Lucky did not eat his food last night. And then he did not eat this morning. I am having flashbacks to early May when he stopped eating for 3 days and we almost put him down. Even so, he was not going to let me leave without him on a day where I needed to start super early to beat the heat and go longer. Our journey today from the junction of interstate 57 east of Anna IL to Cape Girardeau was through major farming areas and main roads.

The day went smoothly for the first 8 miles into Anna IL and then I made a rookie mistake - usually I have navigation no matter what but today for some reason I thought it would be easy staying on 146 West for 30 miles. Beautiful winding country roads and at some point I decided to check on where I am only to realize I was 3.5 miles in the wrong direction - due north. I called Chris to see if he could pick me up and bring me back to the route but his phone didn’t have signal. So after getting pissed at myself I turned around and started heading back.

I met up with Chris back on the route and handed off Lucky after 15 miles and before the heat of the day with the knowledge that we would to get to our goal destination of Port Girardeau in Missouri as it would be 36 miles total and I don’t want to do more than 31 a day this week as I’m trying to be conservative about ramping up.

Chris found a spot 5 miles short of Missouri and we called it a day around 3pm. While I”m annoyed at falling behind, I’m optimistic about the future as I’m feeling stronger by the day and if i can stay disciplined, I will make up the mileage.

I called Dr. Hovis at Mizzou about Lucky missing meals and she told me it could be the chemo, the low neutrophil count or the stress of being in hospital all day. I am living in fear of the day that inevitably will come - but when I met Chris around 1pm for fuel, Lucky had just broken his fast and for now, we are back to “normal”.

I did not meet one person today as I walked and ran on a busy road the entire way. I went through one town of interest named Anna, IL. The history is really interesting:

Union County was created on January 2, 1818, by an act of the Territory of Illinois. Two months later, on March 2, 1818, the County Commissioners' Court established Jonesboro on land donated by John and Juliet Grammar to serve as county seat. In the 1850's it was decided that the Illinois Central would run through this area. To insure that the railroad would go through the town, Jonesboro was to have a survey made for the railroad. It is said that when the town failed to meet this request, Winstead Davie of Jonesboro submitted a survey routing the railroad through his property east of Jonesboro. A town was established by the railroad and Davie named it Anna in honor of his wife on March 3, 1854. Jonesboro was the site of the third of the seven Lincoln-Douglas Debates on September 15, 1858. Lincoln received a quiet welcome upon his arrival and spent the night before the debate as a guest of D.L. Phillips of Anna. The otherwise uneventful evening was enlivened by the appearance of Donati's Comet. Douglas's arrival was better received than Lincoln's, however, the debate was attended by less than 1500 unenthusiastic people -- the smallest crowd of the series -- and neither man gained ground. Anna served as one of the nine rendezvous points in Illinois for troops during the Civil War and eight regiments were assembled here. In 1869 the legislature determined to locate the Southern Illinois Hospital for the Insane at Anna. It is now Anna State Hospital.

After a solid 31 miles on a hot and humid day, we are boondocking in a small picnic area with expansive views of fields of soybeans and mountains in the distant. Tomorrow we enter Missouri and begin a new chapter.

Thank you for your continued support.

Cheers,

David.