Before I get into this past weekend's Breast Cancer 3 day. I want to say rest in peace Bernie Mac. The world will be a less funny place with you. I love you.

OK, on to the walk.

From the beginning.

Tuesday; August 5, 2008

Started trying to organize the packing. Did laundry, laid out all the cloths I planed to wear for the weekend.

Taking the advice I got from several veteran walkers, "pack EVERYTHING you don't want to get wet in plastic ziplock bags, if it rains, your bag and everything in it will get soaked"

I grabbed 3 larger sized freezer bags and place each days outfit in one bag. I figured it would make getting dressed in the morning easier to not have to dig through a bunch of clothing in the suitcase. Each bag contained a pair of shorts, shirt, sports bra, underwear and a pair of socks. Then used 2 small sandwich sized ziplock bags, I put small hotel sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, contact lens solution, eye drops, small tube of toothpaste, toothbrush and mouth wash, along with my medication. I then used one more bag for a bar of soap.

The I took each of the 3 bags with my outfits, and one at a time, set them on the bed and sat on them while zipping them closed. They then looks like they were vacuum packed, I figured this will take up less space in the suitcase. I managed to get the air mattress (thank you Bjorn) and pillow into a backpack.

I left everything laid out and ready to go.

Wednesday night, things got insane at work and I had to pull a late one. Didn't get home until midnight.

The I went into a panic because I couldn't find the pump for the air mattress. tore the house apart looking for it until 3 am. The pump is built into the mattress! Duh! Blond moment.

I bought those giant ziplock bags and put in my sleeping bag, a sweatshirt, my pink flannel pants, and pink fuzzy socks, and again, sat on it until the air was out and zipped it. The managed to get everything into my suitcase.

Transferred the important contents, (wallet phone, small mirror, eye drops, chapstick) from my purse to my fanny pack.

I finally got to bed but didn't sleep much.

Alarm went off at 7:00 am. Put in contacts, brushed teeth, showered, Fixed myself a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of juice, then went to my room to begin prep.

Nothing fancy this weekend, we're supposed to be roughing it. Combed my hair back into a ponytail and put sunscreen on my face and neck. Then removed my pajamas, and put sunscreen on the rest of my body. The powdered my whole body with gold bond medicated body powder to prevent any chafing. Got dressed, put gold bond foot powder on my feet (not sure if there's really a difference between the foot and body powder) put on my socks and shoes, sprayed bug spray, and tied my pink ribbon bandana around my head.

Mom showed up, to drive me to Northbrook. We loaded bags and took off. We left shortly after 9:00 am. Traffic was horrendous! I was supposed to be there at 10:30 am. I was an hour late. I was freaking out thinking they were going to leave for the campsite without me. Turns out I wasn't the only one caught in the perpetual construction.

Now I love my mom, but she tends to have very bad tunnel vision, some how, she couldn't see all the HUGE pink trucks, and the gigantic inflatable 3 Day things in the parking lot of this mall, even when I was pointing it out to her.

After getting my bags out of the car, letting mom take my pink by the giant inflatable pink thing that she finally sees. I kiss civilization good bye for the weekend as I head to the port o potty. The mall parking lot had been transformed. Had one big tent set up with chairs and a projection screen, the check in tent, and a tent with water and Gatorade.

After checking in, getting my t-shirt loading bags onto trucks.

We got started, after a rundown on what was going to happen as set up crew, we set off for the campsite.

It was so cool seeing the pace transform. When we showed up, there was nothing. We spent the whole day setting up tents, tables and chairs (oh my!) and mapping out the tent grid. By the end of the day, the place was a pink 3 Day city.

Cameron said he had dinner reservations for us at 8:00 pm. We got done with ten minutes to spare. Just enough time to get out "homes" set up before dark.

Once you get the hang if it, the pink tents set up pretty easy. Put my bag in, unloaded the air mattress and sleeping bag, rolled it out but didn't inflate it yet. Have you ever seen a memory foam pillow that's been crammed in a backpack all day?

