It's hot. It's brutal. 314 miles is a long way. (John Price laughs..)
Some significant background before I reveal all the gory details:
Last year, I showed up to ride the ferry (this is tradition, we all ride the ferry) from Hickman, Ky; to Dorena Landing, Mo. My daughter came along to crew me.
I did some dumb stuff last year. I wore waterproof trail shoes. (Vol State is alllll road) When the blisters appeared all over my feet, I removed the loose skin, exposing all that raw, red, juicy flesh underneath. There were other problems too. My head wasn't in the right place, (obviously).
So the last event I showed up for and ran was a 50 k in Huntsville, Tx; with my son, last Nov. And we only ran half of it.
Fast forward to mid April. My daughter, Erika, sent pictures of her day hike in Palo Duro with her college classmates. I was eating my heart out. Right then I knew I wasn't done. I wanted back in the ultra arena.
She talked about returning to VS all year. That wasn't exactly the arena I had in mind. Whenever she brought it up, I didn't say much, figured she'd forget about it. "I'm running, playing tennis, hiking, working out, blah blah blah, c'mon, mom, let's do this, we can do it..."
I've heard this before.
But, y'know, there's something about that race that gets into you and won't go away. It's insideous, nagging, like a recurrent dream I had after I graduated from college. I kept dreaming I was one class short and wouldn't graduate with my friends. It was so real, I'd wake up full of dread, wondering, and then remember. Vol State is like that. It follows you everywhere. I knew it was never going to stop until I returned and finished.
We flew to Chattanooga. Abi Meadows picked us up. (She was a great host, btw. Staying with her before and after worked out perfectly! Thanks Abi!!!)
To back track again, last year Erika and I drove to the start so missed the traditional meeting of runners at the finish and caravan-ing to the start. Not everybody does this, however, if one rides from the finish to the start one gets to hear Carl Laniak talk about and point out various landmarks along the way. These places are recalled as they are passed and then one has the satisfaction of knowing they are going the right way.
The drive from the finish to Union City, Tn; took 2 days. The first night we stayed in Shelbyville. Naresh Kumar came by our room to chat and give us some Shot Bloks. I was thrilled to finally get to meet and talk with Naresh because I grew up hearing my mother's classical Indian music, (no she wasn't from India) eating Indian food and enjoying the company and conversation of the Indian grad students my mother and step father hosted. (No he isn't Indian either). Actually he may have come by the 2nd night, lol.
(I never saw Naresh during the race, he and his vibrams were long gone by the time we got anywhere).
The drive seemed to take forever. Once we were past the point where I dropped last year I went to sleep. There were a few potty and food stops. Laz informed me that we "had to get in a different car so we could all get better acquainted." Erika and I stuck to the car Carl was driving because I wanted to hear Carl. Other people got in our car (actually, Abi's car) so we got to chat with Don Winkley, Marv Skagerberg, Joe Ninke and John Price.
Finally, we arrived at Union City, where we traditionally meet for "the last supper." I ate a lot, took pictures, asked Joe Judd's daughter what she thought of her dad. She said,"um, I like him." They had the cutest puppy. (No he didn't bring the puppy to dinner). And then Erika and I got in somebody's car to go back to the hotel, to do some last minute organizing and hopefully, sleep. (last year I didn't sleep at all, ever)
Here's a list of stuff Erika and I carried:
hydration pack.
Body Glide.
Hydropel.
2 safety pins
A lighter (for sterilizing the pin to pop blisters)
A bottle of Second Skin
Sunscreen
Pepper Spray (we attracted a lot of dogs but never used the spray. And mine was confiscated at the airport but not hers)
A toothbrush
small tube of toothpaste
cash
ID
1 extra pr of Drymax socks
Cell phone
Ipod
Sunglasses
Desert hat
Leukotape(Erika hated the tape)
Rain ponchos that could be rolled up small and tied to our packs. (these were from Abi and came in handy for sitting and laying on)
1 travel size bottle of hand sanitizer that clipped to the outside of our packs.
I probably forgot something. She had a contact lens case and solution. Besides the above, I carried:
Credit card.
a small camera with a retractable lens.
