Greetings from the Houma Nation

No pictures to share with you. I am in a computer lab that can't upload pictures from my little camera memory card. We'll be back up and running soon - Carrie's computer has arrived in New Orleans and we'll be picking that up today or tomorrow and she has promised me access to it. Yay for Carrie!
We are really close to the Gulf of Mexico down here in a town called Dulac. One of the many places devastated by Katrina and they are still working on getting themselves back up on their feet. They have been incredibly gracious to us at the last minute. We were supposed to be staying up in Raceland, but it turned torrential on us and flooded out the fields we were to be camping in..so we wound up here at the community center. Grateful for the dry shelter!
We will be here for 5 days I think...things have been changing a lot recently as we wind down. We have 7 weeks left to go people -- seven weeks.
Anyway -- I'm gonna try to capture an interview I did with Kid Valance and put it up here. It's up on the Longest Walk website, but I forgot to put it here. I'll add pictures to it when I get a chance. I love Kid. Truly, truly do. Here it is:



One of the more steady, calming presences on this walk is Sacred Runner Kid Valance. He has a grace and comfort about him that immediately sets you at ease; and a gentle, Kentucky drawl that makes you feel like your sitting on a warm porch, sipping something cool even when you're in the middle of a snowstorm.

I've gotten the opportunity to talk with Kid quite a bit on this walk..checking in about his day, his run..shooting the breeze. Kid is our lead runner and organizes the other runners for the day's outing. Recently, we sat down outside my tent to have a little chat and put this interview together to let folks know a little bit about what makes this man run.

NJ: Tell me about how you started running
KV: I've been running ever since I was a little boy, growing up in Winchester, Kentucky. I had an amazing amount of energy as a kid and found it was a good way to use it up. On Saturday nights I would stay up late, all night in fact. I would wait for the Sunday paper to arrive, the big fat one with all the comics and movie ads in it, and I would read that. And then, right around dawn I would take off before anyone could catch me, and just run. Even as a boy I always had this connection with the Earth and with running that was a spiritual connection. But it wasn't until I did my first Sacred Run that I knew there was a tradition of spiritual running that was a heritage thousands of years old.

NJ: When was this, your first Sacred Run?
KV: That was in 1991, the one we did across Canada.

NJ: How did you find out about it?
KV: I was at a friend's record shop in Cincinnati, Ohio..a little 45 place, you know that kind of store that sold vinyl and I met Emmett Eastman. He was there talking with my buddy and he said, “hey, Kid's a runner...you should talk to him.” And that was how I got on my first Sacred Run, it was that year, in '91.

NJ: Had you ever run distance before, competitively or in other marathons?
KV: I had run 15 miles on my own...sometimes all the way up to 25-30 miles a day. In fact, it was my first 25 mile day that I realized there were really no limits to what I could do with my body.

NJ: Dennis talks a lot about how you ran 30 mile days, ever day. Was that in 91?
KV: No, no...that was in 1996 across the States. Yeah, I ran 30 mile days for 104 consecutive days.

NJ: That's amazing, how did your body hold up to that?
KV: Well, we did run hurt...I wasn't the only one of course, there were several of us doing that...but what I found was that even when we ran hurt, our bodies would heal themselves as we ran. Your body can do what you ask it to do.

NJ: After that was over, all those miles, how did you feel?
KV: Honestly, I missed the effort so bad that I went into an amazing depression. I felt lost without all that focus.

NJ: So, tell me about that first Sacred Run, in '91. What was that like for you?
KV: Well it was amazing and I found that I immediately had a connection with it, spiritually, that I never had before.

NJ: Let's sidetrack a bit and talk about your music...you've played at some of our events and even woke us up the other morning with a couple of tunes. How long have you been playing?
KV: I've been singing since I was a teenager, I was fronting bands which was a lot of fun. And then in my twenties I picked up the guitar because I wanted to play the kind of music I wanted to hear, and that wasn't always happening with the bands.

