Day 14 (Not with a bang)

Apologies to T.S. Eliot, but

This is the way the tour ends
This is the way the tour ends
This is the way the tour ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Leonard and I have done our last event for the 2012 tour.  It seems we have nothing scheduled until Sunday, in Middleton, ID.  By the time it starts, he'll already be in the air heading home and I'll be waiting for my flight home to board.  

I. Hate. This. Part.

We've met so many amazing people on tour.  People that we'll never forget.  Guys we worked with, survivors we met, family members, townspeople and various supporters of what we're trying to accomplish.  

I personally laughed myself to tears several times.  Thanks John and Dave and Mike.  

And I also fought the tears.  The tears I didn't want to shed from the emotion of seeing a woman, so grateful for the opportunity to sign one of our pink fire trucks, she couldn't express herself in any other way.  Some of them, long time survivors, that had never had the chance to do something like this before. 

How do you respond to a woman, with tears streaming down her cheeks, that says "Thank you so much for this".

All you can do is say "It was my honor" and hope to stay strong enough to be supportive for her.  

I said it before and I'll say it again; I'm so grateful for the women in my life, ALL of them (yes, even the dragon lady) I truly am proud to do some little thing like this to honor them.  And not just women in my family.  I have so many female friends that are so important to me, that I've drawn so much from over the years.  I'll never be able to repay you all.  But I hope this helps draw the account down a little.

We left Butte (town slogan "Moose-free for 6 days) a little after noon and headed south on I-15 for Idaho Falls.  Crossing the Continental Divide (not just a terrible John Belushi movie where he plays a Royko knockoff) and that was a cool experience.  The mountains weren't as bad to drive up as the trip in to Butte (the Pink Heals Tour bus isn't made for climbing hills) but it was still a long trip down.  We made a pit stop in Spencer (population 19), Idaho (the pink opal capitol of the world) (no, really, it is) and I swear the folks in the little store we walked in to hadn't had a visitor in weeks.  Let alone a customer. 

We got in to Idaho Falls around 5:00 and had 14 boxes of tshirts and a new tour driver waiting for us, welcome to the tour Mike O'brien (or O'brian, I'm not sure which) so we spent an hour or so organizing the bus for future events.  Two drivers are coming in on Sunday, my guy, Denver from Austin, TX is one of them but I don't know the other one.  I hope to meet up with Denver, at least briefly, at the airport, but...

It's too bad we couldn't get any interest here, the little bit I've seen is beautiful

Dave makes his initial attempts at contact with local authorities six months in advance, it's up to them if they want to respond or not.  In this case, despite monthly attempts at follow up, no-one was interested in helping the women of the community.  

It happens.

Instead of going all political on you here, I think instead I'll put up another episode of "meet your Pink Heals Tour driver"!!!  Tonight, meet Grant from Illinois!

Here Dave helpfully points out how Grant gets fully involved in explaining the program to a visitor

Grant, as you may have figured out from the pictures, is a big guy.  He's got an equally big voice.  He's well versed on many topics and has been a team player every step of the way.  He's kind of like our right fielder.  

Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I'll be back for at least one more episode of the tour.

G'nite all.

Pink Heals!

Peace.