How Did It End?

Well, that was an anticlimactic ending to a blog, wasn’t it?

The last I wrote, I had just glimpsed the Pyrenees and was joyfully happy that the flat forest of Les Landes was behind me.  A couple of days after that I arrived in St. Jean Pied-de-Port to an overwhelming amount of pilgrims and tourists, and the start of a new kind of adventure, abruptly transitioning from a solitary journey to a shared one.

I’d like to say walking the Camino Frances exceeded my expectations, but it didn’t.  I enjoyed it, I met wonderful people, I sighed dreamily over the Spanish landscape; but I had already experienced months of beauty and tranquility, without the Pilgrim-littered trash behind every bush.  My meditative days were over, and I was just another in the crowd.  A different journey, a nice one, but different.

The reason I didn’t update my blog again wasn’t because I had nothing to write, but because I was having back problems and I sent my netbook home to La Coruña.  Without my tent, sleeping pad, and netbook life became much easier, although my sciatica left me struggling through Spain for the rest of the month.  (Even now, I cannot get back to running because my back is too messed up).

As for the month of September, most of that I’ll keep private.  I love writing about my travels, but keeping some things only for me is nice as well.

I hope you enjoyed reading something about my adventure, and I hope that it showed some hesitant travelers that crazy-sounding ideas really aren’t that crazy at all.  Doing something outside the box brings great rewards.  Sleeping in a tent every night should be seen as a blessing, not a struggle.  Sometimes all you need to be happy are some good walking shoes and a block of cheddar cheese (my main food source in England).  That cool things happen when you walk for a long time alone, like someone picking you up on a motorcycle to give you a private chateau tour.

In closing, I want to thank everyone who donated to the Trailblazer Foundation.  Traveling is an integral part of my life, and my happiness, and it means a lot to me to be able to give back to a place which I have traveled through.  I hope by donating you also felt connected to the world, wherever you may be reading from.  We are all a lot closer than you think.

August 25: Mountains

 

Walking through Les Landes was a mental strain.  For six days, from Bordeaux to Dax, I walked through a dead flat land of timber, which resembled at most times more a desert than a forest.  When I read I would be walking through the forest, I was excited for a change of scenery, and a little tree cover in the 30 degree heat.  I love forest!  However, the economy in Les Landes revolves around timber, and you can see it in every mile.  Miles and miles of evenly spaced out pines, devoid of undergrowth, permeated by wide, white sand roads.  Sometimes the rows of trees turn into rows of cut down trees, and more miles of clear cut squares.  Around some of the towns I saw some more natural looking forest, but only in thin buffer zones around towns.  If somewhere else beautiful trails wind through Les Landes, unfortunately all I will remember is a long, straight, flat walk.

The effect of this flat, straight walking is that it is easy to feel like you aren’t even walking towards anything.  Like on a treadmill.  I lost the sensation that I was even hiking.  I was just going.  A few mornings the trail would wind merrily through a natural wooded area and I’d regain hope, but it wasn’t enough to redeem its blah-ness.  Other than that, there were a few hours of thrilling highway walking.  These 6 days I was going through the motions physically, but mentally I had to occupy myself in other ways.   I probably recalled every single moment that has ever happened in my life.  I probably thought about every person I’ve ever met, too.  If you’re reading this and we’ve met before, I’ve probably thought about you too.  There’s a lot of time for thinking.

This is why on the morning I set off from Dax my mind was probably already in another place, I was probably calculating the kilometers until the next town and converting them into miles and into time, when I rounded a corner and suddenly there were mountains.  Great big ones, barely visible in the distance through grey layers of clouds and haze.  But they were there.  I was so surprised, and so grateful, I nearly cried.  I smiled and clapped my hands and said, “yay!”.  I stopped and stared, and although they were far away I was utterly happy.  I felt a wave of joy like nothing I had experienced.  Suddenly it had hit me that I had actually walked towards something, and the Pyrenees were proof of that.  After hundreds of miles of sunflower fields, and vineyards, and flat fake-forest, there they were, the most perfect thing I had seen in a long time.

That day rolled out towards Sorde l’Abbaye along winding country roads, creeping towards the Basque Country, a landscape of green hills, and white houses with red shutters.

