Day 124

Wow. It’s day 124. That’s crazy! Anyways…

I woke up suddenly and immediately knew that a storm was coming. It must have been the smell and the way the wind was blowing. I unzipped my tent to look out and it looked like rain was coming. I turned my phone on and checked the weather. Yep.
 All I had to do was get up and move my tent under the picnic pavillion. I had to unstated it from the grass and the high winds made it hard to keep sturdy. There was no way to stake it down on the concrete of the picnic area but I placed heavy items in the corners to help. I laid there for another 3 hours waiting out the storm. I didn’t mind though. The high temperature for today was supposed to be 82. That’s manageable. 
When the storm passed I packed up and headed to the grocery store for breakfast. Small town livin right there.. the cashier told me that I should stop by the newspaper building and tell them my story. I couldn’t believe that this small town of Spearsville had a newspaper. I went in and they said they’d do the story. Boom. Awareness being spread and I hadn’t even taken a forward step yet. 
The wind was blowing well over 20 mph behind the storm. They were coming from the south though so at least I wasn’t against it. Traffic was heavy already too. I didn’t want to start my walking day in a bad mood so I put on my secret weapon. Aquemini by Outkast. My favorite album. I listened to the entire album. 
Literally RIGHT when the last song stopped playing, a car pulls up to me and a pretty, excited woman gets out and gives me a bag full of awesome snacks and other goodies. She told me that she has seen me a few times and found me on the Internet. Whitney lives in Stafford where I stayed a few days ago. 

When she left, I was going through my phone to check all my notifications and I looked up and a state trooper was walking towards me haha. He pulled over and I didn’t even hear him. He was making sure I didn’t have a baby out there. Once he figured out what I was doing he was cool and was making sure I was ok. We talked for a few minutes about the walk and cause and then we both got back to our jobs. 
Four excruciating hours later, I finally rolled up the a huge dodge city sign. I took a bunch of pictures. I was very excited to get here. I’ve always loved the wild west and I was hoping to see what it was like back in those days. 
Well, before I even got into the main part of town, I caught a flat tire. I stopped to fix it and then kept going. I came to a point where I had to make a detour because there was no shoulder and no sidewalk. I went one block over and walked on a hilly dirt road and was kind of pissed about it. 
As I was cursing to myself and pushing my heavy stroller through sand up a hill, I heard someone say HEY! 
I stopped mid-hill to talk to them. I told them about everything and they were both recovering meth addicts. I wanted to stay and talk longer but I also wanted to just get into Dodge! The told me about a shortcut to get to the sidewalks so that I didn’t have to walk on the dirt road. 
Well, have you ever heard that saying, “never trust a meth head?” I must’ve forgotten. I ended up on the main road and almost got hit twice. I only had about a half mile to go until sidewalks so I went back and forth between lanes. It is DODGE city after all. Might as well dodge a car or two. 
So far dodge city sucked. It wasn’t cool like I thought. It was just another overpopulated town. I thought it would still have a little more wild west stuff but not really. I went into the visitor’s center when I finally got downtown. I asked about stuff to do. She said that I still had time to catch the show at the Boot Hill museum. 
So I did that. It came with dinner, a gun fight show, and a saloon show. It was actually a lot of fun. Everything was done up and made for entertainment only but it was still fun. The saloon show was really good and not rushed. I enjoyed it. After the show, the performer’s had heard about my walk and were asking about it. I made sure to tell them about the cause. One of the girls reminded me of my sister. I didn’t tell her that though. That would’ve probably been awkward. 
I broke outta there and walked on as the sun was setting. I contemplated just finding a place to throw my tent up but I really wanted a shower and four walls. I needed to do laundry too. Found a $50 motel room and went for it. I think I’ve seen everything this town has to offer. Tomorrow it’ll be time to get the hell out of Dodge!!!