WALK STEVE WALK - 365 miles - the deed is done!

I started the last day of my walk in Washington, about six miles from my final destination. My wife’s sister, Michelle, Elise and Kara followed along with me. We walked along the right side of the road with the three girls switching off as drivers following behind in the car while the others walked ahead with donation buckets.

We walked through Washington and had started up the hill toward the factory outlet stores near St. George Blvd, with Michelle driving and Elise and Kara walking with me, when Elise looked over her shoulder and announced, “We have a police car behind us.”

 I didn’t turn around. “Are the lights flashing?” I asked.

 “Not yet,” she replied. She kept looking over her shoulder. “OK, now the lights are flashing, the car has stopped and I can’t see mom.  Are you going to stop?”

“Only if they tell me to”, I replied.

“What are you going to do if they make us stop?”

I thought about this for a moment and answered, “They can’t keep us from walking, but we may have to get the car out of the road and walk on the sidewalk.”

We kept walking and soon Michelle was following behind us again, the police car still following along.  Kara came up beside us and let us know the police officer was calling in to find out if he should stop us. While all this was happening cars were going around us, and people were honking and cheering and sometimes holding out money for us. Before long, the police car disappeared and we were on our own again.

As we came down the hill toward the intersection I saw a man squatting in the middle of the sidewalk ahead of me with a large camera in his hands. He was a reporter, freelancing for KSL. Anne Foster, who had covered the launch in Liberty Park, had contacted him from Salt Lake and had asked him to cover the story. He followed us taking pictures.

At one point he got in our car and started taking pictures standing up through the sun-roof.  He asked me, “How do you feel?”

“I feel great”, I said. “But a bit like one of the animals on a safari tour.”

We had a group that was planning to meet us at the Ramada Inn. My brother Rick and his family had come down from Salt Lake, my sister Sue and her family had joined them at the hotel. We were also joined by some girls from a local dance group we had met in a sporting goods store the night before. Carl and Jeannie Timm also came down from Spring City.

We all paraded down St. George Blvd, gathering donations and waving to passing cars. A passing cyclist wearing Canadian gear stopped long enough to pass Kara a crisp $100 dollar bill. There were balloons tied to water bottles all along the path running from Main Street up to 300 North and over to the Bank on Tabernacle Street. We gathered the balloons in as we walked, sometimes drinking the water and other times tossing the bottles into the car through an open window.

By the time we got to the bank, there was a finish line strung through a balloon arch. A crowd had gathered and they cheered as we approached the finish line.

There was a bunch of people at the finish. Old friends, and new friends. People who had come from out of state and people we had met on our journey down. Several family members had come from Salt Lake just for this event.

John Whittaker was there with his new bride Cathy. He was one of the people who had done so much to get this started and make it happen.  It was so great to see them there.  They had come down this morning and had to turn around and go right back home. It was humbling. But the biggest stars were missing. Kevin and his family were nowhere to be seen. We sent a runner to the fountain at the school in case they had missed the location change, but no one was there. We went ahead with the program without them.

I spoke to the group for a few minutes, thanked everyone for all of their help, sacrifice and support. I told the story about Kara being found “dead” at Zion and talked about what we had accomplished and what I hoped people may be inspired to do. Then Shauna made a presentation for the bank and announced that the bank had donated $250. She gave a challenge to all other Utah banks to match or exceed their donation.

After Shauna’s presentation, we started a short interview with the media when I heard Kara call out, “Steve, wait! Kevin is here!” Kevin, his mom, his brother and sister and his grandparents had finally arrived. It was so great to see them. Kevin was all smiles but a bit camera shy. It is funny how much more talkative he can be when he doesn’t have a microphone in his face.

Kevin’s mom, Marissa, had to return to work that afternoon, so we wrapped things up as soon as we could and headed straight to The Brick Oven to celebrate. Kara attached all of the balloons to the car for the drive to the restaurant. It was a pretty amazing display.

At the restaurant, we were trying to figure out what to do with the balloons. Rick suggested we let Kevin launch them, like he had when we started. He kept a few, but bunch he launched from the Brick oven was the biggest bunch of balloons I have ever seen take off at once.

So now the walk is over, but the mission remains. We are still striving to raise funds to help kids who need prosthetics. We have in hand nearly enough to buy the wheelchair equipped vehicle we had promised to Kevin. When the pledges come in, we will have more funds to send to Limbs for Life to help other kids.

Kevin will need more than transportation to be able to do all he is capable of doing. He is a smart kid, but smart kids without limbs will have a challenge getting things from their head and into practice. Stephen Hawking has done incredible things, and while he has limbs, they are no help to him. Like Kevin, he has had to learn to do without. Technology has brought some amazing tools into our lives. Like Stephen Hawking, Kevin can learn to speak to a computer which can help him learn and capture his thoughts as he does. Loral Langemeier has “written” five best selling books, mostly by speaking into a microphone. So we are looking at helping Kevin get some of these tools. It is a small thing that should make a big difference.