Somewhere in MT

We've been so blessed this week with such generous host families inviting us into their homes. Sunday night, as I've mentioned in the last blog, we stayed with Curt's friend Kelti in Billings. Monday and Tuesday night we stayed with Maria, another one of Curt's friends from High School, and her lovely family in Hardin (I think that's where we were at least...). Maria walked the Northern Walk last summer and she joined us on Monday for a shift during the day. Her family has an amazingly beautiful home that is decorated with Native American pictures and all kinds of other Indian themed things. The walls are covered in wood panels, but a gorgeous wood that I've never seen before. It is very light colored with brown spots and is so smooth to touch! The wood used for the hand rails going up the stairs and the railings on the second floor looked like big tree branches, and they had other arrangements of these branches throughout the house. (I wish I could post pictures on this blog page to show what I mean because I'm really not giving this house the compliments it is due. I'll get pictures up online somewhere hopefully soon and then post a link so that you can all look at them!) The first night we had Indian tacos for dinner- which are basically fried dough (although more bread-y than any fried dough I've had, and much tastier) with regular taco toppings on top. You eat it by cutting it up and eating it with a fork. I would definitely recommend trying the fried dough as a substitute for hard shells. The second night we had elk and buffalo! The elk was offered in the form of steak and burgers. The burger was pretty tasty but the steak was delicious! It was marinated in soy sauce, which in my opinion could turn cow poop into a yummy meal, and it cooked medium rare- just how I like it! We asked if elk was easy to find in Montana (like if you could go find it in a grocery store or a butcher shop), and we were told that if you wanted to eat elk you pretty much have to go out and kill one or get some meat from a friend who hunts them. The buffalo was prepared in jerky form- like little bits of beef jerky, only buffalo. That was pretty tasty also, but I preferred the elk.

Last night we were invited by Fr Paschel of St. Labre's parish (and school) to stay the night in the rectory (I think that's what it's called...the place where the priest lives), which is in Ashland, MT located on the Indian reservation. He had a very nice little home a short distance from the parish, and there we cooked pizzas, ate ice cream, watched movies, and chatted with Father. The parish itself was unlike any I'd ever seen. The outside was shaped like a tee-pee (again, wish I could post pictures here!!) and the inside had stained glass panels located at very specific spots so that at different times of the day (sunrise, noon, sunset, etc) the light would shine through and illuminate different things inside the church, i.e. the tabernacle or the altar. Ribbons are very sacred to the Indians so much of the church was decorated with ones of different color, thickness, and length. The floors were simply made of gravel (you know, like those portions of sidewalks and roads, and often driveways, that are made of gravel and gray cement) and had no kneelers. If you wanted to kneel on a cushion you had to grab one from the back of the church. I personally like it when there aren't any kneelers (plus I got used to not having any at school!) because it is a reminder of the sufferings Christ took upon himself in his Passion. And the part of the mass during which we kneel is that which allows us to share in that Passion on the altar. Staying with Fr. Paschel was a real treat and we were sorry to leave Ashland and St. Labre's parish this morning.
Tonight we're somewhere near Broadus staying with a family of 6- 2 young boys and 4 girls, one is a baby. This is the first time we've stayed with a couple that has children! It's fun for us to be around kids (even though we're tired) and they are so excited to have 12 new people in their house!
I didn't walk today because I hurt my foot yesterday trying to stretch out the muscles around my shins. Something funky happened when I tucked my foot under to feel a stretch, and since then it's been a little swollen and really stiff. It feels much better today than yesterday, and icing it helps a lot...hopefully I'll be good to go by tomorrow, and, if not, at least by this weekend! Having an injured foot makes it difficult to walk across the country ; )
Well I've got to run off to bed, even though I slept most of the afternoon away today. Hugs and kisses and prayers and blessings!

PS we should be in South Dakota by tomorrow night...woo hoo!