NJ: You write songs as well, how did that come about?
KV: I started writing songs right around the same time I picked up the guitar, I've written about 70 so far...most are for the electric guitar, stuff to be played with a band that doesn't translate well to acoustic. I will say though that I'm almost finished writing my song for the Walk.

NJ: Where are you performing that?
KV: Not sure yet, wherever they ask.

NJ: Do you get nervous performing?
KV: No, not for a long time now. One of the best shows I've ever had was in front of 1200 people, opening for Johnny Winter, they were the perfect audience for me, it was a lot of fun. The most nervous I've been I think was performing for just one person.

At this point in the interview, Walker Carrie Nelson, who is part of a group of new runners walked over to us. I asked her what she thought of Kid.

KV: Hey, do you want me to leave, 'cause I'll get bashful when you start to gushing about me.
CN: (Laughs) No...no. You know, one of the things I love about you Kid..and you are one of my favorite people, is that you're a great running coach. You ask people to check-in with their bodies and then encourage them to keep going. I've found that really helpful, to learn how to listen to your body and then slow down if you need to.
KV: Thank you very much, I love working with new runners.

CN: You know it's funny. Just the other day someone came up to me and we were talking about you Kid ,and this woman said, 'He's just such a humble man,' and I totally started laughing and said, 'wow, you don't know Kid do you.' (they both laugh). But actually, I was thinking about you and how much I love you and I thought, okay, Kid is like a really good biscuits and gravy. You know how you can have a really, really good plate of biscuits and gravy...and then you can spend forever trying to find that again...that's what you are Kid, a really good biscuits and gravy.

KV: That's funny. I once had an old girlfriend tell me, 'Kid, you are 40 miles of bad road.'
NJ: And what did Jen say the other day? 'Kid, your singing is better than getting yelled at in the morning.'
KV: Yeah, that's a good one for the press kit.

NJ: So...we'll wrap this up, let me ask you...how has your body held up all these years, any surprises?
KV: I've been doing this kind of running now for 17 years and the only thing I am constantly surprised by is how forgiving the body is. That and the older I get the faster I used to be (laughs). No, you know, I think running is the best way to celebrate being a spiritual animal. I just love it.

NJ: Anything you'd like to add?
KV: Yeah, here's something. A message to the kids. Any youngster out there who says they are bored....they are woefully misguided... and that their friends and their peers have been terribly let down. It's a big, beautiful world out there with work enough for everyone.”

NJ: Thanks very much Kid.
KV: That was a lot of fun, you're welcome.


P.S. Just so you guys know, Kathleen and I have recently joined the cadre of runners. It's a very, very cool experience and I am SO glad Kid is open to adding less experienced people into the mix. Our first day Kathleen and I each ran 2.5 miles and then two days later he had Kathleen, Carrie and I split 21 miles between us. We each started off doing 5 each and then we found we had 6 left to cover to get us to our end point. It was blazing hot that day and it was afternoon, so the three of us took turns running out a mile at a time - it was way fun and I am super excited to get back out there and do it again. It's definitely more challenging in a really different way. The cool thing about running is that you definitely suffer out there, but it's for a much less length of time than walking. A five mile run took me just over an hour - whereas a normal 16 mile walking day will take upwards of 8 hours (with breaks and stuff) -- so it's just a different pace of the day.
Anyway -- that's the news from down here. We are heading into New Orleans soon on a side trip...my camera is waiting for me there - so no more cell phone pictures! YAY!
And thanks Gwen and Joan for putting that package together for me. Also, I know my Aunt Rebecca got off a package for me as well, and I'll be picking that up.
Thanks everyone...hope to be talking to you more frequently in the coming weeks.
Much love!!

random picture time....take two

Hello folks - got this thing figured out -- there is no order to these pictures, time or place...let's go, eh?


