End of the road...and looking ahead.

I have been procrastinating horribly in getting this entry written. It has now been about three weeks since the end of our trip, and I suppose I've needed a break from it, mentally as well as physically. However, a recent email from Ethan at GiveForward has provided me with a needed kick in the butt. His recent coverage of the Chuck 300 on the Play City blog includes an interview with me which I provided shortly after coming home from the Hoe Down. I have copied some relevant excerpts below which serve to recap some of the highlights from our trip.

Q: What were some of the cool things you saw/people you met along the way?

We met so many people who were friendly and helpful, whether it was just people giving us directions or offering us something to drink. We stopped at a park in this small town in Pennsylvania and the park manager came by to see what we were up to. By the time we were done talking, he was offering to call over to some recreation center, or maybe it was a school, to get them to let us come in and take showers. We didn't take him up on it because we had miles to go, but the offer was impressive anyway. And at our last campground, the owners of the camp not only donated our $50 camping fee to the fundraiser, they gave us free firewood. Extremely nice folks.

As for sights, our walk started out by going through Arlington National Cemetery, then on through Georgetown which was very picturesque. There was a lot of beautiful countryside that we walked and rode our bikes through along the whole route. The scenic overlook on Pike's Peak outside of Williamsport was great. Not that it was all postcard material, we did some travelling along various highways that were not so scenic. And there were also times when we were, honestly, just too hot and exhausted to appreciate the scenery.

Q: 300 miles is quite a long way to hike in a week. Was there ever a point during the journey where you thought "what the heck am I doing?" and wanted to quit?

Well first, we didn't walk the whole thing. Pretty early on in our planning for this trip, we abandoned the idea that we would be able to make 300 miles in the time we had if we did it all on foot. So we decided we would bike parts of it. That's why, even though I was originally calling it the "Walk For Chuck," we soon started just calling it the "Chuck 300." I didn't know until we really got going on the trip itself just how much would be biking versus walking. Ultimately, we ended up walking only 50 miles and biking 250. However, lest anybody think that we were just making it easy on ourselves, I can assure you that we still suffered plenty!

There were two guys who had signed on from the beginning to bike the whole way, Todd and Greg. And those guys were serious bikers, so they were used to high mileage rides. But for Jenn and Zoe and I, we'd been focusing most of our training on walking. And most of the bike training that we did was on fairly flat ground when temperatures were relatively cool. So to suddenly go from that to peddling through the hills of central Pennsylvania with temperatures in the 80s and 90s, it was a real shock to the system. On one day in particular, I think we were all suffering from mild heat exhaustion. I wasn't eating enough because I was nauseous from exertion, and that lack of fuel compounded the problem. At the same time, I felt like I couldn't drink enough fluids to quench my thirst.

At the other extreme, we had lots of rain in the evening and morning hours. Toward the end of our first day of riding in Maryland, we ran into four roads that were closed because of downed trees from a severe thunderstorm that just missed us. And while we could get around the trees on our bikes, our support van couldn't. So there were a lot of detours. The rain always managed to slow us down, either in setting camp up and cooking dinner or taking camp down and preparing breakfast, pretty much every day. As a result, we had a lot of late nights and a lot of late starts in the morning. That meant less time for walking and more time that had to be made up on our bikes.

So to get back to your question, there were many times when I wished I could quit. But short of suffering some serious injury, I knew there was no way I would quit. We had come too far to let thunderstorms, heat or exhaustion get in our way. And whenever things got really tough, we would just think about what Chuck has gone through. Even before he started his ongoing battle with cancer, his three weeks saving pigs in Iowa were much harder than our one week of walking and riding bikes.

Q: Any funny stories from the trip?

it's hard to say. We laughed a lot along the way but it's hard to tell how much of it was from something that was genuinely funny and how much was from us just being exhausted to the point where anything is funny. However, our film crew took over 20 hours of video footage that they are now beginning to edit together into a documentary. So I look forward to seeing that and laughing at it all from a different perspective.

The bottom line is, I'm just grateful that we all made it through the trip without any serious injuries. I'm grateful to have had the chance to spend so much time with a truly amazing group of people. And I'm grateful we could do something to help Chuck, a great friend and a hero to me. In the grand scheme of things, the money we raised will probably only make a small difference in the course of his treatment and his life from here on out, but I hope that seeing the sincere love and good intentions that motivated all those miles and all those contributions is something that will give him hope well beyond the money alone.

Q: Anything else you want to add?

Well, I always have to give major credit first and foremost to the whole Chuck 300 team. Everybody brought something to the table. My mom in particular, as our support van, was invaluable. She took charge of getting camp set up and taken down, getting groceries, preparing meals, bringing us refreshments when we were dying from the heat. She even did our laundry a few times. And she did it all was such a positive attitude, even though she hates camping. Also, Hugh and Terri Norwood who gave us a place to stay on our first night. Their hospitality was amazing. And Ken Helm at Sheshequin Campground who donated our camping fee to the cause and gave us free firewood; that was hands down the best camp ground we stayed in too.

That concludes the interview. If you'd like to see some of the photo highlights, check out these pictures from Mike.

Pictures from Greg. (Note, these are not organized in a "Chuck 300" set, but you can flip through the pages to find where the trip pictures are all uploaded in a series.)

And here are some from my camera.

In closing, I want to say again how grateful I am to all involved, from my team-mates to our donors to those who provided other material support. This adventure may have been germinated in my brain, but it took scores of people to make it a success and I never would have made it to mile one without my truly inspiring co-adventurers. Thank you all so very much.

Also, I want to give a special thanks here to Mike and Bryce. They had the "easy" job of filming this journey, and those of us who were walking and biking may have envied the comfort of their air conditioned car. But while the rest of us will now be resting easy as summer fades into fond memories, these guys will be spending countless hours in the editing room, logging gigabytes of video files and putting it all together into what I'm sure will be an outstanding piece of film work. We are all eagerly awaiting the premier, and I wish them patience and fortitude as they get down to their labors.

Finally, I encourage everyone to continue following Chuck and Jen's journey on the Chuck Pappas Story blog. Most recently, they made the tough decision to take Chuck out of a clinical trial for the experimental drug that was supposed to be inhibiting the growth of blood vessels in the tumor. While it was not easy to give up on the prospect of a potentially valuable treatment, the side effects from that drug were just too severe. Now that he has stopped taking it, he is feeling more like his old self. And I have no doubt that other, better treatments will be coming down the pike. Please continue to offer your love, your optimism and whatever support you can provide as the continue on their path.

-Casey