Medical insurance cards
A headlamp (she ditched hers)
S caps
Aleve
t.p. just in case
a pr of tiny scissors that fold (these were surprisingly handy-she chopped up her shirt and we both slit our shoes to relieve pinky toe pain)
We carried our tech stuff in a waterproof bag. We both wore shorts, jog bras and shirts, dry max socks. I don't remember what shoes she wore, mine were Asic Kayanos. She had an extra jog bra. I had a 2nd pr of shorts. (not exactly compression but liner shorts)
I also wore Injinji liner socks under the Dry max socks. I had a 2nd shirt too..
I didn't feel the dread and fear while riding the ferry that I felt last year. It was the weirdest thing, I felt confident. I didn't exactly announce my pithy revelation but Erika announced hers:
"We are going to separate and I'll see my mom at the finish."
The 15 miles or so from the ferry back to Union City were blah. We ran out of water and spent some time at a vending machine, which of course did not dispense water but diet Mountain Dew. Union City was disappointing because the farmer's market that had the great peaches, peach ice cream, peach cobbler, peach everything, was no longer there. And Erika already had a big fat blister on her heel.
Fred Davis gave Erika a band aid. He is a sweetheart.
Erika wasn't moving very fast, had to stop frequently, but her spirits were good.
We went through Dresden in the dark, and I remembered Laz saying a friend of his spray painted arrows for the Vol State participants. Suh-weet! About this time we hooked up with John Price, Stu Gleman. I remember the Indian hotel owner asked more than once if we were all getting a room together and Stu and I both saying no at the same time. My feet really hurt, I was ready to put them up and wanted the paper signing, and card payment to go faster. I also remembered thinking this was where I landed on the first night last year, and we weren't moving fast enough.
Finally, got to the room. I filled the laundry sack with ice, poured it in the bathtub for us to sit in. I did this almost every night. After we showered and I washed out our stinking clothes with the last of the hotel shampoo, I piled up all the pillows on her bed so she could prop her feet. In the morning we popped blisters, applied 2nd skin, let it dry, put on our sometimes damp clothes and went off in search of food, water and ice. Erika was amazed at how good she felt, her feet didn't hurt and she was ready to go again.
We ate fully loaded cheeseburgers, green beans, sweet potato fries, and chocolate cake with ice cream at a cafe in Gleason. The guy sitting behind us said to his friend beside him,"I finally found somebody who sweats more than you do," and pointed at us. (that friend of his was pretty sweaty)
Erika had to have a little nap after that amazing lunch so we spread our rain ponchos out under a big tree in somebody's yard along old rt 22 and I nearly went to sleep when Diane Taylor came along. She joined us briefly and then we all moved on. Diane looked good and was moving well. Erika again was moving slowly and stopping frequently. I was starting to doubt whether she would make it much further. Diane left us eating her dust. Still, we had plenty of time to make 50 km's a day if that's what we ended up doing. (I had told Fred D.and Diane that Erika wasn't moving well and would probably drop. Then I'd catch up with them, although I had no idea what I would do with Erika if she dropped).
We were moving again when Erika announced that we were passing the property of the guy who let her park in his yard last year while she was crewing me. (Apparently he spotted her parked on the practically non existent shoulder to wait for me and fell asleep. When he knocked on her window, she said she jumped so hard she hit her head on the roof of the van). This man was again out in his yard so we stopped. He was delighted to see us, gave us ice and water for our packs, and glasses of ice water to drink while we sat there. He brought out his little dog for Erika to greet. (he later sent us the newspaper article the two reporters did about us for the McKenzie Banner) He's now on my Christmas card list.
At some point here Erika chopped the pits out of her shirt. The shirt was cotton and chaffing. I guess people thought we were homeless then because they started giving her money.
Later while we were moving along new Rt 22, I turned back to see if Erika was still there and she had stopped to talk to a couple of strangers who were getting out of their car. Crap. Another delay. The two ladies were the reporters for the McKenzie paper and wanted to know who we were and what we were doing. They'd seen others. They ended up writing a very nice article about us and the race.
I can't remember if we stopped at Huntington or Parker's Crossroads but I remember talking about it. I think we ran into Paul Lefelhocz about this time too. We were getting a medium pizza to split when this sweaty, red faced guy with a gynormous pack appeared.
I knew he'd probably heard,"You must be Paul," a few times already but I couldn't think of anything more original. Erika couldn't believe he'd started 17 hours late and had already caught up to us. I could.
I should say things went mostly well for us. Our feet always hurt the last couple of hours, and our tempers would flare, but even if I cussed my head off or she blew up and cried, the other would point out something funny about the situation and we'd both be dying laughing. I don't know if I could've prevailed without her. As time wore on, I began to lighten up on her. She was good company.
