First one : D

First blog!! Woot woot! I'm a loserhead for not having blogged until my second weekend of the trip but alas the blogging has commenced. Crossroads is awesomeee : ) : ) My teammates are so much fun and we all get along swimmingly. I swear it took 24 hours for us to feel completely comfortable with each other. There are 12 of us including our fearless leader Curtis. To give an idea of the wide spectrum of home states I'll write where everybody's from: Curt-Billings, MT, Amy-Philly area of PA, Jessica-Naples, FL, Kate- southwestern MN, Margaret-Petoskey, MI, Faith- Pittsburg (southeastern), KS, Scott- near Indianapolis, IN, Brad and Barbara (brother and sister)- near Sacramento, CA, Miriam- South Bend, IN, and (Mad) Mike- also South Bend, IN. And that's my crazy crew!
The northern route walkers broke ground last Saturday; we began at the Space Needle in Seattle and ended at U.Washington 3.3 miles away. I felt a little apprehensive about the week to come because I was kind of pooped after those 3 miles. haha! The rest of that weekend was spent attending mass at various parishes and giving talks about Crossroads (the talk basically covers 3 main points- pray for us, give us intentions so we can pray for you, and give us $money$ ! ). We are all volunteers so we rely on donations from the parishes where we talk to pay for gas, food, water, sunscreen, odor-eaters (crucial!),etc.
As far as the dynamics are concerned, a typical week goes as follows: the group is split into two shifts- a day and a night shift which both aim to get in about 30 to 40 miles in a 10ish hour time span. We travel with an RV where we sleep and store all of our stuff and a support vehicle (soccer mom mini-van- it's pretty swanky though) that drives the walkers on duty out to the starting point and drives along with them until the end of the shift. By 'drives along with them' I mean that the van drives 3.5 MPH on the highway alongside the walkers for 30-40 miles. JUST KIDDING! 6 of us drive out to wherever the last shift left off and 3 people get out and starrrrrt walkin'. The van drives up the road 5 miles (the mileage can be measured on the car itself but we try to stay matched up with the mile markers) and the walkers make the trek to the van. Then we switch it up- those who were in the van get out and start walking and those who just finished up jump in the car and drive ahead 5 more miles. Get the picture? We try to each get in 15 miles in a shift, but everything depends on time and where we're staying for the night and what time mass is in the morning. Curt tries to stick to a schedule but things often change quickly so we're learning to be prepared for anything.
So what the heck do we do in the car for an hour and a half while people are walking to the van? We laugh. A lot. Haha we have fun- we talk, we tell stories, we read, we listen to music, we find places to go to the bathroom, we nap (!!). This is only true for day shift though, night shift is going to be a completely different story (one that begins for me tomorrow night). Poor night shift didn't get much sleep this week- they leave between 8 pm and 12 am and walk until mass in the AM, so once we get into the swing of things they should be able to sleep through the day in the RV. But because it was only the first week and everyone is still getting used to everything they got the short end of the stick as far as sleeping goes. Hopefully my group will figure out a way to get enough sleep during the day so that it isn't as painful as I'm imagining it will be to walk through the night.
OK that's enough for one day! Love you and miss you all : ) keep me in your prayers and I'll keep you in mine! I've been dedicating miles to my loveys so I hope you're all on your best behavior so as to reap the most benefits from your graces ;-)