Today I went up and down for 21 miles, but I always had my head up, waiting to catch the next glimpse of the mountains which crept more clearly into sight.    I was also consciously aware that these are my last days in France, as well as the last days of the solitude I’ve grown accustomed to.  I’ve had three months of being a lone traveler, one which most people I’ve met consider “brave” to be walking all these miles alone.  Soon I’ll just be someone who is doing what everyone else is doing.  I’ve been looking forward to arriving in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, but now that I’m so close I’m sad my solo adventure is coming to a close.   Tonight over dinner I was anxiously worrying to myself about whether I should have taken the less traveled Camino del Norte over the popular Camino Frances, and then I was like, “Hey!  Stop worrying and go make friends!”

Because three months is enough time to be alone, and now it’s time for a different adventure.  And besides, my Camino is still my own, even if I share the road with others.

Pays Basque

5:30 wake up calls are harsh, but at least I get a sunrise.

Picking out my future houses along the way

solitude and meditation in a village church

St. Jacques de Compostelle

Love you boots, but after 1000 miles you have been replaced.

inside of my beloved, and retired, boots

 

 

 

So early, walking by moonlight.

 

August 20: Flat and Straight

I went to Bordeaux, and here is what I saw!  I wandered around and around and finally headed on to Cardingan.

 

Since Bordeaux I have taken two photos.  One is this one:

Almost there, right?

I haven’t taken photos honestly because there really isn’t anything to show you.  I could pick out some details of the refuges or campsites I’ve stayed in, or take a photo of the long, straight, flat road through plantations of rows and rows of pine trees, but in the heat of southwest France, reaching for my camera is too sweaty an endeavor.

Having nothing to take a photo of doesn’t make it an unworthy place though.  A lot of us, myself included, are always looking for the next thing to photograph, especially now that every man, woman, and child has a camera phone.

I’ll remember this section of Camino as the Meditative Phase.  With hours of flat, straight walking my mind enters an almost trancelike place.  It’s a very relaxing place.  Some people may only see boredom.  I never really feel bored though.  I feel hot and tired, but not bored.  I think after days and days of walking my mind very easily falls into a tranquil state, where I forget about walking and start working out problems that I’ve been thinking about, or things I never knew was a problem in the first place.  Memories from long ago, and that I haven’t thought about since, pop into my head.  It’s like my mind is searching for something to occupy all this time, and so it sends me memories to amuse myself with.  I also talk to myself a lot, admittedly, not usually in full voice, but in mouthed whispers, so if you see me I probably very much look crazy.  And then when I need a little bit of energy I sing loudly to the trees.  It’s hard to sing and walk with a big pack on, so sometimes I just stop so I can sing a verse or two, and then I move on.  In a week I’ll be in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, with many, many other pilgrims, so I should sing now while I have the chance.

 

 

 

 

 

August 16: Wine Country and a Chateau Detour

Vineyards are now in site, acres and acres of them.  Much of the Camino has been through the fields, which are mercilessly free of shade.  The southwest of France is getting hotter and hotter, and I will soon have to do something that is very hard for me, which is get up earlier.  I am already getting up by 6:30 every day, (and my earliest waking was a record 4:15), but it takes me about an hour to get packed up, especially if I’m camping.  By 7:30 or 8:00 the sun is already up, and the temperature is already rising.  If I was wise I’d start walking by 6.  I’m not that wise.

Vineyards in all directions

Last night I camped in Blaye, in the coolest campsite I have seen yet.  It was a hot, long day of 35 km, and I had just powered through the last two hours at a brisk 3 miles per hour.  I arrived into a shuttered town, searching for the campsite sign, which I found eventually.  It pointed towards the citadelle.

One of the entrances to the citadelle

The citadel in Blaye is a fully intact walled fort, with a beautiful view of the sun setting over the Gironde estuary, and a small “medieval”, pedestrian-only village inside.  Through the fort walls is also the entrance to the campground, and I was enthralled at the idea that the city of Blaye was forward-thinking enough to designate part of the citadel as the municipal campground, instead of renting it out to a more commercialized campsite.  My night there was an affordable 5.50 euros.    Since it is literally surrounded by a moat, it was completely free from traffic noise-pollution, though not so much by my neighbor’s crying child.

