Being sick on the road

There is nothing pleasant about being sick

Not unless you find it as a good excuse to get out of something, like work, or jury duty. In my case it happened while I was in Memphis, TN visiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The perosn hosting me in Memphis had a New Year party in 2012 and one of the guests was ill.

A few days after I departed Memphis I came down with the flu, and it was bad. Fortunately I happened to be at a campground when the symptoms started to affect me. For the first few days I barely had any strength. I could get out of my tent to go to the bathroom or the vending machine, but then I was wiped out. After a dew days I started getting out for walks, each day going a little bit further until I could walk to the end of the road to the Subway for some food.

What’s an ice storm?

I wasn’t yet feeling 100% when I left the campground, but I felt strong enough to walk. Surpassingly I walked about 25 miles, in an ice storm no less! Being a California native I had no idea what an ice storm was. I was intrigued by the fact that precipitation was freezing very quickly. There were sheets of octagon shaped ice on stop signs. The outside of my cart was completely covered in ice. I still had a mild fever, was bundled up, and had been walking almost non-stop so the cold didn’t have an affect on me.

That afternoon a passerby had seen me walking and noticed the sign on my cart which said walking across America for St. Jude Children’s Reseach Hospital. With that information they were able to find me on the internet so they messaged me on Facebook to make sure I was okay because I was walking through an ice storm.

To Tunica

That evening I made it all the way to Tunica, MS. I stopped at a diner called Blue & White. It felt great to get a warm resturant meal that night. By late evening I was tired. Not wanting to walk around much more I snuck behind a nearby building and grabbed the Tortex sleeping bag cover out of my cart, laid it on the ground, put my sleeping bag inside and went to sleep.

Law enforcement, again

The following night I was eating at the Blue & White diner again and a waitress approcahed me and asked if I was Mario. She said I had a phone call, which seemed strange because nobody knew I was there. The woman who runs the Tunica Humane Society had seen me earlier and she called to ask if I needed a place to stay. I told her I could use a place to stay and then she said that the police were going to be coming. Getting arrested for trespassing was the first thing that came to mind. Law enforcement arrived at the restuarant, introduced themselves, and said that Sandy had told them to pick me up. I aksed, “Is this something you guys do.?” and they informed me that Sandy is an important person around town. They ended up driving me out to the animal shelter that Sandy runs. For the next few days I slept on the couch there and helped out with anything that was needed around the shelter; I cleaned animal cages and patched holes in the leaky roof. While I was there I did some much needed repairs on my cart, which required welding, something I hadn’t done since metal shop class in high school.

Southern hospitality.

Mississippi is where I met some of the kindest people. In fact, by estimate is should have taken me 10-12 days to get across Mississippi from Memphis, TN but it took almost a month because people in Mississippi were constantly inviting into their home and asking me to stay a while.