Day 11

This post is actually from October 28th.

   I first have to give a big Thanks to JR. Without his help, I would not have been able to finish these last days of blogs to share with all of you.

     This morning we started out with Big Breakfast Friday. In fire station speak, that means lots of bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy. The PCFD fed us well, it reminded me of being in my home station. After breakfast we split up and Dave, Jeff, Tony, and myself went to Fire Marshall Dave's shop and installed the Bench of Love on the trailer next to the Ribbon of Hope. The rest of the crew went on home visits through Ponca City. JR shared with me a home visit that he had gone on and it goes like this.... Her name is Tracy and I remember her from the prior day while at the mansion. While at the mansion she mentioned to me that she was going home to do some baking. Well baking is what she did, she filled a full table of cookies and cakes. Her husband said it was the first time in 5 years that she was so excited because of our visit, that she went into the kitchen and baked.
     I had mentioned this before, and just felt I needed to share it again. Its really hard to put into words the feeling that we, as Guardians feel when we can share our time like this. I was told many times on this trip that I didn't know what it meant to the person that I was speaking with what it meant to them for us to be there. Well I may not truly know what they are feeling but if its anything like what we feel, its awesome.
    After installing the bench we met up with the crew again to do a couple of more home visits before getting on the road. After filling the trucks up we headed to Joplin, MO. Yes, I know what your thinking....what happened to going to Kansas City? Well let me tell you...one of the best things about being on tour is that even though we have scheduled cities that have events set up, if we can make a stop in between while on the way we do. So off to Joplin. We did a brief stop there just to refuel but then we headed up the road a few minutes to Carthage, MO where we stopped and met the guys from the fire department. There I met Ms. Patsy a survivor of 1 yr. The tears of joy we both shared was a great feeling. She was amazed that not 1 but 3 pink fire trucks were in her city. She received a call from her mom telling her that we were in the Walmart parking lot and she needed to get over here. Once she got there you could just see the excitement. She signed Nikki as a survivor. After a brief stay we continued our journey north to Kansas City arriving around 10p.
    At this time it is starting to hit me that I will be leaving in a few short days. On the tour they say you get the deer in the headlights look. I personally thought it was the look of exhaustion but, I like there's better. I can't believe that my journey is already coming to a close. It almost seems like it was yesterday that we were leaving Memphis. But the memories of all the great people that I was honored to be with will always stay in my heart.