A Sad Loss...

Well he has served me well, really well to be honest, but it is time to say thank you and goodbye to an old friend. The old wagon - cart (or Carts as he became known) has finally copped one too many bumps and knocks and has climbed too many surfaces he was not built for and his run has come to an end due to the welding of the handle and front wheels splitting and coming away from the rest of the cart. I managed to get a little bit of metal to hhok onto the cart and drag it along the rest of the way today, but with this falling apart every 5kms or so it is time to go our seperate ways. Thanks Carts for ya help, reckon you saved my little legs a heap of pain and problems for the future!

The rain I was expecting for today did not come until around 3 this afternoon, so I managed to get a good start to the day. When the rains hit though, they hit pretty hard and have still not stopped and it is now almost 8pm. I was only about 5kms out of a little town ofBlodgett. I stopped at a local church and went to a house close by to ask if they knew the pastor. The family there greeted me warmly and informed me they knew him well and attended the church and that I could go ahead and put my tent under the shed roof as the rain was still pumbelling down. Thankful for this I went and set up camp, no more than 10 mins later the pastor tunred up to say hi and the lovely lady of the house came out with a bowl of hot soup and a large glass of iced tea for my dinner. Once again I stumble upon great people, and suprise suprise, at a church, a very obvious pattern there so far...

So how am I going to deal with the cart problem? A few days ago when I got caught in the rain without my raincoat, I had to hitch a ride to get out of there. I was picked up by a good young fella by the name of Josh who lives in Memphis. He recently got in touch to let me know he was back in St louis but will be heading back to Memphis on Sunday and if I needed anything. How amazing and always perfect is God's timing? So I will be being picked up by Josh tomorrow night around 6pm after walking through the day and heading to Memphis with him, where I will leave a bag of my clothes and things at his house. Then I will hitch back North to where Josh picks me up from with nothing but a change of clolthes and my camping gear. The walk to Memphis from here should take me maybe a week or more to do which will leave me smelly and ready for a wash, but is a good way for me to cover a lot of ground in good time. Thanks for the help Josh, is appreciated.

To rub salt into the wounds of losing my buddy Carts, I might have lost my bloody camera! Hopefully I left it at Matts up in Festus. I have some great photos of the last few weeks on it I have not yet saved to my computer so I will be a little crushed if I have lost that. lets hope it turns up, things like this with me usually turn out ok, I am just hopeless like that...

With a stomach full of good food and a nice, dry place to rest my head and sore body tonight I am off to bed. Tomorrow will be a late start to walk as I can go to church tomorrow as it is only 5 steps out of my tent to attend hey, then I will make my way towards highway 55 where Josh will be finding me. Hopefully I can still knock out 20 - 25kms tomorrow before Josh finds me.

R.I.P CARTS.......