Citadelle Entrance

The camping office– literally inside an old fort

Another eventful thing that happened in Blaye was that I ate a whole pizza.  I don’t usually eat at restaurants, but I decided that that night was a pizza kind of night,  and I walked around until I found a pizza place, and even had to wait an hour and a half for the restaurant to open, but I HAD PIZZA!!.  And I was the first one sitting down at a table, until the entire patio was full.  Then I was a little self-conscious about all the people watching me eat a table-sized pizza alone.  Eh, who cares.  Pizza is amazing.

Then this morning, somehow to my surprise, (my guide book finished in Mirambau, that’s how), I got to take a boat!  In order to cross the estuary, that is. It was fun.

Here’s a photo of me, alone in the “Grand Salon” of the ferry, if you’re wondering what I look like these days.

Then I walked through woods and the vineyards.  The sun was particularly scorching when a man on a motorcycle drove by one of the gravel vineyard paths.  A little while later he came back the other way and stopped besides me to chat.  We had the usually Pilgrim-Curious person conversation, and I asked if he lived there in the little house up the path, and he said no, he was at the chateau a couple of kilometers away, and would I like to go visit the chateau?  And, yeah, since I always say yes, I said yes.  Of course.

So I awkwardly climbed on the back of his BMW, and the three of us (him, me, and my pack “Pit Stains”) rode off to Chateau Lascombes, in the village of Margaux.

Now jealously view my private trip to a chateau, in which I drank a beer and pretended I was rich, and my private tour of the wine cellars. (I even saw the four remaining bottles of an 1881 vintage.  It sounds cool, but I don’t know how I’d feel drinking something that old).

Chateau Lascombes

wine cellars!

So, thanks Dominique, for the chateau visit!

Unfortunately, the day was far from over, and I still had to make it to Le Bouscat, on the outskirts of Bordeaux.  Thankfully, the refuge “housekeeper” was there when I arrived, (after a happy English speaker on a bike stopped for a chat and gave me directions), and took me in like a mother hen nursing her tired and heat-stroking chick.  Seriously though, the volunteers at these halte jacquaires are saintes.  Not a lot of pilgrims pass through this route, but the refuges have been so nice and welcoming.

Anyway, she gave me the advice, and pretty much made me swear that I’d follow it, to take my time tomorrow, and SEE Bordeaux.  She very much emphasized that I was to wander around Bordeaux happily, eat breakfast in the city center, take in all the sights, and then leisurely make my way to the next refuge, a measley 17 km away.  That’s fine with me.  Bordeaux is supposed to be beautiful, so tomorrow I will unleash the tourist side.  Bon Nuit!

August 9: Taking the Long Route

It’s amazing how much the price of camping can vary:  in St. Malo I stumbled hot and weary to a campground that charged me nearly 15 euros for a patch of land and a smelly toilet block.  Tonight I am sleeping in a well-manicured municipal campground in Brioux for 2.85.

Today I was back on my own, back on the GR, and back to feeling good.  Cyprien was headed to Aulnay, and had demonstrated several times with finger on map how he intended to head straight down the highway to reach his destination, because he said, with a wave of his hand, the GR was too convoluted.

We had this same “conversation” many times.  (I use quotes because I’m not sure if we ever fluently conversed.)  I tried to wax poetic about the beauty of the GR (The GR, as I’ve mentioned, is plotted for its walkability and not its directness), France, the villages, the fields of sunflowers, the forests– but I think he is more focused on backaches than flowers.

Cyprien is a destination walker.  I can see in him the hopeful desire to just make it to Santiago, his purpose of making it through to the next village, the next place of rest.  He doesn’t like the GR because it takes long detours into small villages, but that’s why I love it.  A walk through a small French village has the capability to revive—from strangers leaning out of windows to chat (that happened today) to the speckling of ancient chapels and churches and chateaus.  He has his mind set on achieving this goal, rather than experiencing it.  I am extrapolating, I may be wrong—but I hope he isn’t just walking blindly towards Santiago, hopeful that in his accomplishment he will overcome some of his grief, a good Catholic, done of his duty.

So Cyprien went his way to Aulnay, and I went mine, to the blessedly affordable municipal campground in Melle(5.50 euros).  Admittedly it is harder to wake up at 6am without someone expecting you to start an early morning walk with them.

