March For Babies completed

Well, they told us at school that it was 2 miles out, two miles back--total of 4 miles. I originally thought, "Well, it's a bit further than we're used to walking, but it's just one day." We did the whole thing without a lot of difficulty, but we were tired, and by the time we got back to the starting line, I was concerned that maybe I had gotten Imelda into something she shouldn't have been doing. But we thought we were doing pretty well. We stopped and let the kids play at one spot, and even though it seemed that the vast majority of people turned around before the 1/2 way point, we figured we'd do the full four. We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't hear one complaint from any of the three kids, the whole time. They were real troopers!

Well, I was surprised that although we seemed to be pretty much in the middle of the pack the whole way, as we approached the turnaround point, we looked back and there was no one left behind us (not quite true--as it turned out there were still a few others back there that also did the whole thing), and even the people who were in front of us seemed to disappear.

We got back to the starting point, and realized why so many people turned around. They had free hot dogs (pretty good ones, really--not the pink "mystery meat" looking ones), apples, pop, cotton candy, bouncing toys for the kids, music, and apparently there were drawings as well, because Imelda said that she saw people leaving with things like new baby items, etc. Then I ran into a an old coworker of mine from Hanford who has worked giving out water to walkers every year for the last 17 years, and he corrected me when I said it seemed like a long 4 miles. It was actually 6.2 miles. We'll know better for next time!

Thank you to those who donated to the cause! Here are a very few pictures we took along the way. It was kind of hard to walk, push a stroller and take pictures at the same time.

March for Babies 2008