Tuesday, August 2nd. 2016

Tuesday, August 2^nd. 2016

Cherry Hills, Nebraska

What the Blazes!

Maggie asked me if I had ever been in Omaha or Nebraska before, now that I’ve officially walked into the city.

“When we were growing up, on Sunday we would watch Mutual of Omaha’s TV show ‘Wild Kingdom,’ about African wildlife.  That is my reference to Nebraska,” I said to Maggie, one of the journalists with the Omaha World newspaper, the major paper in the state.  She was interviewing me.  We both had a good laugh.  I guess she has friends in the yoga industry because she also knew that OM is a sacred Sanskrit word, and I said, “If you were to further analyze, Maha mean--” to which she jumped in with “Great!”

Maggie O’Brien went on to write a beautiful article about our walking mission.

Now, what about our walking mission through Omaha and region?  Mandala, my support person, and I had decided that walking during the course of the day was too much.  I started trekking through a rain storm to begin with.  Then the weather turned into a densely humid, sun-blazing dynamic.  Unbearable!  Rainstorm! Sun storm! Brain storm!

“Let’s try night-walking,” I suggested.  “There’s this lengthy bike-trail called Keystone Trail.  It’ll be safe and we can walk it in the cool night.”

Mandala was game and so we set out on the adventure.  The sun sank at 9 p.m.  I hit the trail.  Mandala was there for me, pumping me with juices and water at intersections.  Though temperatures didn’t go below the 80’s for some time, and muggy weather persisted, we pushed a six and a half-hour, non-stop trek and completed it at 3:30 a.m.

Jaya!

“Jaya” means awesome, in Sanskrit.

May the Source be with you!

19 miles