The short section from Melle to Brioux passed through St. Romans-les-Melle, apparently the home of the nicest French I have yet to meet.  While about to poke my head into a handsome church, its neighbor, a woman of maybe 90 years enthusiastically chattered on and on in French to me with her torso leaning out of a blue-shuttered window, eyes lighting up and inexplicably happy with the day—a joyous soul.  I told her I didn’t speak French, and she started talking quicker, so I would hope she hadn’t heard me.  On and on and on she went, like she was just waiting for me to pop around the corner for a long-awaited chat.  Finally she stopped and said, “You’re not French, are you?”  She must have noticed the dumb grin which I plaster on my face whenever I don’t understand a talkative Frenchperson.    But she was so bursting with strangerly affection that I instantly loved her, and waved as I headed off towards the café she said was in town.

In the boulangerie I was regarded by three people with awe over walking the Camino and wished, “beaucoup age”.  Upon exiting the shop, waiting for me was another woman who greeted me out of a

August 12: Cool Things About Saintes

Well Saintes sure was a sight for sore feet!  Just shy of 36 kilometers walked today, but I’ve been worse.  Across from the Tourism Office is the Arc d’Triumph, a long river park, and an arching pedestrian bridge, with the top of St. Pierre’s Cathedral peaking out across the river.  So, well done for good first impressions.

Another thing I like is the refuge des pelerins which is actually connected to the church of St. Eutrope in a little annex.  It’s a tiny cupboard sized room with 3 bunk beds, and all of them are full!  6 pilgrims at once!  That’s more than I can get my head around.  Four are going off in another direction tomorrow and the other one is Cyprien, who I’ve caught up with.  I’m still the only one who doesn’t speak French.  The host of the refuge welcomed me literally with open arms, pulling me into the little room and sitting me down at the kitchen table.  She then brought me a vase of cold water and some mint syrup, a mix which is very popular here.  She was such a wonderful warm soul at the end of a long day, I absolutely fell in love with her, as I’m sure many a weary pilgrim have.

Another thing I like about Saintes:  When I was walking to the boulangerie to pick up my daily pain au chocolat, I passed an open door with a sign “CRYPT”.  Well I’m not one to turn down a crypt!  My day just got suddenly much better!  The last time I was in a crypt, in Dublin, I got to touch a mummified finger, so this one had some competition for Best Crypt.  Oh, and it wins the prize.  First of all, this crypt is so cool, that it literally is cool.  Upon entering I felt an icy draft coming out of the doorway.  Spooky.  Two people exited as I entered, and then I had the place to myself.  It was dark with high arches and air so chilly it gave me goosebumps (or maybe that was the ghosts).  Seriously, it was a different climate down there.  It’s a crypt so cool, it creates its own weather.  Candles flickered with orange light and a tomb dominated the middle of the crypt, a macabre centerpiece.  It was right out of Phantom of the Opera. 

Another cool thing is that Saintes has a Roman amphitheater.  But since I’m a cheapskate, I refused to pay 3 euros to go inside, and was satisfied with the view outside the fence. 

And a final good thing that happened in Saintes, was the nice lady at the boulangerie who let me hmm and hah over what I wanted to eat, and asked my silly questions and made suggestions, and didn’t laugh at my “French”.  People make good days better, don’t they?

Bon nuit!

August 7: Keeping Company

Cyprien and I were the only ones in the Refuge Jacquaire last night in Lusingan, which was a big, airy upstairs apartment in one of the historic buildings next to the tourism office, overlooking acres of woodland from the old city’s perch on an abrupt little hill.  The refuge had two bedrooms with bunk beds, a bathroom with a toilet, a giant living room with two more beds, and a kitchen, where past pilgrims had left ice cream in the freezer.  Cyprien brought me a beer from the store and retired with his to the bathtub.

Walking with Cyprien wasn’t bad, but after 17 miles that day my French had already been stretched to its limit.  I did learn to say “Do you want to go see it?” as well as “There’s a pebble in my shoe.”  Upon my request we had stopped once for café au lait and pain au chocolat in a local bar, where I asked if it is normal for men to be drinking port wine at 10 in the morning.  Apparently it is.  Later we stopped for a picnic lunch in a cemetery, after which I napped on a bench and he on top of someone’s tomb, until a dark storm cloud caught up to us and we walked for the last hour in heavy rain and thunder.

