RunAcrossTheUSA.com

[Matt]

Today was a great day from the start. We had our weekly call-in on the Free Beer and Hot Wings morning show at 8:30 EST, and they informed us that they would be donating $500 to support our charity, Water for Children Africa. They also challenged the other radio station companies that carry their show to match that amount. Brandon and I always have a great time talking to them because they're hilarious, but today it was better still to see their generosity.

The radio show and a bit of procrasinating got us a late start, and after leaving the Conley house a little before 8:30 we weren't really on the road until about 9:30, and even then we stopped at Burger King, so we only had about 3 miles in at 10:30 when we started in earnest.

Friday and Saturday are great days for us to pass through populated areas, because we're both big fans of rummage sales. Today was no exception, and we stopped a few miles outside of Frankfort to purchase some DVD's. We got some great ones - Ladder 49, The Shining, Flight of the Phoenix, Meet Joe Black, and several others, all for a good price. I guess we won't be too bored on the camping nights now since we'll have something to do other than argue with each other.

The day was a perfect day for us, cool with a nice amount of clouds so that we didn't get too much sun. I spent a good portion of the day walking down the side of the road chatting on MSN Messenger via the Ogo. The shoulders were nonexistant in several parts today, but the road we were on didn't have a heavy traffic load for the most part.

When we finally arrived at Lafayette around 4:30, we were able to see what a great city it truly was. A mixture of old and new, with a wonderful downtown district, although the stone frog statues that sit on most corners were a bit odd.. West Lafayette, home of Purdue University, was very nice as well. We ended our day a few miles west of West Lafayette, out in the country. It should be a nice spot to start tomorrow.

A few questions seem to always arise when people ask us about our run, so I thought I'd clear a few up now:

Don't you get sick of pushing the stroller? It seems like it would be really heavy.
Actually pushing the stroller isn't too bad, even up hills. Up the mountains it can be rough, but there we switch off quite regularly to keep us fresh. It is much more difficult to take down hills, as it has a tendency to want to go much faster than the pusher wishes to go.

Sometimes it is actually nicer to push the stroller, because you can lean on it and take some pressure off of your legs. There are days when my legs don't feel good that I tell Brandon that I'll push for hours.

Don't Brandon and you get sick of each other?
Sometimes, but not as bad as we anticipated. We don't run side by side the whole time, so that helps. Also, I think Brandon just in general gets more easily annoyed than I do - he honestly doesn't bother me that often.

How do you pick a house to stay at?
Mostly we just go for whatever is closest when we hit our goal mileage. Usually we pick houses close to the road, because it's more awkward to walk up a long driveway to someone's house. We also try to go for houses where we know someone is home (obviously.) There isn't any real specific age or class group we go for - we've stayed in the yards of many different age and class combinations.


How do you ask permission to sleep in someone's lawn?
Actually, every day we switch off. So if Friday is my day to ask permission, Brandon's day to ask permission will be the next day we camp out. Our opening line is that we aren't selling anything, because that generally puts people's minds at ease. Then we tell them about what we're doing and ask permission to set up. You can usually tell by the second sentence whether they'll say yes or no, because most "no's" have already made up their mind about you when they open the door. We have been very blessed in that we've run into many great people who have been kind enough to offer us food and showers and even money to help us on our way.


Where do you eat?
Mostly we buy large supplies of food at Aldi or Wal-Mart a few times a week, and just snack throughout the day. We'll eat quite a bit of breakfast items such as dry cereal, oatmeal packets, and toaster pastries (Pop-Tarts.)

Well, those are most of the basic questions. I'll let Brandon get on to post now.