Billings, MT

Ok scratch some of the info from that last blog...we were on 12 until shortly after Shawmut, where we turned onto Highway 3. From there we will take Highway 3 into Billings and then hop back on I-90 for a short distance. Then we'll get on 212 and walk that into South Dakota hopefully by the end of this week! Montana has been nice... but I'm ready for a new state! I haven't had many opportunities to see the "Big Sky" out here because of the rainy/cloudy weather we've had these past two weeks while I've been on night shift. There was one night last week that was stunningly beautiful though; the sky was clear and the stars seemed infinite. I don't mean to be a downer...but there was still some light pollution on the horizon so they didn't appear so low to the ground. The night I'm waiting for is one that is so dark and so clear that, once your eyes leave the horizon, everywhere you turn your head you see stars until the sky meets the ground and you're looking at the earth again. I was told that western Montana would be flat...but that South Dakota would be even flatter. I hope that's true because I won't leave these flatlands until I see those stars from horizon to horizon!
This weekend we stayed in Billings- the largest city in Montana (which really doesn't say much, but it actually is a rather good size...about 126,000 people. Much bigger than Burlington!). The group split up this weekend and was hosted by four different families. I stayed with Margaret, Kate, Faith, and Barbara at Diane's house. Diane is a wonderfully generous woman who fed us delicious dinner and breakfast all weekend and opened up her beautiful condo for us where she allowed us to sleep, do laundry, and relax our bodies and our minds. : ) Thank you Diane for your welcoming hospitality! We all thoroughly enjoyed our stay at your home. Thank you for sharing with us not only your home but also your thoughts and experiences. We are pleased to have gotten to know you as much as we did in such a short time.
The rest of the walkers were split up and stayed at their respective host homes, and we were all shipped off to different parishes last night and this morning for mass. We had six different churches to go to this weekend! We normally go to 4 (give or take one) per weekend, so this was a busy one for us. I had the honor of attending mass at St. Patrick's Co-Cathedral twice, once Saturday night and once this evening for 5:00 mass. Beautiful church and mass. We had a fun experience on Saturday while we were praying outside of Planned Parenthood...which sounds bizarre but bare with me! As we were praying our first set of mysteries I saw a little girl walking down the sidewalk in our direction with a basket of brownies in her hand. All of a sudden Brad ran our from the line and hugged her and picked her up! I had no idea what was going on at first but soon learned that the girl was his little sister! Their sister Emily and their parents drove two days out from Sacramento, CA to meet them for the day and night. It was such an exciting surprise for everyone and obviously such a treat for Brad and Barb.
I'm on day shift this week! Woot hoo! Night shift was cool but I'm excited to walk in sunlight for the first time in two weeks. I'm exhausted so I'm gonna head off to bed. I apologize again for the disorganization of my blog. I'm tired!
Let me know if you have any questions so I can have something specific to write about!
Love you all and hope all is well :o)
God Bless

BTW Dave Bathon was here for the weekend. He's one of the guys that works behind the scenes to set up weekend mass locations and times and host family houses and allllll of that fun stuff. Thanks for all you do Dave! On a more personal note...Dave was the one who was at the booth at the FOCUS National Conference that I attended this past Christmas Break. I learned about Crossroads by talking to him and right off the bat I told him "I'm in!" He knew I was being sincere and he gave me a free Crossroads Pro-Life tee right then! If he hadn't been at Conference I probably would never have learned about Crossroads and I wouldn't be here right now. So thanks for being there Dave!

OK bedtime!

White Sulfer Springs

I realized today that the route we're walking is a little different than the one listed on the Crossroads website (crossroadswalk.org). The site is accurate through Washington until Missoula, MT. A little past Missoula, where we were walking at the end of last week, we switched over to highway 12. We'll stay on 12 until we hit 87- which I'm assuming we'll take down into Billings (where we'll stay next weekend). After Billings we'll get on 212 and stay on that until South Dakota. I'm not sure what we'll do after that but I'll keep you posted!!
I much prefer walking on highways to the interstate (I think this is the general consensus) for a few reasons. For one, I like walking through towns and seeing their little shops and restaurants and houses and things of the sort. It's definitely more fun during the day to walk through these places, but at night it helps the miles seem a little shorter and the time seem to pass a little faster. Plus, it's nice to see the different 'personalities' of the places we walk through. I also like that the support vehicle has more flexibility in reaching the walkers if there is a problem, i.e. it starts raining or someone really needs a jacket or water. Another big one is bathroom accessibility!! All in all it's just nice to get off the interstate for at least a little while :-)
Well I'm on night shift again this week so I have to wrap it up. We're going to pray evening prayer now and then head out to where day shift left off. We're going to try and get a lot of miles in tonight because we have tomorrow off! Curt says we're doing really well so he's giving us a day (and a night!) of some good old R&R.
We're parked at a motel for the night and inside are 2 hot spring pools! My group went in for a little while before dinner tonight...it was reeeally nice : ) : ) The sulfer in the water made the air around the pools reek of rotten eggs...but it was worth going in! The first pool was nice and warm and that's where we lounged for a while. The second pool was a little smaller but much hotter- it must have been at least 105 degrees! It felt really nice to sit in there...just for a minute though! I think tomorrow we'll go back in the springs for a little while and then try and find something else to do for fun. We were hoping a couple weeks ago to get far enough ahead to go to Yellow Stone Park for the weekend, but that plan fell through and Brad and I came up with the brilliant idea of going to a zoo! Maybe we'll find one close enough to drive to tomorrow : ) (I doubt it though...I think the closest is Zoo Montana in Billings).
OK I have to get going! We walked through Helena last night and day shift walked through Townsend today, so we're picking up a little outside of there tonight. Keep us in your prayers! Love yas!

