says you don’t have to call yourself a novice anymore after the first thousand miles.