I feel bad that I can’t offer him some more substantial company.  Even if I did speak French, I can feel myself wanting to be alone again.  The thing about walking with a 65 year old man, is that I think there is no avoiding his wanting to assume the role of taking care of me.  For a day it’s fine.  But soon I need to take care of myself again.

Ironically, it might even be harder to learn French with him around.  To my great consternation, now when someone starts asking me questions, he immediately interrupts them to tell them that I don’t speak French, I’m American, and this that and the other thing.  What I really want though, is to embarrass myself trying to speak French, because I firmly believe I learn the most when I embarrass myself.

It’s all well-meaning, and I do like the guy immensely.   Today he called ahead to the town hall (la mairie) in Chenay, which was closed for vacation, but the answering machine gave him the number of some woman, who met us in town in the afternoon.  She gave us the key to the rec hall where we could sleep inside for free.  I chose to camp outside in the yard though because I missed my tent.  She also gave us the key to the church to go take a look around.  Everything else in Chenay is closed, so there was nothing to distract me from taking a hard two hour nap.

June 5: Contact

 

I continued down the road from Dissay with a short day of only 12 miles in front of me until Poitiers.  The road literally went straight for ten miles.  It wasn’t terrible, but pretty straight.  The route I’ve been walking is not always signposted as the Camino, but is really the GR (for grande randonée, or something like that…), which is signposted as a red and white stripe.  Sometimes it corresponds with the “Camino”, or what has been signposted as the Camino by the French Friends of the Camino group, but sometimes it veers off in another direction.  That’s because GR trails tend towards scenic over direct, and I suppose the singposters for the Camino just assume you want to get there as soon as possible, because you know, you’re walking far enough as it is.  As a result the GR adds on about 100km or so through France, (or so I read somewhere); even if that number isn’t exactly correct, you get the idea that the GR creates some long days.  However, although the “Camino” route is shorter, it follows much more roads, and probably isn’t as exciting as walking the twisting turns through woods and sunflower fields as I have been doing.

Tomorrow though, I’m leaving the GR, just for a day, to try it out.  And this is because I’ve made a friend.  Kind of.

The first walking pilgrim I’ve seen yet, (and I’m the first he’s seen in a month, since starting in Belgium), is a 65 year old former government tax auditor from Brussels.  He doesn’t speak any English.  Yet, he thought it a great idea that we should walk together.  We met in the Abbey in Ligugé, because despite what my guide book says, the campsite has been closed for five years, yet makes no mention of the Abbey which accepts pilgrims for a few euros a night.  Thankfully the Tourist Information was open and I had a pleasingly successful French conversation, in which I was directed to the Abbey.

So I was a little nervous when he latched onto this idea of walking together, because I like being alone.  At times.  I prefer being alone over being with someone who I don’t click with, can’t connect with, and can’t communicate well with.  Walking with people in silence is cool too, or with people who understand you can walk together without walking together.  I don’t like the idea of someone latching onto the idea of sticking together pace by pace, without seeing if we have the chemistry yet.   But sometimes I think I should get over this, and learn to be with people for the sheer company.

But we started talking in the kitchen, drinking tea, dictionary in hand, and I started to kinda dig this old dude who I can barely talk with.  He wanted to make sure that I knew even though he suggested we walk together, he wouldn’t be hurt if I didn’t want to.  So I told him the truth, that sometimes I really like to walk with people, yet some other times I needed the space and silence to meditate and reflect, for the spiritual side of the journey.  And so if we walk together but not together, then I would really like that.  And he seemed down with the idea.

Because he was on a spiritual journey too.  He’d been walking for a month already, and seemed pretty worn, but confident.  His wife died two years ago, which was the cause of the spiritual side of his journey.  The other reason was to keep healthy, for the sake of his grandparents.

When I said I wouldn’t be joining the dinner that evening because it was too expensive, he said he’d go tell the Father for me.  He returned, and said that when he told the Father I wasn’t going to eat dinner because of the money, he just said I could eat for free.

So tomorrow will be the first day walking with another pilgrim.  This is what I’ve been waiting for!  But am I ready for it?  Stay tuned… J

Buen Camino

Looking down at St. Pierre Cathedral on arrival in Poitiers

P.S.  Here are some photos of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Grande and the St. Pierre Cathedral in Poitiers.  The Notre-Dame preserves the feeling of being in something ancient.  It has that moist, earthy scent that old churches have, which I love, and uneven yet smooth stone floors and dark corners.  It feels like a time capsule.

