DAY 99 ~ 12/22/21

Joan and I walked a total of 13.5 miles today. Greg joined in for 4.5 miles, doing a couple miles before lunch and a couple miles after lunch. It’s just so nice to have him along for this journey!

About 4 1/2 miles into today’s walk we had a road block we could not overcome. We saw the road closed sign prior but that hadn’t stopped us before. We’ve always managed to get through. This time the men working said there was no way to cross the creek without the bridge and there was no bridge as they were replacing it. The only way through was to get picked up and driven back to the other side. When Paige and Greg got there we needed to figure out how to drive to the other side. Paige had a great idea to just go to our endpoint for lunch, which she already had put in her navigation, and then backtrack to the other side of the bridge. We then drove to that endpoint and started to drive back to the bridge. One and a half miles into the route we got to the first turn Google wanted us to take. There was really no road. It also had a chained and locked fence before it. There was no getting back to the bridge on the route we were supposed to walk. Had that bridge been open and we had walked the route, we would not have been able to get beyond the locked gate! I guess the bridge being closed was meant to be. We decided to just start walking from the gate even though it was short a mile from the route we were supposed to walk. We have so many trash miles built in that we figured it was a wonderful gift!

During the break while Greg, Joan and I were walking, Paige found water. Lake Texana was calling her name.

Paige found a lunch spot called AJ’s in a town called Edna. Greg and I both thought that was extra special because Edna was my mothers middle name.

As we approached our endpoint for the day we saw a sheriff pull up beside Paige‘s car. It was there for quite some time as Joan and I continued to walk to the car. When we got there we met the deputy who had heard the story by then. He was blown away. He asked for the website to read more about it. I gave him one of our flyers. I learned then that the deputy was not the first person to stop. The fire chief, who was the sheriff‘s son, had already been to the car and talked to Greg and Paige. There was another resident that stopped as well. He had heard from the fire chief this was a crazy story you have to go check it out. A neighbor must have reported suspicious activity or a strange car parked on the road for this ball to start rolling. We were in a remote area with wide-open spaces so there could be no other explanation. When we were leaving with the deputy who was going to escort us back to the highway, the sheriff actually pulled up and blocked the road. He got out of his car and talked to us for another 10 minutes. This is quite the well oiled local law enforcement machine! Apparently we will be the talk of the town. The sheriff made sure to tell us that we were in the border corridor. I didn’t know what that meant so I asked him to clarify. He said well there’s you know we’re right next to the Mexican border, there are illegals crossing that border all the time. They come up through Mexico to get to Houston. There’s also you got to be careful for all the Bohemians. I told him if we meet Bohemians will just play Bohemian Rhapsody for them. The deputy wanted to know what time we would be back to our starting point tomorrow because he might need to be there to make sure there’s no shenanigans with curious neighbors. When he was wrapping up he asked for our licenses so he could put us in the system. When he came back with Paige’s drivers license he gave us four business cards and said I don’t have much to give but this is what I got. Paige said can I use these to get out of jail free? Joan said be sure to bring coffee and donuts tomorrow. I take cream in mine. This all really happened. We might need those get out of jail free card after all.

Paige and I were again on our own tonight. It was another great evening. We went right back to the same spot, Greek Bros. Tonight there was live music, an acoustic country cover band. It was really enjoyable. The food again was excellent.