Family and friends, thank you for propelling me beyond my fundraising minimum. I’m at $2,505 and climbing. Thank you: Stef, Shayla, Auntie Jenny, Jennetta, B, Kay, Cherryne, Gina, Paulette, Jae, Cheri, Dean, George, Chris, Nikki, Marina, Frankie, Alberta, Dorothy, Dorlisa, Mummy, Ivan, Brenna, Elaine, Erica, Grace-Anne, Devon, Sarah, Sandra, Kate, Ras, Puff, Cheryl, Harry, Dimitri, Theo, Anthony, Karen, Wendy, Nancy, George. Beyond your financial support, your words of encouragement are appreciated. They kept me focused as I trained in the last two months and they will keep me going in the upcoming three days.

I haven’t blogged for about two weeks, though I have a few posts in progress. My next post was supposed to be about Puerto Rico. That one was about halfway done when Hurricane Dorian started giving us notice of its intent and since Puerto Rico was in the path, I kinda lost my enthusiam for the content, so I’ll get back to that in a few weeks.

Then Dorian set its sights on The Bahamas, the place where I spent two of the best years of my young adult life, met some of my best friends, earned my Bachelor’s degree, and helped me to be the person that I am today. As I was hearing the reports about Dorian, thinking about my friends there and their loved ones, I started to formulate a reflective post about my experiences in The Bahamas, but I’m not quite ready to write that yet. So again, that’s another post for the future.

Now it’s Wednesday evening and I’m sitting in the airport (again) waiting for my flight to Boston. I missed the flight (again) that I was originally booked on because I was working before I left for the airport and arrived at my shuttle station about 3 minutes after the shuttle left. But I have a lot of time to get to Boston before my walk starts on Friday, so I’m not worried. Plus the flight I’m standing by for is a direct one, rather than the connecting I had booked, and I arrive a few minutes earlier. So yay! With the change in flights I had to change terminals and saw the sign pictured below in the new terminal as I left the security check point to head to the gate.

If you know me, or have read my other posts, you’ll understand why I see this sign as a good omen. I’m right where I am supposed to be right now and the next few days will be awesome.

I plan to blog daily during the 3 day walk. Of course what I post and when I post depend on my level of enthusiasm, pain, interesting sights, fatigue, etc., but something will be posted.

As many of you know, I’ve been raising funds since the end of May and doing more focused walk training since late June. I’ve already seen the benefits of the former, the next fews day will tell how well I’ve done the latter. Between my birthday (summer solstice and longest day of the year) to labour day, I cycled around 245 miles indoors and walked around 158 miles outdoors. This all happened at various hours between 7:30 am and 10 pm and usually 4-5 days a week. Many days I also walked before and/or after cycling.

Honestly, I’m a bit anxious, because while I’ve trained and prepared, stuff happens. Plus training can only do so much, 60 miles in 3 days will be hard, no two ways about it. But I’m committeed (or I should be committed) so I’ll get it done and enjoy it.

I’m also really excited because I’ll be walking in Boston! The place that’s home for so many of my family and that I think of as home as well. Yet, and understandingly so, we often treat home differently to the places we visit for business or pleasure.

When I’m in Boston, I tend to spend a lot of time at home hanging out with family, so I haven’t explored Boston in the same way that I’ve explored other places. These three days will let me see parts of Boston that I’ve never seen and walk in many places where I’ve never walked. The routes will also take me to locations that are familiar, but that I’ve only seen through the window of a car or bus.

I’m looking forward to experiencing Boston by foot.