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.