Tuesday, September 27, 2011

My 3-Day Experience

It took a while, but here are the pictures from my Seattle 3-Day walk. I will do my best to describe what is going on in the pictures. The first one was taken at opening ceremonies. There were so many people dressed up with all kinds of pink...men included! I definitely felt a bit under dressed! The pink balloons were so pretty in the early morning hours of opening ceremonies. Kind of made you forget that you were up very early about to take off on a 20 mile walk!


The Seattle skyline during opening ceremonies.

This was very touching. They had a white flag that you could write the name of someone you lost to breast cancer. They took the flag, raised it up and had a ring of survivors gather around the flag. Very touching to say the least.


Crossing the I-90 bridge from Seattle into the Bellevue area.


Along the route there were people who set up "stations" where they would give you encouragement or treats of some kind. These guys were part of the "Save the Coconuts" group. They had loud island music playing and they offered us "gatoritas", or a gatorade slushie. On the last day they were set up at the top of a hill....a GIANT hill and let me tell you, a gatorita really hit the spot when I finally made it to the top!


This is the campground and the sea of pink tents. It was really not a bad situation having to camp....although next year I will be staying in the hotel! :) It only rained on Saturday night, but I managed to stay dry!


There were 60 Seattle police on bikes who volunteered to be a part of the walk. It was nice to know that they were around riding up and down the route. Another family out on the route to support us. It was overwhelming at times to hear them say thank you for walking...hard to explain, but it was so touching.


This guy was around all weekend to help with some of the crosswalks and to keep us safe in traffic. I'm guessing he had someone walking in the walk too with the pink flamingo team, because he had flamingos on him or his bike all the time.

Not only did we have the safety helpers on the bicycles, we had the help of some motorcycles too. They had their bikes all decked out in pink...not hard to know they are with us! :)

Here are some of the "bikers" who helped out. The one in the pink bra is the owner of the bike in the picture above.

This is the finish line coming back into the camp on the second day. On the route they have sweep vans that drive up and down the street and you can ride to the next pit stop or lunch or back to camp, whatever is closer, if you can't make it anymore. I was hurting pretty bad the end of the first day and I took a sweep van for the last little bit...very disappointed about it, but it was necessary. I had a pretty big blister on the outside of my heel and my lower back was killing me. After a phone call to Eric, I got my emotions back under control and was ready to tackle it all over again the next day. I was very emotional for me to finally walk across the finish line on the second day...nice to complete it!

This guy must have had walkers in the walk too, he was around all weekend. He would be parked somewhere on the route and have his music playing loud and words of encouragement. After seeing him every couple miles for three days, it was nice to turn a corner and hear the music and see that it was him.

Part of the last day's walk in Seattle. It was just beautiful with the water and all the green.
This was one of the teams on the walk. They were called "Chesticles" and the front of their jerseys said "Chesticles, the balls to fight breast cancer". Too funny!

After walking through some residential areas this was the first view of the Seattle skyline on the last day of walking. This was right before lunch I believe, so it was more than halfway through the walk for the day.

This was a killer downhill! It lead into the last part of the walk through Seattle. It was nice to walk through the city. I am sure I saw parts of it I would have never seen any other time there.

This was taken about halfway down the hill in the picture above. Just a beautiful skyline.

Another one of the bikes from the weekend.

The bike belonged to this very nice gentleman. He had some saggy boobs...but he said that is what happens when you turn 61. Too funny!

Some more guys who would show up at various places along the route to show support.

This was the last little bit of the walk. I came through pretty early in the day, not because I walked super fast, but I just got on one of the first buses to take us to the route, but as more and more walkers finished the street was full of people cheering.
This was team Lisa. I walked amongst them on the second day and was reminded of why I was walking and why I needed to get over myself and just do it. The woman on the far right of the group in green is fighting stage 4 breast cancer and she did the walk...the blisters that I had on my feet at that point suddenly seemed so little. They would heal, they weren't going to kill me and as my cousin so wisely share with me, they wouldn't need chemo to go away. When I saw her strength and determination, I knew that there was nothing that was going to stop me from finishing.
My victory picture with my victory shirt on! I did it!! Even though I took the sweep van, I still figure I walked about 23 miles the first day, 21 the second and 15 the third. It was an experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I hope to do it again next year!