We both agreed that 8 days was a reasonable time frame to finish. It was okay that Don Winkley was already almost done as long as we weren't last. We were shooting for 8 days last year but I couldn't even make that. This year I was in better condition and ready to go all night. If I shorted her on sleep or pushed to go faster it would bite me in the butt later. So I settled into her rhythm. This turned out for the best because she seemed to get stronger and more focused as I slowly unravelled.
Carl and Laz wanted everybody to text where we were at 7:30 a.m. and p.m. Erika mostly did this. The few times I did I managed to send something ridiculous until I figured out how to shut autofill off of my new iphone. One time I sent Carl a message from "the lummox." I couldn't believe this didn't become my new nickname. I guess they didn't make much fun of us because we weren't bloody, in tears, or begging for them to come get us. (as far as they knew)
We saw Carl and/or Laz, or Laz and Aimee, or Sandra once or twice a day as they made the rounds, checking on everybody. Sometimes a dead runner would get out of their car. We were both surprised to see Joe Ninke and then Fred Davis during one of these stops. We would hear how other runners were doing too. Don Winkley was in front. Naresh's feet were a mess. Friends would go by and stop too, I was surprised by how many people stopped. We saw Angela Ivory, Juli and Val Aistars, Rich and Beth Limacher..
Rich invited Erika to cool off in his van. I practically had to tackle her to keep her from getting in because I thought this would change her designation to "crewed." Rich is trouble..but he was one of our biggest cheerleaders and motivators too. We were thrilled and touched to see everybody. It really meant a lot!
We stopped at hotels in Parsons and Hohenwald. I think it was Parsons where we argued about which hotel because last year I put her in the one that's about half a mile off course and then she dropped me off 15 miles back to run through the night. The one we stayed at this time was on the course and turned out to be adequate, (although I'd heard otherwise). This was the night we had nothing, no food, water, zip, just fell into bed.
When we got to Hohenwald I was bitching up a storm my feet hurt so much. Right before Hohenwald I kept hearing what sounded like two wild animals ripping each other's guts out in the woods. I must've asked Erika a dozen times if she heard that, then realized she had her ipod on. She wanted to stop and rest, not realizing Godzilla, Bigfoot and Sasquatch were just across the street. I kept pointing up the road, as in move that way, NOW, finally we got to a church off the road and sat down. Then she shut off her ipod, noticed a dog barking maniacally, (that's part of the pleasure cruise too) kept saying she wished the dog would shut up. That was the one time I wanted the dog to keep barking. I figured he'd keep Bigfoot and all the rest from coming out.
Somewhere in there she barfed. And then the intestinal issues arrived. And then she did something to her foot. I said,"Congratulations Erika. You are a real ultra runner!"
(when her foot started bothering her, there was a dark patch on her lower leg that made me think, omg, its a stress fracture, but after she showered, it turned out to be a patch of sunburned skin. All I had at the time was leukotape so tried taping it when we were moving, and elevating with ice when we weren't. At one point we saw a pharmacy so bought a cloth brace but that didn't last long, maybe half a day. She stopped several times to adjust it, even cut it at different places but it wasn't helping. Luckily what seemed to help the most was a night's rest. Whatever she did to it, was caused by the uneveness of the road shoulder. If there was any shoulder on the two lane roads, it was slanted so we were always making slight allowances which eventually became one more in an endless litany of irritations that magnify unbelievably over 300+ miles. If we weren't walking on a slight slant, we were trying to avoid rumble strips, cars, roadkill, itchy tall weeds, dogs..oh yeah, why were we doing this? "Because I was born without a brain. So we're off to see the wizard...the wonderful wizard of OZ." (No we didn't hook arms and skip).
By then we were really beginning to look like savages. The constant feeling of grit in my shoes, the smell of sweat, the itchy skin, the endless layer of grime and sunscreen was a chronic complaint. We noticed when we talked, the time went by faster. We launched into all kinds of conversations. School. Food. Friends. Food. Music. Food. Family. Food. What kind of food. Any food. Cold food. Peach Cobbler. Ice cream.
