And it is going to take some time to get through this one. I have 63 stops here alone. I was scanning through my past posts and saw the one where I was boasting that I had made 30 stops in 30 days and I cracked up. I just made 88 stops in 9 days on this leg of the trip. Who knew?
HISTORICAL DOWNTOWN DES MOINES
Iowa is a pretty state. I was really suprised to go downtown Des Moines on a Sunday morning and find it virtually empty as you can tell by the parking lot. You can’t really tell by this photo but the domes on the building are shiny gold and really pretty.
AN INTERESTING MONUMENT
I walked around the Veteran’s Memorials and snapped this photo of one of the many monuments and statues. I was able to get caught up from my delays in Minnesota by visiting the hospitals in Des Moines on Sunday and the clinics Monday morning. I was directed to the corporate office of the Iowa Health Center by one of the office managers at a pediatric clinic I stopped at. I wasn’t very happy about that but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The woman I met with was very intrigued with my efforts and the information and she offered to distribute my brochures to all of their clinics for me, which enabled me to move on to Newton and Cedar Rapids a little sooner. I got to my camp site at a reasonable hour for a change. I camped on a lake at Sugar Bottom about 10 miles outside of Iowa City and took a dip before dinner.
PEACEFUL AND RELAXING EVENING, YEAH!
This is a photo of the sunset. The next morning I made my way through the hospitals and clinics in Iowa City and met with the education directors at one of the major clinics and at the University Of Iowa hospital which has 700 residents in training. I struck the mother lode once again. I moved on to Davenport and then into Moline, Illinois where I picked my daughter up at the airport and headed to Galesburg to visit my mother and sister-in- laws for a couple of days. We are heading out tomorrow and will visit many facility’s as we make our way south to Centralia. There we will meet up with friends from Vista and their family’s to help them celebrate a double momentus birthday for two sets of twin sisters. One set turned 40 recently and the daughters of one are turning 16. That should be a hoot. We will then head north to Wisconsin on August 3rd and visit more in-laws in Pleasant Prairie. My daughter will stay there and fly home on the weekend while I continue on my journey on the 4th.
I’ve sent out more press releases and wait with anticipation to see if I will get any responses. I’ve been thinking that perhaps I should handcuff myself to the entry doors to the Oprah studio in Chicago to get some attention. It seems everybody is more interested in the split up of Jon and Kate than they are with my plight. But that won’t stop me from trying, hah!
Janis,
I just wanted to let you know we are still following along avidly. I have tried to comment a number of times to your blog but for some reason I am not able to get logged on to do so. WordPress wants comment leavers to log on to do so, I have a WordPress account but for some reason it is not working for me.
I continue to applaud you for your efforts and your time raising awareness the way you are. We are trying desperately to keep up with everyone and everything, most importantly were taking care of ourselves.
We are making progress with getting Patrick the help he needs for his complete loss of peripheral vision. Were flying back out to MN on August 30th for his 180 day follow-up, things continue to look good for the most part.
We wish you safe travel’s on your mission, I loved the recent press right up that I read it was grand.
Kevin O’Toole & Family, AC4ALD
http://otoole4info.com
http://ac4ald.com