Walk to Cure - East Harbor, Lake Erie

Sunday, September 20th

A few weeks after she was diagnosed, I was looking around on the JDRF.org website to see what the future for this disease looked like. There it was, a video of Kevin Kline and a link to the Walk to Cure website! I checked Ohio and found that they were having a walk up at Lake Erie... and of all places, at my favorite campground!!! DONE!!! We were going to do a walk to help raise money! Part of me hoped that we could do this every year and that Ellee would get to the point where she would want to take over and continue to do this annual event without me dragging her! You know, something that she looks forward to!

We ended up camping at Camp Perry since Dad already had the camper set up there from the weekend before. Saturday morning Mom and I took the girls over to Marblehead to that I could try to get some portraits of them. I can't say that it was a sucessful venture, but I did get a few good shots!

When we got back, the girls were bound and determined to go swimming dispite the cold wind! It really would have been great weather to spend the whole day on the beach but the wind was so cold and froze you! It took longer to get the toys, swimmies, bathing suits and everything else together than we were actually on the beach!

The Walk
Dad wasn't done at base yet, so we went over to East Harbor without him. We had no idea what to expect, but the traffic was backed up on the road heading back to the beach! Along the side of the road were little sneakers staked into the ground. I teared up, it was encouraging to see, not to mention so cute! The parking lot on the right side was packed, but we finally found a spot and made the long walk to the party!

This really was a great event, a DJ & stage, jump house, balloon animals, activities for the kids, free food, and the Coast Guard had an airboat there! They had an area set up with lots of medical brochures and other stuff. It was wonderful, they had anything from log books, insulin pens, pumps, and support brochures. Carl and Moriah called wanting to know where we were at! It was a very nice surprise because I didn't expect them to drive over from Toledo on their way home from Bass Pro & Cabelos!

When it was time to start the walk they gathered everyone up by the stage. They had all the Type 1s come up and get behind a sign for pictures and I was so disappointed that Ellee did not want to go up there! That would have made a great front page picture for a scrapbook for the event, but oh well! They had a ribon that went between the stage and the entrance to the path and they had a little 6 or 7 year old boy that was just diagnosed cut it... then we were off!!!

We had no idea where were going or how long the walk was except that the website said 3 miles. It started off on a nice grassy path, and it didn't take long for the girls to ride on Josh's & Uncle Carl's shoulders!  We soon hit a point where we had to turn and walk up towards the beach.  Talk about a great view!  We could see the waves (it was pretty choppy that day) between the openings of trees.  The path went from a grassy path to a sandy and an occasional concrete pad.  We were not prepared for the walk up hill in SAND!!  *Note to self - wear sandles next year!*

Ellee got a big burst of energy and wanted me to run with her!  Much to our surprise, we were just about to the end!  I really don't think it was a full 3 miles, but we still had fun!  After everyone else finished, the girls got to play on an air boat that the Coast Guard had there.

We called Dad to see if he was done on base yet and he was just finishing up, so we meet him for dinner.  Not sure what it is about being up at Lake Erie, but ice cream is a must when you're up there!  Toft's is the big brand up there and it is wonderful!  I think we had just as much fun sitting outside of the ice cream parlor as we did at the walk!