Friday, August 31, 2012

Day 7 (half way there for me and for the tour)

I came on tour a week ago tomorrow.  I have been here for seven days and I have seven left.  Dave is already calling me a quitter and I'm already wondering if I can fit another few days out on the road the first week of October...

We all had breakfast this morning at our hotel, with Willette and her family.  What great people they are.  The people we meet on tour are truly one of the best parts of this job.  We left Sioux Falls this morning and drove north to Watertown, a little more than an hour and a half away. 

No trucks ran out of fuel!!!

I've never been to South Dakota (state motto "we have more flies per capita than anywhere else") before, so I didn't really know what to expect as far as scenery.  But it was kind of nice.  Very rural, but heading up I-29 was nice.


We got in to Watertown and were met at our hotel by Tori, a 7 year survivior and a pretty sweet, very dynamic woman who is absolutely passionate about taking care of the women in her community. 

She worked us like dogs.

And that is a very good thing.

When we're on the road like this, we all want to be busy.  We all want to do home visits, hospital visits, work events or whatever.  We belong to the communities and people that bring us in. 

Let me take a few minutes to explain just how amazing the people up here are with an example...

As I said, I've been on the road now for seven days.  Seven very busy days.  I haven't had time to do laundry yet.  Now, mind you, I didn't have to go commando just yet (TMI for some, but hey, I want you people to understand what we do) but I was within days of that.  I asked the lady if they had laundry facilities and she said they did.  One of the other drivers, actually ALL of the other drivers, had laundry needs of varying degrees too.  The hotel has one washer and one dryer.  We have to be out and on the road in 30 minutes. 

Do you smell what I'm stepping in here?

I came outside and asked Tori and the FD's Battalion Chief if there was a laundromat close by and the Chief said there was one on the other side of town.  He then said to bag up our laundry and he'd take it to the firehouse and make sure it got done.

We did, he did and it did.

How amazing is that?  Cause, I'm not gonna lie, I wouldn't have done that.  I might have offered up the Wolf's services to do their laundry, but there's no way I would've done that.

Like I said though, we worked for it.  We did two parades, a hospital visit, two home visits and then this afternoon we set up near the Redlin Art Center and some local dignitaries spoke, including Tori


And Dave


And we sold t-shirts (that's how we keep the trucks on the road) and talked to people about how important it is to keep the money in the community where it's raised and all the other thing we do.  And as I walked around the trucks at one of the events, with people that wanted to sign, I saw this for the first time.  I think it's my favorite so far...


We leave in the morning for Aberdeen for twelve hours worth of events.  I'm not sure what exactly, but it'll be tough for them to beat what we've seen in Baltic and Watertown.

Pink Heals!

Peace

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