The wind was even stronger yesterday than the day before and for most of the walk it wasn't too bad of a problem as it was a tailwind. But about 6 miles of the walk was along route 54, west to east, and it was a direct crosswind - and it was grueling. Deb from North Newton caught up with us in the afternoon and walked about the last four miles with me, then we followed her to North Newton where she and her husband Wes and their two children and two Labs shared their home with us.

As has so often been the case, it turned out to be a good day to take off today. I told Jonna this morning that for the first time since we began I believe that had we not already planned to take the day off I would have anyway. I woke up feeling really bad this morning - drained and tired and aching - and don't think I could have done a productive walking day. But I was in good enough shape to attend services at the Mennonite church in North Newton with Wes and Deb and their family. We met many wonderful people and got a chance to talk to then about what we're doing and why. If you're familiar with the Mennonite tradition at all you'll know that we were warmly welcomed and graciously received.

Finn and Spoof made a couple of new friends of the Labrador variety, although Sable, their older dog, makes it quite clear he is no longer possessed of an age where he thinks romping and playing are a good idea - sort of the curmudgeon of the group.

Wes has a doctorate in Old Testament studies, so we've already had some good conversations, and he gave me a slim volume he's authored on the sacrificial edicts of Leviticus and their application to modern society. I've already read part of it and may pass on some of his insights here in the near future.

At the worship service today we met Brett, who is also a professor at Bethel College here. He asked if we'd be willing to speak to his class tomorrow and again, since this is a major part of what my walk is all about, we gladly accepted. So this means I probably won't be back on the road until Tuesday morning, but that's alright - the walking must always take a back seat to the dialogue.

I'm feeling a bit better than I was this morning, but I think both Jonna and I are going to spend a good part of the day just sleeping. If I can get this posted soon I may do another entry later today - otherwise you'll be hearing from me again tomorrow evening.

I was really kind of hoping that I could make it all the way to El Dorado today, but the elements - rather than my feet - interfered with that plan. It was a nice enough and warm enough day, but once I passed Augusta the tailwind turned into a crosswind, and it was quite a bit stronger even than yesterday. It's hard for Jonna to drive Nessie in this kind of wind and it's hard for me to walk, and I probably should have stopped sooner than I did. But we got pretty close to El Dorado and then drove on ahead to El Dorado State Park, which we have nearly to ourselves at this time of year. In fact, the park supervisor had to come out and turn the elctricity on for us because they hadn't yet powered up the camping area.

Deb from Newton will be coming out tomorrow afternoon to walk with me for a while, and it seems we may be taking the day off on Sunday to return with her and meet with folks from her church. That's what we're all about in the first place, so it will be a welcome break.

And now for an open letter:

Dear Mr. McCain:

I must confess that I heard your little "joke" before - the alteration of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" into "Bomb, bomb, bomb - bomb, bomb Iran". The last time I heard it was from the mouth of a dittohead I knew. But I really never expected to hear it from someone who aspires to be president. Then, as I understand it, when a reporter asked if some might not find it insensitive, you replied, "Who? Iranians?"

Well, yes sir, Iranians - for a start. Followed closely by Iraqis, Afghanis, North Koreans, Russians, Germans, French, Canadians, Mexicans, the entire rest of the civilized world outside of our borders, and finally, those within our borders who are perceptive enough to realize that we do not live in a vacuum and that the words of a contender for the presidency of these United States are taken very seriously by pretty much everyone on the planet.

Let me ask you, sir, how you suppose our country - our leadership in particular - would react if the leadership or serious contenders for the leadership of foreign nations would make a similar "joke" at the expense of America? I do not think it is too far fetched to envision that our "terror alert" status would immediately be raised several notches, diplomats would be called home, embassies would be put on high alert, our DefCon status would be raised, and politicians all over the country would be calling for condemnation of the speaker of those words, economic embargoes of their home country, tighter surveillance of any foreign nationals from their country visiting ours and every other knee-jerk punitive action they could imagine.

Somewhere along the road from military hero and justly decorated veteran to presidential aspirant, you have lost it, sir. You have come to believe that Americans are free to operate under a different set of rules than the rest of the world. You have come to view the world as "Them" and "Us" or, perhaps more accurately, "Them versus Us". You have entered into the realm of nationalistic arrogance that causes the citizenry of other nations around the world to display reactions ranging from a dread-filled shudder to a sad shaking of the head - all of them wondering fearfully what their once friendly - but now seemingly psychotic - Uncle Sam is going to do next.

It seems to have escaped you, sir, that ever since the advent of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles to deliver them we have been living in a global community. We no longer have the luxury of demeaning, dismissing, vilifying or demonizing foreign countries - even if they are halfway around the world - because distance is no longer a factor and every country is our neighbor as surely as if their borders touched ours.

Bomb Iran. Two little words. Perhaps it is possible that you have become so one-dimensionally focused, so oblivious to overall reality, that those two words have, for you, only one single, sanitary vision behind them - the removal of a potential threat to the United States. Let me suggest then, sir, that those two little words say much, much more to many inhabitants of this planet. They say death and destruction and the snuffing out of innocent civilian lives on a nearly incomprehensible scale. They say more of our own valiant sons and daughters thrown into the fire pit of political paranoia and incompetence. They say decades - generations - of repercussions, reprisals, hatred and bloodshed until the final tally of those two little words ultimately reaches millions and the wounds and scars left behind further propel the downward spiral of international relations toward a point of no return. They say America's leadership, so blinded by fear and anger, has finally lost its collective mind.