Great Falls

I gotta make this one quick because we're heading out soon to go pray at an abortion clinic. We're in Great Falls right now at Curt's dad's house. We are staying at a host family's house about 20 minutes away, so we left from here after dinner last night and came back over this morning for a delicious french toast, sausage, and yummy eggs breakfast.
The place we're staying is home to a very nice Baptist family and is located right on the Missouri River. Their names are Bonnie and Mike Mitchell and they have three boys who are apparently all into hunting! In their living room is mounted the head of en elk- it's incredibly huge with antlers that are at least 2 and a half feet in length. In another room there is a stuffed mountain lion (!!!!) on a rock display thingy on the wall. They are both so scary and I hope I don't see either of them while walking, especially at night! Bonnie works for an organization that helps women in pregnancy crisis situations (I believe it's called LifeWay but I have to double check tonight). She shared with us an amazing story about a girl who was faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The girl had called a few months back and set up an appointment for what she thought would be an abortion, but she never showed up on the set date. She called about a week ago and the people at LifeWay had her come in yesterday. Again, she thought she was coming in for an abortion. While at LifeWay she was given facts about what her baby looked like and how it could function at the stage it was at. She was twenty weeks along, which is just 3 weeks shy of point at which a baby can live outside the womb. I have to leave but I will wrap up with saying that the girl ended up calling her boyfriend (who was outside in the car with their 4 year old daughter) and telling him that she couldn't go through with it. She was the 47th woman who came through LifeWay and changed her mind about an abortion (they've only been open for 4 and a half years!).
Bonnie also had models that were the exact size and weight of babies at 12, 20, 24, and 30 weeks. It was incredibly moving to hold them, and it's wild that with all of the technology now-a-days people still think that a fetus at 12 weeks looks like an "alien" or a "fish". It looks like a new-born baby...only smaller.
OK I need a nap! Love all of yas :)

Montana!

After Sunday night we were walking through Spokane, which was our last city in Washington state. Day shift on Monday crossed into Idaho through Post Falls, and that night I had the pleasure of walking through Coeur d'Alene. What a beautiful city... it reminded me a lot of Church St. in Burlington- lot's of cute little shops, pubs, and pretty restaurants. We walked past the Coeur d'Alene lake but unfortunately couldn't see it because it was already dark outside. Curt and I had a funny experience walking in the area-a group of people coming out of a bar asked what the heck we were doing walking through the city with rain suits on (rain jackets and pants...they're very flattering as you can imagine). We told them we were walking across the country and they all flipped out they were so excited (they were a little fired up lol). It was someone's birthday in the group and his friends started taking pictures and videos of him with Curt and me-it was laughs!
The rest of the night was good- it was a little rainy but not too cold. I can definitely feel myself getting stronger and into better shape- Curt is a fast walker but I was walking at his pace and we made good timing each 5 mile shift. Night shift is different from day shift in many ways but one significant difference is the amount of conversation that takes place while walking (and while waiting in the van- it's different from the day in that there is none). While walking through the city with all of the lights and people and activity Curt and I were chatting, but it seems like once we hit the highway and it's back to darkness everyone tends to grow silent with the surroundings. It's nice though- I like the peace and quiet, and the darkness too. It's fun during the day to see the places you're walking through and the landscapes you're passing by (I get a lot of use out of my camera during these times, especially while in the van driving to the next stop), but there's something really nice about walking through the night. Silent personal prayer sneaks up on you and before you know it you're in a state of deep contemplation. I've found it's a nice time to reflect on the day and to ask God to help me with those faults I find myself guilty of. In the peaceful silence I feel that God reveals to me the ways in which He is working in my life. I've found myself laughing a couple times thinking of how He has literally grabbed my hand and lead me to Crossroads. I have no hint of doubt that my being here is an integral part of His master plan for me, and I know that the challenges I will be faced with this summer are going to be (and have already begun to be) His little ways of presenting me with opportunities to grow in virtue.
We met Steve Sanborn, the founder of Crossroads, yesterday. His lovely family allowed us to shower at his house and then we had a chance to hang out with his kids for a little while. They were adorable and so sweet- there's something to be said about Catholic kids!! It's no wonder Susie and I were so very angelic 0: ) Steve told us that back in '95 he and 9 (I think?) other friends from Franciscan University of Stubenville decided to walk across the country for Pro-Life. They borrowed an RV from a friend and hit the road with not much of a game plan. They sort of winged it walking into parishes every now and then asking if they could speak during the mass and tell people what they were doing. A priest from Australia was walking with them and at one point he made a comment about the next year's walk and how it should be different in so and so way and Steve was like 'I'm not doing this again next year!' I guess the priest knew it would catch on, and obviously it did! Here I am 15 years later...but hopefully Crossroads won't be necessary for too much longer. Pray for an end to abortion! Every single day!
Steve said that there are 3 stages during the summer that each walker will go through. The first is the physical stage- one that we are all still in now. Our muscles are sore and our little feetsies hurt : ( 4 or 5 of the walkers are having problems with their achilles tendons- say some prayers for them! The second stage is personal- we're living 12 people in an RV for 3 months. The glamour will wear off soon. Enough said there. And the third is endurance- he said that at a point it will feel like everything is dragging on and going nowhere. These all make sense and I was expecting these types of struggles. Bring it on! I'm definitely in the physical stage right now but getting into the personal : / I get really frustrated when people talk when I'm trying to sleep! So my challenge right now is remembering that it's more important to practice patience with my group members than it is to fall asleep right away.
I'm pretty tired and I don't feel like reading through this entry to check for mistakes or to see if it even makes sense...sorry if I rambled! Leave comments if you have questions or want to hear more about something in specific.
Tata!

Oh yeah.... we're in Montana! Day crew crossed the state line yesterday afternoon and last night we continued the route on 90. We're in our 3rd state!!