Because I finished the walk around 2:30 and closing ceremonies didn't start until 5:30, I had some time to kill! :) They had music playing and some of the crew and walkers started to do the electric slide. The young girl on the right side of the front row with the pink pants on had her knee all bandaged up, barely could walk across the finish line, but found the energy to dance a bit! :)



I met this amazing lady, Debbie, on the first day. We kind of just paired up and walked together for most of the day but got separated when I took the sweep van back to camp and never saw each other until the last day right before closing ceremonies! She was very personable and would talk to EVERYONE we passed on the route...she very much reminded me of my Grandpa Becker.

Each of the sweep vans had a theme that they were decorated up like. The one I took was the S.S. Minnow and of course I had The Skipper and Gilligan as my drivers.


Closing ceremonies...I was really surprised at the amount of people in the stands. There was about the same amount on the other side and we were down on the field.

I tried to get a good shot of the crowd of walkers, but it was hard being all on the same level. I think someone said that there was about 2000 walkers.

When we lined up to walk into the closing ceremonies, they separated the survivors and had them walk in after us. We all took off one shoe and held it up as a tribute to them. Kind of like us saying we just did all those miles for you. So touching to say the least.

This picture kind of shows the layers of people. The white shirts are all walkers. Toward the center there are blue shirts, they are the crew. and the very center closest to the flagpole are the pink survivors.

Another ring of survivors around the flag pole.

This time instead of the flag of people who were lost to the disease, it was a flag that proclaimed the hope of all the walkers there, a world without cancer. I tried to get a good shot of the flag unrolled to show the saying, but just didn't happen.The last song that they played was "I will survive" and when the tempo picked up, everyone started dancing. I just thought it was kind of a nice shot to see all the survivors dancing...


Thank you to all that supported me on the journey. Like I said, it was an experience I will always carry with me. I hope to do it again next year...if you are interested in doing it with me let me know and we can start training now!!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The countdown is on for my big 3-day walk in Seattle and I still have a ways to go in the fundraising area. I want to thank all my friends and family who have already supported me by making a donation. I have just under 13 weeks left to raise $1300.00. If you can help by donating or if you know of someone who would be willing to donate to me I would appreciate any help in spreading the word and giving them the link to my page to donate. Thank you again for all your help! If you can't use the "button" on the side of the screen, you can always go to www.the3day.org and search for my name: Karri Crosson.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Fun in the sun

We finally broke down and got the kids their new trikes. They were so excited to see them and spent all day on them. Can't quite pedal yet, but are scooting around like pros! Dancing with Daddy. Nothing better than family time with tons of giggles from everyone! The best part of having kids! We took the kids out to visit my brother Paul and they got to love on his dog. He is HUGE, but very gentle and the kids loved to be outside with him. It was very cute.They also found their Aunt Hollie's lotion. Paul kept telling me to relax and just let them look around...see what happens! They figured out how to get the lid off and helped themselves to the lotion inside! On the bright side, they sure smelled pretty! :) Aubrey all dressed up for the birthday party we had for my great-niece Shayla who is visiting from Arizona. It was a busy weekend full of family and we had a great time with everyone! All the cousins. Amya, Shayla holding Madisyn, Italy, Spencer and Aubrey. Spencer sure knows how to add his own boyish touch to a picture of his beautiful girl cousins. Still is pretty cute though! Shayla about to blow out her 11 birthday candles! Happy Birthday Miss Shayla!! Anxiously waiting for cake! We went to the Berries, Brews, & BBQ festival in St. Paul, OR on Saturday and had such a good time. The kids loved doing something out of the ordinary and we had a great time just getting out! This was the slide they had set up. They had to climb up the hay bales and then slid down the tube. They needed help getting into the tube, but did great from that point on. Dean ended up staying up there and waiting for them to run around and get back up. We spent a good chunk of time on the slide. They also rode the Piggy Barrel ride. It was pulled by a young man on a tractor, who's name was also Spencer. They did a great job at staying seated and didn't even get upset when they rode away out of sight from us.
They also loved the animals. Neither one of them hesitated to put their hands in the cage to try to feed them. Last year they weren't sure if they should be afraid or not...what a difference a year makes.



The kids and I on the hayride. Before we got on the hayride, every time it would pass us Spencer would wave at it. He definitely has farmer in his heart!