Somewhere we saw a Starbucks and it looked like the gates to heaven, eternal bliss, nirvana. We ran like crazed lunatics, laughing because there was a fence. Should we climb it? Too much work. Better to run across the highway over there, maybe scream and act crazy to stop traffic. Sonic, omg, I've never been excited about Sonic. Not like that. I don't think I'll ever look at another Subway the same. The cafe in Shelbyville bleach sprayed the booth we had occupied, we watched 'em do it. Everyplace we stopped to get a meal I ate enough calories for a whole day in one sitting. Then there were all the gas stations, cafe's, diners, a couple of grocery stores..that had to be the best part, definitely not the bonding between mother and daughter, the friends we made, or the celebration of life and good health, but the fact that we ate shocking amounts of food.
We ran into Paul several more times. We strolled into Hampshire just in time for the only gas station to close. But we did get some food there. And ran into Fred Davis. And Fred Murolo. His son was crewing for him.
The son was spectacularly handsome and polite. I was even more acutely aware that I looked and smelled like a rotting carcass. Fred Davis gave us some espresso beans which really picked up our pace. Unfortunately I was having intestinal issues that wouldn't wait so let our company get away briefly. (whose ever driveway that was, had to have wondered who would do such a disgusting thing..)
We all strolled into Columbia around 10 pm, Paul, Fred Murolo, Fred's son in his car, my daughter and I, when a cop pulled up. He said this area was very dangerous, people got shot and died there, we should get to the main highway right away. The hotel wasn't much further and we hustled on.
We saw Fred Murolo and his fabulous son the next morning, but let them get away for good when Erika realized we were at the Bench of Despair and the hand dipped ice cream. Paul was in there. (poor guy, probably felt like we were stalking him)
Erika ordered ice cream and lunch. I ordered 2 dips, chocolate chip cookie dough and strawberry, on a chocolate dipped cone.
After I told Paul we would beat him, I never saw him again. When Laz stopped, Paul probably told him these two goofy females were following him. Laz probably said we could only go 40 miles a day. If you push harder you'll lose 'em.
Actually I think we caught up with Paul at the Strolling Jim in War Trace too. (I'm sure everybody who was there heard us come in). I saw Josh Holmes. I didn't know who he was at first, wasn't thinking (as usual). "Oh, this nice young man is acting like he knows me, duh, he looks familiar.." He was heading out so I wouldn't see him again either. Later it hit me,"Omg, that was Josh.."
I didn't sleep at all that night. That historic old hotel had me so jazzed, especially since I had originally planned to not stop there. We left War Trace at 4 a.m. with every dog in the town heralding our departure. (this was the only night I didn't sleep like I'd died)
We arrived at a campground in or near Manchester later that morning. It had vending machines, comfy places to sit, and toilets but nobody was around. This sign greeted us:
(Stopping for the night in War Trace instead of Manchester was our only deviation in "the Plan." Erika had remarked that the days when we got an early start and stopped early went better than when we headed out in the heat of the day and got in late. So we had elected to stop in War Trace. It was still daylight. However, the hotel looked closed. We sat outside looking at it for awhile, thinking we'd have to go on to Manchester, when Erika decided to call the number on the billboard advertising Bar B Q. This sign was on the building and she decided it was connected to the hotel somehow. I wouldn't have made this connection. Somebody answered, she chirped, they chirped, she hung up and said,"Well. They do things a little differently here. Good thing I called though, we got a room.")
Anyway, I'd heard about the little hill leading into Monteagle. Except its not a hill, it's a mountain. Luckily we arrived at the bottom around 9-10 pm ish so not much traffic because there is very little shoulder. And the road twists and turns so cars came flying around the bend at us. It seemed to take forever to get to the top and Erika flopped to the ground, exclaiming how much this race sucks, or something like that while I died laughing.
Once we got going again, Erika spotted a swanky place to "hole up" for the night. I think it was a bed and breakfast or a spa, (it looked like an expensive retirement home to me) I said this would be too much money. She called the number (after looking it up on my phone) and got a recording saying they'd "retired for the evening." I don't know why this made me laugh so much, but by then everything was a joke. She looked at the GPS again and said the next hotel was 6 blocks off course. More jokes, grumbling and we headed that way.
Luck was with us again, because we ran into John Price. He was standing in front of the hotel, looking well rested, fed, smelled good, with a smile on his face. He was pushing through to the finish. And gave us his room. God I love that man.