For me, sir, much as I admire the service you once gave to your country, much as I am willing to forgive the unintentional slip, the errant word, I am sad to say that in this case there is no redemption. The fact that someone in your position could have (a)heard this somewhere and thought it "funny", (b)let it pass from somewhere in the back of your brain onto your lips, and (c)dismissed it as something lighthearted and trivial tells me that you have now gone too far down the path of arrogance, insensitivity and recklessness to be qualified in any way for the presidency.

Others may be more willing to forgive. So I would suggest, sir, that you have an immediate responsibility, which is:

To apologize to the people of Iran for your crude, loathesome little joke;

To apologize to the citizens of other foreign countries around the world and try to convince them somehow that you really do consider them to posses actual human worth and don't view them merely as potential targets;

To apologize to the citizens of this country for making us, by implication, complicit in your mad arrogance.

Unless and until those apologies come, I will no longer simply view any further pursuit of the presidency by you benignly - but I will work actively in whatever way I can to ensure that your political career skitters rapidly to its sad and inglorious end.

Sincerely,

Bill McDannell

It appears I may have some company for my walk this weekend which will be great - it will be the first time since El Paso that I've actually had anyone walking with me other than our granddaughter. I got a call early this morning from a lady who lives north of Wichita who has been following our efforts and she says she's going to try to get a group together to come down and walk with me over the weekend. I'll probably know more tomorrow.

The walk was pretty routine today; beautiful weather except for a strong, persistent wind. It was at my back, though, so it didn't impede me at all. We're camped at the same spot as last night - a beautiful little place outside of Augusta called Santa Fe Lake. Only eleven bucks a night. No water and no dump station, but we filled up the water tank yesterday before we came out and we'll dump at the next available location. The guys have had plenty of opportunities to romp, so they're quite happy, and having herons and snow geese for neighbors is really nice. This early in the year there are very few campers out so we often are sharing an entire park or RV park with nobody or at most a couple of other campers.

Jonna has been reading "Bush on the Couch". While I am skeptical of the lasting value of remote psychoanalysis, some of what the author sets forth is pretty self-evident. I've told Jonna on more than one occasion that fifty years from now people are going to be looking back on this period in history and wonder what in the world we could have been thinking and why it took us so long to wake up and take action.

That's it for tonight. The internet connection has been really iffy out here - I was up until after 1:30 in the morning last night trying to get things posted and emails answered - so I'm going to try to put this all to bed earlier tonight.

We didn't have to wait until tomorrow to see what happens next. About ten minutes after I finished last night's entry, we heard a loud sort of a "Thud!" and suddenly the generator quit. I grabbed an umbrella and went out to see what was wrong. I got the generator started again right away, but shut it down until I could figure out what had happened. I walked around to the door, and Jonna was inside looking aghast as smoke began coming out from the cabinets under the sink and the oven. We got the fire extinguishers and stood ready as I opened the cabinet doors and more smoke came rolling out - but I couldn't find any place where anything was burning or smoldering or even hot. We had lost our 110 volt power since the generator had shut down but still had twelve volts for the lights and such.

I spent the next hour trying to find anything that was smoking or hot or might suddenly burst into flames, but couldn't find a thing. To make a long story a bit shorter, we spent the rest of the night sort of taking turns sleeping, with a hand on the fire extinguisher all night. Nothing else happened and nothing else seemed to be wrong.

In the morning I decided that since nothing else seemed to be amiss I should put in a shorter day walking and then find an RV dealership where we could possibly discover what new calamity had befallen us. I made it to Winfield, then we motored on ahead to Augusta, which was the nearest place that we could find with an RV repair shop.

It turns out that the power converter - yes, the same power converter we had just replaced back in Denton on the 30th - had fried on us. The good news is that we should eventually get the price of the converter back under its warranty. The bad news is that we had to shell out almost another four hundred bucks that we couldn't afford right now - and won't recover the cost of labor for putting another one in.

Some years back we had friends who farmed all of their lives. During the summer and fall they would stock up on all their produce, and they had a huge freezer that they'd fill with chickens, turkeys and every imaginable part of a pig. The wife told us once that they would never worry about anything over the winter and early spring until they roasted the last turkey. At that point, it was time to worry. And that became a standard phrase around their house - which we adopted. When things looked bleak, they'd say, "Well, we haven't roasted the last turkey yet."

Ladies and gentlemen. we have now roasted the last turkey. Today we sent the last $2,000 of the money we had available for this trip to our bank back in California in order to cover the expenses we encountered today and the bills we have yet to pay for this month. When that's gone, the last turkey will not only be roasted, it will have done its duty as turkey supper, turkey sandwiches, turkey salad and turkey gravy. We will have only a wishbone left. If we had the five grand we paid the ne'er do well for the first camper we bought we would probably be fine - but since the courts have no real way of enforcing the judgments they hand down, we may not see any of that for a long, long time.

So once again, and more pointedly than ever, we come before you with hat in hand. If you can help, please do. More importantly, if you can do some public relations for us and let whatever media you can think of know we're out here, please call on any contacts you have - because that is the surest way for us to tap additional sources of income to keep Nessie's wheels rolling.

As I've said before, I will complete this walk no matter what, and we have contingency plans that we don't want to employ - but will if we have to. We think that what we have left will get us through Missouri. At that point, we'll be at our daughter's place in Hannibal. If we can't come up with additional resources by then, we'll return to the Tucson-to-El Paso operation; Jonna will stay behind with Nessie and the guys in Hannibal and find some employment, while I continue on to Washington on my own. We reallyreallyreally don't want to have to do it that way, but will if we must. Your help can make it possible for us to complete the journey together. Thanks.