The Cathedral is remarkable in a very different way.  It is an immense rectangle, and the word that immediately came to mind was “hollow.”  The outer façade is carved with saints and angels and gargoyles, like rings of embroidery, that can be admired for hours.  The gargoyles shout down at you jauntily.  “Hey you!  Get outta heeeeea!” That’s what I imagine they must be yelling at passers-by.

 

 

August 3: A Campground, a Hotel, and a Police Compound

Still in France!  Here’s a recap:

After the first day of getting lost and then found, the next day was an exhausting 24 miles or so, what with all the looking for places to stay and all.  My guide book said there was a campground in Sainte-Catherine-de-Ferbois, what it did not say was that it was 44 euros.  So I psyched myself up for a little bit more walking on an extremely hot day, and stumbled into Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine, a big town with no visible campsite.  By this time my brain had entered the “fried zone” and I was no longer a human being.  I saw a sign for camping but abandoned the route after walking for a while and seeing that the road continued into a bungle of highway.  

I turned back into town, thinking maybe if I stopped by the church someone there would take pity on me and point me to a cheap chambre d’hote.  There was nowhere there.  I took a few meditative moments, and went back to find a hotel.  Not a regular thing for me, checking into a hotel room is a very exciting moment.

I decided on the Cheval Blanc, because while it’s neon sign probably knocked it down a price notch from the fancier hotel in town, the restaurant still looked nice.  And it had some character.  Which was proven by my room, painted a bright mint green over what have would have been the original, rustic wood.  

I used all my French on the receptionist, and then went down to the restaurant and used some more on the waitress, who bless her soul, was kind to me despite my mangling of her language, and with a pitying smile nodded and took away the menus.  

So now I was staying in a hotel, AND I was eating in a real restaurant.  This is life at it’s finest.  I’m also not sure I’d done this since Cambodia, where a room was $20 which I split with my friend Heather (with aircon and a pool!), and the food was so good and cheap I usually ordered two meals at once.  

The next day was the hottest day yet, and the hottest day for France this summer, I have been told.  Walking through acres and acres of sunflower fields is beautiful, but it doesn’t make a lot of shade.  I stumbled into a peaceful campground in Les Ormes, practically falling across the reception desk, gesticulating wildly about how hot and terrible it was outside.  Concerned, the receptionist brought me some water, and later, a chair.  I couldn’t think straight and I just ended up laughing madly over everything, which made her laugh, again, pitifully.  

Because I’m camping, splitting the Via Turonensis into sections is a little difficult, since it makes for awkward days: if I don’t want to walk 21 miles to the next campground, then the only option is to walk only 6, for instance.  Yesterday, I decided to make it a long day, and just push through to a campsite a few miles outside of Chatellerault.  The day wasn’t too eventful, but long, and my feet are no longer my own, but some devil feet always in pain and having been transplanted onto me without my knowledge.  So I stopped for a well-deserved beer in a town a kilometer of the trail, Ingrandes.  Thankfully, as most towns are “shut” for the month of August, there was a friendly bar right outside the beautiful church, and I took my time airing my feet out and sipping a Leffe.  

Down the trail about an hour, when I had just reached the northern industrial area of Chatellerault, a car pulled up and clearly the driver wanted to talk.  As it turns out, he was a guy I had seen at the bar in Ingrandes (who I thought smiled a little too enthusiastically) and he had been wondering if I was a pilgrim.  Indeed, I told him.   After about 20 minutes of terrible French and terrible English flying back and forth, he said he lived in Chatellault, in a police compound (he was in the gendarmerie) and that I could crash there if I wanted to.  Of course I said yes.  

So thank you to Frederic and his French bulldog Elliot for hosting me!  He even gave me a juice box in the morning.  Kind people.  

Now I’m in Dissay, in a campsite of course, and while sleeping in real beds with clean sheets is nice from time to time, I must say I always feel glad to be back in my tent.  You may not believe me, but it’s the best sleep I’ve ever gotten.  

Extra! Extra! I’m in the Press!

Ok, so the Lake Oswego Review won’t reach most of you, but here’s a very flattering summary of my journey and fundraiser published in my hometown paper:

http://www.pamplinmedia.com/lor/108-education/158050-marisa-walks-across

Read all about it!