Party Time!

You could hear the holding area long before you could see it. The music was loud. The cheering was even louder. The holding area was on a baseball field. You entered at one end and collected your Victory Tshirts at the other. In between was a receiving line, people 4 and 5 deep on each side, cheering and clapping and saying thank you and congratulations and all sorts of things. It was amazing.

As I started through the line, someone stepped out of the line to greet me. It was Linda, the medic who helped me on Fri evening. She had tears in her eyes. She reached out to hug me and as she did, she told me how every proud she was of me. I, of course, am now in tears too. I handed someone my camera so I could have a picture of the two of us together. I’m not sure why we clicked or what her story was but Linda was my Angel that weekend and I hope she knows what a very important role she played in my victory.

The party!! Oh my, what a party!!! Loud music. Cheering. And dancing! Yes, dancing! We’d walked 60 miles in 3 days, we’d slept in tents, we froze our butts of in the cold bay night air, we peed in port-a-potties and showered in trucks with strangers, we had blisters and pulled muscles and sore feet and aching backs and yet, we were dancing and jumping up and down and carrying on and partying like fools.

And when the last walker came through the gate and into the holding area, every person in that field walked over to the receiving line to cheer for them. I’ve never seen anything like it.

We walked 60 miles together. We ate together. We showered together. We slept in tents together. We laughed and cried together. We made a difference together.

And now we would walk into the closing ceremony together, victoriously. We lined up in groups of 5 and linked arms. Now remember, there were 1,500 of us so even in groups of 5, the line went on forever. We marched down several streets and through the parking lot into Marina Green.