Erika was shot. And starving. After we got into the room, I went to the McD's next door, ordered grilled chicken sandwiches, fries, drinks, went to the gas station for water, chocolate milk, whatever else, and back to the room, ate, showered and slept. (we both slept great when we stopped. I wasn't ever too anxious to sleep, except the night at War Trace)
I can't remember if Pelham was before or after Monteagle, (it must've been before) but that was where Erika had her biggest breakdown. Pelham is unincorporated, a dot in the road. We'd heard it had a store and a cafe but they close early. Luck was not with us there because we arrived to a town with exactly nothing. It was dusk. I was acutely aware of the gravelly feeling in my shoes. The acrid smell of sweat. We both had to pee and were ravenously hungry. Erika was out of water. We both wanted to lay down in the road. She started to cry and buried her head on my shoulder. (that lasted about 3 seconds, long enough for her to get a good whiff of me).
She said,"Do you think if I called Fred's son or Carl they'd come and get me?"
I didn't laugh. (Fred's son was the only crew person we ever saw)
She began again, mostly just musing aloud, I don't remember exactly what she said, something like,"If I call somebody to come and get me, blah blah, blah..." I really don't remember now but just like she spiralled into her well, she climbed out. I guess that was the most impressive trait I saw in her, her ability to get to the other side quickly. I could've said 'by the time anybody gets here, we could be in the next town. This low point will pass, we'll get food, etc;' I may have even said some of that but she mostly came to these conclusions on her own. It was really....cool...even if she weren't my daughter, her resilience was remarkable. She figured everything out without me harping like a hovering old know it all. She was so refreshing through all of this I wanted to apologize for all of the freaking out I did over all the crap she pulled while in high school. But I didn't.
I did say what anybody would say: You can't stop now. We are almost done. I can't go on without you..
So we peed behind some building in full view of a couple of houses, (but it was almost dark) and trekked on.
We eventually came to the huge downhill leading into Jasper. (I think, I waited to long to write my race report and don't remember where we hit Tracy City and Jasper) We saw Sandra Cantrell go by. She came back and stopped. She reminds me of Francis McDormand from the movie Fargo, only Sandra's even better. (I'm always fascinated by runners' spouses who aren't runners but tolerate and support their running spouse. My spouse is barely tolerant of my ultra pursuits. However, we've been fairly satisfied with each other since 1989. He was annoyed that Erika skipped a summer class for this and that I would be gone for 2 wks. Oh and he thinks I'm nuts).
Erika started to run. It was along here that she was often way ahead of me and I was struggling to keep her in my sights. The downhill was harder than the uphill because of the small shoulder, traffic, and blistered toes banging into the toebox of my shoes. When I arrived at the hill bottom she was waiting...
Some time around then Carl called. He wanted to know if we were stopping in Kimball or pressing on. I knew he and Laz had already heralded the arrival at the Rock of several of the guys and there'd be a big stretch before we got there. I offered to wait til morning, but he generously said,"Hey, it's your race."
I figured at that point we'd probably get to the finish around midnight, give or take an hour. I think it was along this final stretch that we saw Naresh and John Price. They had finished, but stopped for photos, congratulations and mutual admiration.
We stopped to gorge on Mexican food. I was so full I thought I'd explode. It was wonderful except Erika was really smelling the barn so it was hard to keep up with her full sprint. I also noticed my camera battery died so I would have no pictures of our finish on it. Then we saw Donald Brown, Don Winkley's crew guy. He pulled over and got out of his car. This immediately attracted (yet another) cop. By then that cop had probably seen everybody else in the race, formed whatever conclusions quickly and left us. Donald told us, among other things that there was a Sonic a short ways off the course. Again I was so psyched over the possibility of a frozen coffee drink we headed off in that direction.
We quickly realized that it would not be easy to negotiate on foot. There was a cement wall or divider, it would be a huge hassle on foot so we turned back toward the course. We were cutting through tall weeds in the dark, I wanted to go a longer way to get back on course, but she was plowing through the weeds at warp speed, I followed. She screamed, a bloodcurdling, long, siren of a scream. I was certain she'd been attacked by rattlesnakes. I screamed too. And I had been doing so well, not over reacting to anything. If I freak out I lose my bladder..
It was only a spider web. But now my shorts were uncomfortably wet and there'd definitely be chaffing issues over the next 15 miles so I had to change my shorts. By now we were about to cross the big bridge over the Tn. river, our 2nd crossing over this enormous body of water. It was dark. But there was some traffic. And I knew I'd have trouble getting those other shorts on because they are liner shorts, light to carry but tight to put on, definitely not something done in public. It's never pretty or graceful.