This was just taken a couple of nights ago when we arrived in Shreveport, LA -- we got escorted into town by about a dozen police officers, corralling our caravan. I got video of that scene, hope to figure out how to upload that in time. This camp was right on the banks of the Red River, right in the center of town. We had two train tracks running around us as well as a couple of major highways. Very loud. And I slept actually pretty well. It's amazing what I have learned to sleep through on this trip


This is Andre...or Julian...they are relatively new walkers, from Alaska. Love them both, but I still can't tell them apart 'cause I'm an idiot; I really want to say this is Julian and hope they don't read this and get pissed at me! Anyway, this made me laugh because he just walked up to us...silently..with this signboard that told us about the day's plan. That...and look at the kitchen crew list. What the heck is happening there?



mmm..Kid Valance singing to us under a near full moon. Can't remember, oh yeah, this was in Texarkana a few days ago.



We were staying at a rodeo grounds in .... somewhere small in Texas, I can't believe how quickly I forget these towns. We had been awoken by crazy rain and thunder and lightening the night before, pounding on the tin roof of the horse corrals inside. I actually slept really well...on wooden bleachers with the fans going all night. It was really very cozy. Anyway, Kathleen had been gifted this flute the day before by a local and here she is working out a tune on it. That's Jen and Nathan in the background.



Oh man, this laundromat. It was the saddest laundromat I have ever seen. There were two "working" dryers in this row. One actually just blew air and didn't tumble, so I suppose there was really only one. This is P.J. being disgruntled. This place had rotting floors and kicked out walls and one odd little room just filled with discarded clothes, free for the taking. It was open 24 hours and we figured that was only because there wasn't really a door to lock the place up. This was in the rodeo fairgrounds place in Texas.



Carrie and I did runner support coming out of Oklahoma. The route was a little wacky and we would drive up ahead to make sure the runners hit the routes right so they wouldn't get lost. This was on Mother's Day and Dennis declared that only the men would be walking and running that day, as well as doing all the cooking. It was a sweet sentiment.



This was taken a couple of days ago, on our way to Shreveport. We were doing trash duty. Not much else to say about this. It's a picture of me to appease my family, even though you can't really see me. Sorry 'bout that.



My girls inside the truck. One of the more common things I see throughout my day. I just noticed this when I looked at the picture again...but take a look at Kathleen's left hand and you can just make out the little rubber ball of a horn that rides on the dashboard and that she honks out the window at walkers, cars following or in front of us...or just because she wants to make noise. What's funny about this picture to me is that she's got this kind of serious look on her face, so does Carrie...and then there's this silly horn. Love them.



That's it for now. Talk to you all soon.

wow...miss talking with you guys

Hello everyone - so sorry I haven't written in awhile. My computer is on the blink and I haven't been able to type or get online for well over a week. I am writing to you on Roman's computer right now. We are up in the Presidential Suite at a Casino in Marksville, Tennessee. A bunch of folks are up here getting ready to watch a pay per view movie; and I wanted to take this time to show you all a few pictures, but blogger isn't cooperating. Dammit!!
Anyway, I'm gonna work on getting the computer fixed when we get to New Orleans and will be in one place for 4 or 5 days. I may not be able to get it up and going, but it looks like one of my buddies here on the walk is getting her computer sent out to us, so I'll be able to use that.
Just to let you know, we crossed into Louisiana yesterday and will be heading down the state pretty quickly. At this point we have just about 7 weeks left. I go back and forth between wanting it to just be over and realizing how much I've come to love many of these people and will dearly miss them when we all part ways in D.C.
Anyway .. they are having a pillow fight. Things are getting nutty. Gonna run.
Lots of love and I hope to talk with y'all soon.

'

Hello All

Hey guys -- still in Tulsa -- the walk is heading out of here about 80 miles today..I'm in town with Kathleen and Jutta, waiting to put her on a bus which will eventually take her home to Germany. Sad, sad, sad. We'll head home after that.

Wanted to post a quick note though to let you know that I had to exchange my cell phone after mine got all weirdly electrocuted during the lightening storm a few days ago. So...lost pretty much all of my phone numbers. So..if you would like to email me at nikkijardin@yahoo and give me your digits...if you want me to have them that it...that would be great. Or...you can call me, and my phone should capture it then.

Anyway..pretty brain dead today..no sleep..so can't get it together to do much of a blog anyhoo. And all I have for new photos is a picture of downtown Tulsa.

