Cimarron to Raton - Scouting

You know, every morning that we walk we either walk straight out of the facility we are staying at or we get shuttled to a destination and begin our walking day from there. As a walker, it's pretty easy for me to just follow the staffs and stop when our flagger stops us for breaks.

But this isn't just random decision making – our walking and running routes are planned out a day in advance, streets and highways are monitored for any safety concerns and our breaks are planned out in 3-4 mile increments and marked so our lead flagger can pay attention to traffic and not worry about where to pull us over for rest stops.

This all takes a lot of work, and our Route Coordinator, Larry Bringinggood does a great job of planning everything out. Not only does he go ahead and map out the walking route, he also heads to the next town or the next facility to check out where we'll be staying. He meets our local hosts, finds out whether or not food will be available for us, if there are showers available, if camping is allowed, if we'll be staying inside .and what time we need to pack up and leave by in the morning.

Then he heads to camp and reports to the group. He doesn't sleep a lot – and he doesn't get to walk with us very often. Larry is a staff carrier and has participated in Sacred Run events, so I know sometimes he misses being out on the road with us. But he also enjoys scouting ahead as I got to witness first hand by taking a day off of walking and getting to ride with him ahead and scouting out the Raton route.

It was a nice change of pace for me; I missed hanging out with the walkers...but it was cool to do something different.

We set out from Cimarron by 7:30 this morning and caravaned with our trailers to Raton High School. When we got to the facility we were met by Theresa, our local host who let us know where the kitchen was, where the bathrooms and showers were and told us we could set up tents outside if we wanted to. (I am always happy when I get to sleep outside!!)

Then we grabbed our flagging tape and set our odometer at 0.0 at the stop sign right outside of the high school. We headed out 3.5 miles, pulled over and flagged the first rest stop for the walkers. 3.5 miles later we did the same thing. And then 3 miles later we staked out our lunch stop.

We did this again for 6 more miles. We noticed that at the 16 mile mark, the road was too hazardous for an official stop to our day. There was no place for shuttle vehicles to pull over and it was at the bottom of a small blind spot, just under a hill. But just about 3 tenths of a mile up the hill was a Historical Marker, and a parking lot...very cool. Perfect place to end the day. Plenty of room for vehicles, plenty of room to circle up and as a bonus...a beautiful view of the Rockies in the distance.

“Cool,” Larry said, hung the flags and we were done with that route for the day. Larry said they aren't always that easy to map, and after walking for a couple of months now I can believe that. These long stretches of flat highway must be a blessing after negotiating curvy mountain passes and city streets.

Had fun today, different kind of day. I've given a shout out to Larry before, wanted to do it again. And I know he gets help too from Rudy Preston who checks ahead on the Internet for any route problems and deals with the Highway Patrol and any permits we need.

So thank you EVERYONE, for making it so easy for us to just put on our shoes and walk.