All of my positive thinking came to pass as I waited for a break in traffic, took off the wet shorts and hopped all over the place with the other pair, eventually resigning myself to the loss of balance and plopping over in the road on my bare ass. Erika was doubled over laughing. A couple of cars went by. I was laughing so hard it took exactly forever to get those shorts on and stand up. Most of the race was like that. So much of the time we were laughing our heads off. I mean spit out your food laughing, choking hysterical, stomach pain laughing...
Right before the base of Sand Mountain, a male voice driving by called out,"You need a ride?" (we got that a lot. A lot of people also drove by real slow and asked us what we were doing. One truck load of Mexican landscapers went by asking if we needed water or food. Mostly everybody was really nice)
We said no thankyou to the ride offer but asked him if he had any water. He slowed, said no but he had leftover food in his lunchbox. (this was around 10-11 pm) We descended on this poor guy like vultures. He gave us his unopened fruit cup, an apple, some juice. He was still talking with us when we arrived at the turn to go up Sand Mountain. About the time he said,"Oh you are going up the mountain?" all of our comrades started driving by: Donald Brown, Abi Meadows, Marv Skagerberg, Laz, Carl, Naresh and Sandra. Donald offered to take whatever we wanted to unload. I felt bad about this later, but I gave him my wet shorts. Hopefully I made up for it by also giving him the waistpack that had my life savings, credit card, ID, pretty much everything..
Sand Mountain is a little steeper than Monteagle but not as long. Erika assaulted this hill with such vehemence she had to stop and rest. Said she felt like she was having a heart attack. I was surprised because she's only 19. Besides I felt great. (Abi said later that she might've pulled a muscle) I thought maybe she had a collapsed lung. That used to happen to me a lot when I was younger. We probably stopped for half an hour or longer, at least it seemed like awhile before she was able to go on. I gave her some Aleve. At one point we could see the finish across the tree line to our left, although it'd be at least another hour before we were there. Some of the guys, (maybe Naresh) were flashing a light at us and cheering so I flashed my light on and off back.
That was probably the defining moment for me. Erika expressed great desire to be done long before then, she missed her dog, wanted to be clean, back in her comfort zone, I had missed my dog but didn't want this to end. I loved it. All of it. It was a fantastic, amazing, hilarious experience.
She was running again. We were flying down some country road, dogs barking as always, her completely focused, out of my range of vision, me having no idea where the hell we were, then seeing the gate with the two old (they look like guard towers) posts. Castle Rock. She turned left into the corn field. I was right behind her. We came to the fork in the trail, leading into the woods. I knew to go left again, because I came down that trail looking for Juli Aistars last year. Erika shot off like a rocket, with me in hot pursuit, thinking she'll get there and they won't see her, she has no light. Then I heard clapping and cheering. Erika was at The Rock, first, just like she said she'd be.
Our times:
Erika Matheney 8 day 18:57:45
Lynnor Matheney 8 day 18:58:42
Sherry Meador had been camping up there all this time. Sherry had done something to her foot, but still finished with the first wave of contestants. She and I had texted through some of the race so I knew about where she was and how it was going for her. She's a rock, just an amazingly strong, gutsy woman. I love her.
Fred Davis was at the finish too. It was good to see him. Somebody handed me a bottle of water. The mosquitoes were driving me nuts but we sat around for a few hours talking about our race. Everybody who we had seen drive up the mountain for our finish was there. Laz and Carl are always at the finish waiting for runners. This part of the event is priceless. There's a satisfaction and comraderie that can't be quantified or expressed really, it's just timeless, a gem of a memory.
Eventually our pow wow at the Rock came to a close and we got in Abi's car to go back to her house which is not far, maybe 30 minutes. The next night we went back to see Diane come in. Carl announced that Diane was lost in the woods and wasn't coming.
Fred Davis went off to look for Diane and while he was gone, Diane arrived.
(that's my buddy Sherry with the braid, and Erika behind her.) And Diane, happy to be done! She looked great, like her experience was as much fun as ours had been.
Epilogue:
After a day of eating and sleeping, watching great shards of skin slough off of our feet, Abi took Erika, Marv Skagerberg and me to Rock City in Chattanooga.
This song played in my head all across Tennessee so it was great to finally hear it.
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