Much love;

nik

oh...okay, Kathleen and Jutta tolerated my taking their photo...this is them at this coffeeshop
putting together a puzzle.

Still up..might as well post some pictures

It's still close to midnight...but I wanted to put up some recent pictures for y'all since you've been so patient in waiting for new posts. Don't even know what I have in the hopper..let's see shall we?

Mmmm...this is a pic of a field in Canton, OK. I know I've said this before..but Oklahoma is really just a pretty, pretty state.



Here's a random shot I took from inside the truck. If you are sitting in the middle seat..this is pretty much what you are going to see. You gotta just take people's word that there is anything at all out the window.



This little abandoned cherub was sitting behind the casino in Canton..and no..we weren't gambling.




This just cracked us up. What the $(%)? I don't know how anybody finds there way anywhere in Oklahoma..this is actually seems to be a fairly common site.



This one is for you Theresa...Kathleen said you wanted to see what P.J. looked like. Here he is with Joe Spado and his wife Barb...Carrie is peeking her head up there. It's not a great picture, I'll try to get a better one soon. We did get good news in that Spadoman is joining the walk again in two weeks! Yes!



Kathleen took this one with my phone. It's from the sunrise walk last week.



This was taken the same morning. It was the first time in ages the three of us were walking together. That's Carrie and Kathleen (obviously)..it just warmed my heart to have them ahead of me..I took a break from drumming just to walk along with them for awhile. It was sweet.



Okay, that's it. It's now almost 12:30 -- hey, the boots are off. Gotta go to sleep.

There's no place like Tulsa

We arrived at our campsite late this afternoon. We had trash duty today, Carrie, Kathleen and I along with a few other folks. We do it every ten days or so...a different group goes out and follows behind the walkers, cleaning up roadside trash.

Oddly enough, every time our trash duty comes up we've been on a rest day, so we've never really had to do it. And today, we had to shuttle Larry up to Tulsa...about 80 or so miles away from our previous camp..so we ended up doing trash duty away from the walkers at tonight's camp.

It had been raining hard all day...wasn't too sad to miss walking the 18 miles, but sometimes those blowout weather days have sort of a fun, sick challenge to them. Anyway, when we headed back to camp to get ready to set up our tents, Kathleen and I decided that tonight would be a motel night. Everything in her truck, clotheswise, had gotten soaking wet and I needed internet access to work on my street roots article. As we were asking P.J. and Carrie if they wanted to rent a room next to us, the rain started dumping. Serious torrential downpour.

Carrie came over to the truck and said, "I'm not going to go...they just announced tornado warnings for Tulsa...you shouldn't go either, I just have this feeling it wouldn't be safe, I just...I'm gonna stay here with P.J., you should stay too." She was dead serious and Carrie has an uncanny intuition about certain things. P.J. had decided earlier that he wouldn't come to the motel, but that Carrie should join us.

I had just been inside while she was having that conversation with Kathleen and saw everyone glued to the t.v. -- all they were showing was a weather map of Tulsa and these two big yellow swirling dot sort of things hovering above two different sections of the city. The announcer was saying something about two tornadoes have touched down, one of the locals said they were about twenty minutes south of our camp area.

Okay.

I went back out to the truck. The rain wasn't even rain anymore, it was like walking through a waterfall, the sky was black, lightening was spiking all over the place and thunder was literally shaking the ground. It was wild.

"I think we should listen to Carrie," Kathleen said, "when she has these senses...and..I don't want to drive in this."

I looked at the windshield and there was nothing to see but gray..nothing to hear but the sound of water on the steel roof of the cab.

"Um...yeah," I said, "good call."

And then we just started to laugh. We turned on the radio and every voice on the dial was talking about winds at x number miles per hour, possible hail storms, guys reporting from different hot spots in the city. We fleetingly wondered if Carrie didn't want to leave P.J. for the motel because she thought he was in danger at camp and she wanted to be with him...or if she meant we would be in danger if we drove off...and possibly get sucked up by the twisters. It didn't matter, we weren't going anywhere and just decided to stay with the family and stick it out together. Kathleen called her mom to let her know she was okay (my phone fried out two days ago during a thunder and lightening ballyhoo in Somewhere, OK - I'll be getting that fixed tomorrow).

