~Norman's weekly update, upon realizing that we can all do something~

In early January of 2013, I left my home in south central Kansas after school one day and headed to southwestern Colorado to visit this guy named "Mike Renfro".  We had gone to the same high school back in the little town of Haven, Kansas and had reconnected with one another on the social media site of Facebook.  I had never driven to Colorado on my own before, let alone 611 miles that would take me deep into the Rocky Mountains and over Monarch Pass before I would reach where he lived.  I nearly did it in one fell swoop but realized how crazy that was when my eyelids would not stay open near the Colorado town of Salida.  About midnight I stopped driving, found a place to stay for the night and then got up the next morning early to make the trip over the summit of the pass at Monarch.  Sure enough a couple of hours later, I found him standing in the driveway of the old farmhouse that he was living in and the rest......  well as they say, "the rest is history".

At the Black Canyon of the Gunnison that very first day we met again on a Saturday afternoon.  The skies were a beautiful shade of blue, the sun was shining and the temperatures were surprisingly warm for a winter day in Colorado.  That "chance" meeting (which was not by chance anyways) on the pages of Facebook brought me to a place that I had never seen before, shoot really never knew that it existed.  In the year and a half that has passed since I first came to Colorado, much has happened to me in my life here with my now "husband" Mike.  I've met so many new people and become friends with some of the dearest of folks whose name is written in the clay filled soil of Colorado. Two weeks back now, Mike and I made friends with a man whose name is written in the soil of the state of Pennsylvania, Norman Horn.  We met him on the road, as we came upon  him about half an hour from our home in Montrose when we headed back east to Kansas for a few days.  He was pushing a cart filled with supplies and the sign on the front of it pronounced his mission to "Fight childhood cancer-FTK"   If you are interested in learning more about Norm and his over 3,000 mile journey by foot across America, please visit his website  www.coast2coastFTK.com and read his story.  The following is a weekly "Norman update".

From the moment I saw my husband Mike get out of our car that evening, rustling through the supplies of snacks we had brought for the road trip back to Hutchinson, and hand this newly found stranger on the roadway a box of our granola bars, my heart was deeply touched.  That simple act, the gift of sustenance from the hands of one man into another, helped me to realize that there are way more people in this world of ours than just ourselves.  I always thought I knew that, you know?  But evidently I needed this reminder in the early evening hours along Highway 50 just outside of the turnoff for Morrow Point.  After a short five minute conversation of introductions and promises to meet him in 3 days back in Gunnison for dinner, we drove away and were strangers no more.  Mike and I became friends that night with him and we have watched with much interest his progress since then.

One thing I have learned in the past two weeks is the opportunity that Norm's cross country hike has provided for what I refer to as the "common man's" ability to help provide support for a worthy cause.  Mike handed off a box of granola bars that he had just purchased from supplies found on the shelves of City Market that evening.  Norman had found a brown bag along the roadway, just prior to our meeting him, that was marked on the outside especially for him.  Inside of it was a bottle of drink, a granola bar, and a $5 bill.  Later on down the road after we left him, he would encounter a man who would share his catch of fish for the day with Norman over a campfire.  In Gunnison he found a man who helped him fix the front wheel of his heavily laden cart.  So much goodness shown to him and that was just in a span of the 60 miles it takes to get from Montrose to Gunnison.  Folks like you and I, just ordinary people by anyone's standards, have opened up their homes to him for the night to rest or set an extra place for him at their supper tables.  People have passed bottles of water off to him, smiled and stopped to say hello, gave him their thanks, and countless other acts of human kindness.  And the not so strange thing is this; they did this all, not for what they could get out of it but rather, they did it because they knew it was the right thing to do.  I like that about people, a lot.

I thought about Norman during the day that we knew he would be crossing over Monarch Pass and I have to admit the "mother" in me worried about his progress along the way.  From our home here in the valley, I could see that there were lots of clouds and probably wind that might be pushing him along the way.  I know how treacherous it can be just to cross it in a car in the dead of winter.  We knew he would make it but a person couldn't help but to wonder how things were going.  It was good news to see the photos that he posted from high atop the pass, a place I have seen way more times than I care to mention, (ok, ok about 15 in all) since I came out here that first January weekend in 2013.  The trip down would be way better than the trip up it and so we were sure he could make it to Salida, no sweat!  And he did.  Not only did he make it to Salida, he also made it through the canyon lands that would lie ahead before reaching Canon City.  From Canon City, Norm trudged onwards to the beautiful city of Pueblo where he rested for the night before leaving to visit Denver for a fundraiser there for his cause.  Come Saturday morning, this weekend upcoming, he will start out once again from Pueblo heading east towards the state of my birth, Kansas. 

To all of the people out there who have helped Norman along the way, from his first step of the hike in San Francisco, California to the last step he will take in Atlantic City, New Jersey we offer our sincere thanks.  You might not think that the gift of a "lowly" bottle of water would be enough but just offer it to a hiker like Norman and you'll find it worth aplenty.  To those people who will provide him a meal to eat and a nice warm bed to sleep in for the night, I thank you for your hospitality.  For the "hellos", the wave of a hand in greeting as you pass by him along the road to the east I am sure than Norman is beholden to you.  For the least of things and for the greatest as well, all are much needed and certainly most appreciated. 

I know the stretch of road Norman will be walking come this next weekend like the proverbial "back of my hand".  Once he crosses over into Kansas, sometime in the next couple of weeks, he will find things a whole lot more flat.  The farms and small towns that dot the roadway from the border at Coolidge all the way to my old home in Hutchinson, clear to the Kansas City area are filled with the greatest of people.  They are called Kansans.  Friends and family back there who are reading this, I want to thank you in advance because I just know that some of you will see him and stop to say hello.  Please take good care of him along the way, will you?  Pray for his safety, shake his hand in friendship, bring a bottle of water and a snack if you see him on the highway, or open up your home to him for the night.  It doesn't matter how small or how large you would deem your offering.  Anything that you could do to help his cause will be accepted with deep gratitude by him.  The letters "F T K" stand for the words "for the kids".  It's what Norman is walking for.   They are what give meaning to his journey each and every step he takes. 

The sign that Norman will see as he crosses the border from Colorado to Kansas along Highway 50.  Off in the distance, barely to be seen in this photo, is the small town of Coolidge. 

You can't miss him!  Just watch for him along the way. 

We are alive and well along the Western Slopes of the great state of Colorado.