Carlsborg

She was so grateful for a safe place to stay the night before, and to the Holiday Motel for providing a room. She was able to start her day well rested. Not far down the way she stopped at a McDonald’s, and they gave her an egg and cheese McMuffin and a coffee for her breakfast.

As she was leaving, she asked a man which way he was going. He said he was going downtown, and she told him she was going in the opposite direction. Then she explained that she was walking, and that the night before she had walked two miles that she would now have to backtrack over. She thanked him, said that she would be fine, and just went on.

She didn’t mind doing the extra two miles, though it was a long day of walking. It was supposed to be 12 miles, but it turned out to be 14 in the end. She walked along Highway 101, which was quite busy and quite steep, but she felt fine. She ended up taking the Old Olympic Highway, which was kind of nice: much quieter than Highway 101, though still very busy. Somewhere along the way she tweaked her knee, taking her pack off and throwing it back on.

In the afternoon, with many miles still to go, she sat down to change out of her walking sandals and back into her hiking boots. She was in her stocking feet when she heard someone across the road — just a little two-lane highway — say, “Do you remember me?” She turned around, and it was the gentleman from McDonald’s. He asked, “Do you still need that two-mile ride?”

She quickly put everything back into her pack, grabbed her boots and ran across the road. He gave her a ride to exactly the two-mile mark, so on a day meant to be 12 miles she was spared two miles she had already walked, which was a lovely thing. His name was Kevin, and he was very kind to pay attention and help her out.

She carried on along her route and ended up on the Olympic Discovery Trail, where there were lots of hikers, bikers, walkers and runners with dogs. It was such a lovely day that a lot of people were out.

She ran into a couple on bikes who stopped to see what she was doing. Lots of people stop, she says, but stay on their bikes with their feet on the ground; they don’t dismount. She tells them what she is doing and shows them the QR code around her neck. But Katia and Randall got off their bikes, really wanting to learn more, and the three of them visited for probably half an hour, right there on the side of the trail.

She calls them her trail angels. They were like a pharmacy, a little fast-food place and a market all in one, right there on the trail. Because she had tweaked her knee, Randall gave her a little packet of Biofreeze to put on it, and it did help to relieve the pain. They gave her protein bars for later, and apples and nuts for a snack there and then.

They talked about the walks, about Jada and about the importance of joining NMDP, the national registry. Katia and Randall shared their own stories with her too. It was a marvellous visit. She was very moved by their compassion and their genuine concern for her welfare. She didn’t ask for anything; they just said, “I have this, can you use this?” It was a beautiful meeting, a heavenly meeting on the trail.

As they were parting, Katia said to her, with a sincere heart, “If you are in trouble, here is my phone number, you call me.” She would come, Katia said, and she meant it. Jeana received that with gratitude and told Katia that if she was in trouble, she would call. It was a lovely reassurance for the last legs of her journey.

Nearing the end of her walk on the Olympic Discovery Trail, she left it at Carlsborg. She ran into a gentleman who recommended that she stop at the Old Mill, because he believed it had little cabins as well as food, so there might be a place for her to stay. She did stop, and they offered to feed her a wonderful meal, but they couldn’t help with housing, because they no longer took care of the cabins; someone else did. She left a message for that person but got no answer, and rather than wait, she decided she had better keep moving.

She tried the first fire station she saw, but they weren’t able to help her. She stopped at a church, and then at the second fire station, at the end of Carlsborg. She was beginning to tell the firefighters there what she needed when they got an emergency call. She told them to run, and went on her way.

Having exhausted her possibilities in Carlsborg, she started toward Sequim, a much larger city, where there would be more options. But it was starting to get dark, it was over two miles, and she was on Highway 101, which she didn’t feel safe walking at night because of the amount of traffic.

She searched for hotels and found one at the lower end of the price range, and the Foundation covered her room for the night at the Olympic View Inn. When she called, a lovely young woman named Amy answered the phone. Jeana told her that she was walking and didn’t feel safe on Highway 101, and Amy said, “Take the bus, it’s free.”

So she walked back from where she was, at the Sunny Farms Country Store, to the bus stop, and in no time she was in Sequim. Her plan was to take the bus back out in the morning and walk into Sequim.

At the Olympic View Inn she was greeted by Amie, who helped her check into her room. As she did, Jeana told her the story of why she was walking. Amie came very close to tears and shared that she had a friend whose brother was at Seattle Children’s Hospital, fighting leukemia. He was in the chemotherapy phase of his treatment, and the family was overwhelmed by the medical crisis — something Jeana’s own family knows well.

When a loved one gets sick with a blood cancer or a blood disorder, she explains, most folks are not used to the medical vocabulary or the procedures that need to take place, and a myriad of medical, financial and emotional concerns they are not prepared for are suddenly thrust upon them. You truly are, she says, a stranger in a strange land. She was moved by Amie’s care and concern for her friend’s family and for her friend’s brother at Children’s Hospital, and by her genuine expression of love for them all.

Having met so many amazing folks along the way — her trail angels, a lovely woman at the Old Mill Cafe who fed her, and dear Amy, with her selfless expression of love for others — she went to bed trusting deeply in the goodness of people: the genuine care and concern expressed by one human being to another.