We had a great time in Richmond, IN on Thursday evening at the Glen Miller Park.  The folks from Reid Hospital, Centerstone, NAMI, Indiana State Hospital and Meridian Services came out to host our Rally.   Mayor Sally Hutton was on hand and gave us a proclamation!

A wonderful lady, Betty Mark, came by our hotel the day before and took us out to dinner and gave us a tour of Richmond.  Betty is a strong advocate for our cause and we are lucky to have met her.

Thanks Richmond!

Steve

Putting on the Walk To Washington is pretty complicated and we have had a bunch of folks help us over the last year.  I will be writing about them as we get closer to Washington, D.C.

Today we crossed into Ohio and we had a great Rally in Richmond, Indiana last night and I will be blogging about it with photos tomorrow.  The Mental Health community is strong in Richmond and so many caring folks are working to make others lives better.  We were lucky to meet a bunch of them.

Dave, Ryan and I are very tired today and we just had our “end of day” meeting and I am going to bed.

As always, thanks to all those that have supported us.

Steve

Dave and I stopped for a donut in New Richmond, IN and while having coffee and our donut (Ryan was walking) we found out that New Richmond was the town where the movie,  Hoosiers. was filmed.   The locals said we could go tour the gym and even shoot some baskets.

Please take a few moments to view the WTW version of Hoosiers that was filmed on location at the same gym as the original version   CLICK HERE to start the movie.

Want to thank the folks from DBSA Indianapolis for hosting the Rally there today at Noon at Monument Circle.  We had some great speakers and walked about 12 miles.  We are in Greenfield, IN and will be moving to Richmond, IN for the next couple of days.  The Richmond Rally is on Thursday.

Steve

DBSA of Indianapolis hosted a wonderful picnic for us yesterday. We met loads of wonderful and caring people involved with mental health support and I would like to thank them on behalf of all The Walk To Washington team members.

We were also able to get some great video  and short interviews with mental health consumers which we hope to post on Facebook tonight.

Looking forward to tommorow’s Rally at the beautiful Monument Circle in downtown Indy from noon to 1:00. Hope you can make it.

Last night we had a rally here in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was hosted by the Hamilton Center, a group which provides help for those in need of mental health treatment.

Our walkers were not only given a mile long police escort into the park but the mayor of Terre Haute himself read a proclamation in support of what The Walk To Washington is doing. There were a few speakers including a brave women who told the story of her own personal battle with bipolar disorder. A very talented band played a few songs in between speakers which really made the rally a lot of fun.

I hope you enjoy some pictures of the Terre Haute Rally.

The question we are most often asked on the road or at the rallies typically involve the particulars of our walking and the route we are taking.

So, I’ve figured that a blog detailing what day to day life is like on The Walk To Washington would prove to be informative and hopefully entertaining.

On a typical day the four of us meet in the lobby of our Hotel around 5:30 a.m. We leave early for several reasons; but mainly for weather. The last few weeks here in the Midwest have been particularly brutal with heat indexes in the hundreds. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to walk long distances under such conditions. Secondly, by walking early we are all able to begin working on our other responsibilities (blogging for example) during regular business hours. Loads of preparation is needed for hosting rallies and planning a 50 day/850 mile walk from St. Louis to D.C. For example, local authorities need to notified that we will be arriving in their respective cities, rally coordinators need to be contacted and frequently updated, and hundreds of phone calls and email need to made.

We always walk facing traffic and as far across the shoulder as possible. Incidentally, we are not allowed to walk on Interstate Highways so we have been traveling west to east on Highway 40. We always wear neon yellow reflective vests which may not be the most fashionable walking attire but it does provide an extra element of safety when walking before the sun comes up.

More often than not, one of the four “walkers” serves as a driver making sure the path ahead is safe and also helping out the walkers if anything is needed. We average about three MPH and walk everyday but Sundays.

That’s about it, I hope you enjoy this picture of Anthony Clutchey walking down highway 40 somewhere in Illinois.

This morning we walked from Pocahontas, Illinois into Vandalia where we are having a Rally tonight. It’s a lot of hard work putting rallies together like these so of course, we are so thankful to the folks at the Community Resource Center of Vandalia.

People might not be surprised to learn, but the last few days of walking have inevitably led to a number of blisters among the walkers. We are all now taking as many precautions as possible to avoid slowing down on our march to Washington.

And last but not least, the picture above is the beautiful countryside of south eastern Illinois.

Thanks for reading.

Today we leave Troy, Illinois on our way to Vandalia for another Rally on Wednesday night. We’ve walked around forty miles the last two days in addition to getting the word out about The Walk To Washington through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. We have been filming quite a bit and hope to upload some footage and interviews to the website and Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/walktowashington). We now have pictures up from the Rally in St. Louis and they are very impressive. Check out the page and don’t forget to sign the petition.

Thanks.