Vancouver Discovery Walk Day 2

Walking

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Walking

Walking with Wendy

Vancouver Discovery Walks
April 25 - 27, 1997

Day 1: Vancouver Mayor's Walk
Day 2 of the Vancouver Discovery Walk:
Beautiful mostly sunny and warm day today in Portland/Vancouver. As the day dawned, the final trailmarking was accomplished and workers arrived to pick up their checkpoint supplies and maps for roaming. The bike EMTs were there with mountain bikes gleaming - and fully supplied with oxygen and difibrillators! The ham radio operators were at the ready. And then the Marines stormed the beach!
A contingent of 30 Marines arrived, dressed in standard issue T-shirts, shorts, and sweatshirts. The formed up a line and began to march - out on the 40K trail. The other 40K walkers took to the trail between 7 am - 7:30 am, followed by the 30K walkers 7:30 - 8, followed by the 20K 8 - 8:30, and the 10K and 5K walkers. Ft. Vancouver Officers Row

At the same time, March of Dimes WalkAmerica walkers arrived and signed in at the tent adjoining the Centennial Center. Volksmarchers were able to join in for a $15 donation, and if they gave $50 they received a special pin. I paid the $50 price to support the charity. The Vancouver Discovery Walk and the WalkAmerica shared the same route and the same checkpoints. WalkAmerica lined up checkpoint sponsors - so each of the checkpoints gave away food and drink and a token item. Volksmarch calendars and club lists were included in the WalkAmerica registration bags, and the Vancouver Discovery Walk registration bags contained info on WalkAmerica. The relationship seemed to work well.
Cheetos Guy

My job today was Trail Rover. I got spiffy placards to place in my car windows saying PATROL. I patrolled the 5K/10K trail, which was also the end of the 20K trail and the last 2K of the 30K and 40K trails. I saw a few places where the arrows needed some adjustment and took care of that, but saw no problems with any of the walkers. The WalkAmerica walkers included a great many women with babies in baby strollers, as well as company teams all in matching shirts.
The Ham operators alerted us to a couple of trail problems - a downed arrow, and a locked gate. The fire department came and used bolt cutters to open the gate into Waterworks part. All services of the city of Vancouver were very responsive, and Mayor Pollard was on hand to lend his support again today. The Boy Scouts arrived to man intersections and direct traffic as needed. The EMS units patrolled constantly, giving added reassurance to the walkers.
walkers

The day stayed nice. I took my rolls of film to a 1-hour photo shop and had pictures on hand at the finish for folks to see all of the fun we had today and yesterday. About 500 walkers walked today, which doesn't count the volunteers who have done workers walks. WalkAmerica had a large participation of 500 also.
The swimming events opened at 1:30, but I waited until the last second to arrive and do my two swims. The water in the pool at Marshall Center was warm and felt great.
I received the medal award for finishing an event today. Tomorrow I will receive a certificate for participating both days. This afternoon I showed Marina, the IML Secretary from Holland, our web site and the Nijmegen Vierdaagse web site. She was very pleased.

At the start/finish, a band played throughout the day. At 4:30 an Italian Buffet was laid out for those interested in purchasing it, and over 50 people had dinner there. We talked with old friends and new. At 6 pm we presented Bill and Catharine Byrd (the walk organizer and volunteer coordinator) with a custom-made bird feeder for their efforts. Then a new band played for us as we slowly trickled away to home and bed to prepare for tomorrow. There are rain showers tonight, but tomorrow sounds like a few showers and then sunshine.
Day 1: Friday photos and story
Day 3: Sunday photos and story

Full Disclosure: Wendy Bumgardner was an officer of the American Volkssport Association, which hosted the event.