So we had this big 10 passenger van, we get to the parking garage and that clearance bar dragged across the roof. We freak thinking we're not going to fit, we can't back up because there this pickup trunk behind us laying on the horn. We're inching a long, as we get to the top of the ramp not sure if we're going to make it, Cameron yells, "EVERYONE DUCK!" like that's going to make the van shorter.

We got to this restaurant, really fancy looking place, we looked so out of place in running shorts, tops, and sneakers.

Cameron said dinner's on him, I ordered ice tea, the next person ordered a beer, to which I responded "we're allowed to drink!? I'll have a martini" (The rule book said we're not allowed to drink during the event)

I could rant about desert, but I won't, most people who've eaten with me have heard the rant before. If you really want to know what I'm talking about email me.

Got back to the camp site about 10:30. We were told we'd leave for opening ceremonies at 6:00 am for anyone who wanted to go.

After laying for what seemed like a long time listening to the guy in the next tent snore loud enough to wake the dead. Finally, I could take no more. I got out of the tent, grabbed the bottom edge of the corners and dragged the tent, with everything in it, including my tent mate, about 50 yards away. She didn't even budge.

The next morning, she crawled out of the tent, noticed we were in a different location, and sleepily said "I thought I heard you move the tent last night."

I woke up at 5:30, hot the shower. For the record, showering in a truck is not bad. The water is nice and hot and great water pressure.

I just missed the ride to opening ceremonies. I was disappointed to miss it, but everyone else who chose not to go to opening was still asleep, so I crawled back into my tent and went back to sleep. Woke up about 9:30 thinking "oh ****, I over slept!" ran off and saw Peter getting out of his tent. He over slept too, and he hadn't even hit the showers yet.

I ran over and found the rest of the crew. They said I hadn't missed anything. There wasn't much to do around camp until the walkers show up.

Around 10:00 am, the gear and tent crew showed up with trunk loads of the walker bags. We help unload then in piles according to tent assignment.

The recommended baggage allowance is under 35 lbs., not many follow that. We came across one small bag, the gear and tent crew captain took it cradled in in her arms like a baby, and said "someone paid attention, this is going right up front".

Around 11:30, the gear and tent captain came over and said "please take a break for lunch", our response "but we're almost done!"

We had box lunches. The vegetarian ones had a sandwich with lettuce, sprouts, cheddar cheese and hummus; a bag of chips, apple, potato salad, and chocolate chip cookies.

I don't like red apples or potato salad, but the rest was good. Since they don't serve drinks other than water or Gatorade, I knew this and brought some of those individual powder packets of crystal lite lemonade.

The fist walkers arrived around 1:00, but there was a several; hour gap before any other showed. Talk about speed demons, I don't even see how it's possible to walk 20 miles in that amount of time. What's they do? Take a taxi?

After lunch, we didn't have anything much to do until dinner, so I went to the camp entrance to hang out with the check in crew and help cheer walkers as they enter camp.

As I see a tall guy with long blond hair approach, I call out "are you Blake?" He nods and we hug, Myspace buddies meet!

Dinner was spaghetti and meatball or soy "meat" balls, along with salad, breadstick, steamed veggies and a brownie.

In camp, there is a big beverage tent with ice water, hot water with assorted tea bags and hot chocolate mix, coffee and decaf, lemonade and ice tea and several canned sodas and sparkling waters.

after getting dinner cleaned up. I headed over to the 3 Day Post Office. I had two letters. Thank you Justin and Bjorn. I gave the address out to about fifty people, two people actually wrote me. I guess there's a reason they're my top two.

The camp set up is so cool. When I say 3 Day city, seriously, throughout camp you could hear "3 Day radio" fed in via satellite with music, weather reports, and other announcements.

The evening ended with "3 Day Rock Star" karaoke.

I hot the shower again around 9:30 after final clean up. Lights out is 9:00 pm for walkers, but the showers stay open until 11:00 for crew.