And then..the reports from the radio started talking about the storm dissipating. And then the tornado warnings stopped. The rain let up. The lightening calmed down. Within a span of 30 minutes, it was over and there was Carrie's face at the truck window.

"They called off the tornado warnings. I want to go now."

And she walked off; Kathleen and I looked at each other. We were resigned to staying and bunking down at the camp, but this sort of changed things. I suppose if Carrie was okay with it....

Next thing, she's walking over with her backpack..we made room on the seat for her..Kathleen asked me to drive us and we were off.

Okay, the rain hadn't stopped completely and the windows were pretty foggy..but we made it down the road a piece to this Super 8 and here we are. Carrie started washing clothes, Kathleen took a bath, I made a run for Mexican food.

It's now close to midnight. The girls are sacked out on one of the beds...looking pretty clumpy and sweet really...Kathleen's still got her boots on..don't know how she sleeps like that.

I won't be doing much street roots writing tonight. Too tired. I'll try to write in the morning while Kathleen does laundry and Carrie goes to pick up her husband. We have a lot of errands to run on tomorrow's rest day. Gotta go to A.T.T., find Whole Foods, find a place that sells camp fuel, hit the post office, etc. etc.

But we are safe and sound and will sleep well tonight. Those guys are off to a good start and I won't be too far behind them.

Canton, OK -- Land of Enchantmnent

I'll start off by saying that I am well aware that there are much worse places to spend six days than in Canton, Oklahoma. Much worse. It's actually lovely here, as far as the scenery goes. The people have been mostly pleasant, aside from the blatant stares and double and triple takes we have gotten in this small town from a few folks. And there is the lake, which I think has saved me from certain emotional disintegration.
We have camped out here a couple of nights, just to get away from the dynamic that exists at camp whenever we are stuck in one place for too long. Plus, our campground is smack in the center of town (which is really only one block long), so we are constantly being driven by...just for folks to have a look.
Our tents are corraled by this 3 foot chain link fence, so there is a petting zoo quality to our little spectacle. It's unnerving...I'm much happier down here, watching ospreys and being delighted by seeing cardinals flitting about.
This will be our last night in Canton. I'm sorry I haven't posted more...I've had wireless access...honestly, there has been nothing to write about.
Here are the highlights from my week here in Canton:
Canton Lake – we have gotten to swim here on a couple of occasions; we were also privy to a glorious sunset one night (here's Jen and Kathleen...one of me to appease my Dad)).

Here's Kathleen and Tucker, love this picture.



And here's a pic of this bugger of a squirrel = least scared-of-humans squirrel ever. I've never heard Kathleen raise her voice before this little $*%&$ got into the pecans. “I'm going to eat you!” then there was the sort of mumbling tirade; “I am, I'm going to build a fire and make a spit....”

The Mexican food place where you can get a combo dinner (which includes rice, beans and macaroni and cheese ???) for 5-6 bucks. Minus of this place is the open mouth stares we get)
* Duckwalds General Store – wireless access right there in front of it. Minus being the open mouthed stares and occasional lewd comment from a passing teenager.
* Tiger Diner. Okay -- $1.00 hot dogs and a breakfast sandwich that has egg, cheese and sausage with a made to order biscuit for $2.50 – soooo good.

So okay, it hasn't been Barcelona...but you now..what are you gonna do. We are off tomorrow to Hennessey...heading towards Oklahoma City. Oh, and in other news, the L.A. benefit concert I was going to next week has been postponed until June7th. So...there' that.

Oh – probably the best thing about this week has got to be the visit we got from Joe Spado!! And we got to meet hi wife Barb! We met at the Tiger Diner and caught him up on all the gossip of camp – we get to have him in town for until Monday and that is a beautiful thing.

See y'all later – we are nearing the halfway point here – 10 weeks left on this crazy boat ride.