I slept much better that night, the person in the next tent snored, but nothing compared to the guy the night before. The only problem, all the water they make us drink, I had to pee just about every hour. The ritual: unzip sleeping bag, take off socks, put on flip flops, unzip tent door, walk to port o potty, walk back, use hand sanitizer, re-zip tent door, take off flip flops, put on socks, get back in sleeping bag.

Breakfast was biscuit oatmeal, fruit, and hash browns. There was also bacon and scrambled eggs, but I don't eat that. The beverage tent had all the same as last night except, in stead of lemonade and ice tea, they had orange juice. Still had coffee, tea hot chocolate and water.

When we finally got the last walker out of camp, we started with clean up.. Now we got nothing until dinner. I went to go visit the check in crew again. They made an announcement over 3 Day Radio that there was a chance if rain, so those of us who though it would be a good idea to leave our tent doors open to air the tent out, go zip the door shut. Then go check all the walkers tents. All 2,300+.

It rained for about ten minutes.

Cameron showed up with the trunk and said since we had nothing to do until dinner, we would take us out to see the route. I was excited about that since I never saw that before. So we drove along honking and cheering, we stopped at a few pit stops.

Around mid day, Cameron says, "do we want to go back to camp and have the box lunch, or do we want to go out?" we ended up at a bar.

We got back to camp and I rejoined the check in crew, I made a sign that said "Free Hugs" half the people thought that was coolest thing they ever saw, the others recoiled saying "ew, you don't want to hug me, I'm all sweaty" I just smiled and said, "I've hugged pro wrestlers, I can handle you"

My bad hip started acting up. I went to medical and iced it for a while and had one of the volunteers on the medical crew pop it back into place.

Dinner was vegan cutlet, broccoli, rice and strawberry shortcake.

After dinner clean up, we had the 3 Day Rock Star Finals, followed by the 3 Day Dance Party. That rocked!

I headed to the showers with the sinking feeling realizing that this was our last night there.

We were told to have out stuff packed and tents broke down before we came to breakfast.

Breakfast was cream cheese filled crepes with strawberries on top, hash browns, and fruit. Yes, they had scrambled eggs and sausage too.

Breakfast clean up was much more involved this time, instead of clearing trash and wiping table, we had to break everything down.. Fold and stack all tables and chairs, load trucks. Fold, stack and load all chair from the shower area. Break down all tents, load walker's luggage. Beak down and load everything.

We apparently got this done in record time! Everything was back to the way it was before.

We loaded vans and drove a few people to the site of opening ceremonies to pick up their cars. Then cruised the route towards closing ceremonies, Solider Field.

One thing funny about downtown Chicago, the rest of the rest of the route, when you honked, the walkers would throw their hands up and scream "WHOOO!" But since everyone lays on their horns in downtown Chicago, they couldn't tell if someone was honking to show support or just being an @$$hat driver.

We drove by leaning out the windows honking and cheering, while getting confused looks from the hundreds of pedestrians.

Got to the holding area for closing ceremonies. Someone took the last vegetarian box lunch! The staff thought it was an accident, someone didn't see the big black "V" on the box. So I got no lunch. Oh well, I wasn't that hungry.

Closing ceremonies was wonderful, brought everyone to tears. The ending has a tradition of everyone taking of their shoes and holding them up. Even as unlacing my shoes, I was muttering "I'm not taking my shoes off" I took them off.

Mom was so moved by closing ceremonies, she says she wants to join me on the walk next year!

I'm already signed up for next year!

I wasn't sore at all Sunday, but when I woke up Monday morning, YIKES!

A few hot baths later, I think I'll survive. Of course, any excuse to use John Frieda on my hair...

As I said I would, some time over the next week, I'm going to write a comparison of Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day.

*HUGS*

K.J.

P.S.: I was asked to call into this radio show Saturday night. You can hear it at:

http://audioam.blogtalkradio.com/show_251412.mp3