Background:

On March 19, 2008, John Goodman and Dick Mattson, along with their wives, Ruth and Carol, attempted to walk from the west coast to the east coast to raise money and awareness for Habitat for Humanity. The walk ended after 800 miles for medical reasons. Two years later, not being very bright, they are going to try it again.

"On the road again ...", that is the unofficial title of our Habitat for Humanity Coast to Coast Walk, Phase II. We are on our way to mile marker 11, on Highway 380, just outside of San Antonio, New Mexico. This is the point that we stopped on June 1, 2008. We are going to pickup at that point and continue our walk to Hot Springs, Arkansas. It is our goal to build one Habitat house for one deserving family in Hot Springs.

We left Hot Springs on March 16th, headed for Abilene, Texas, 465 miles later, we pulled Abilene RV Park and had supper at Rosa's Mexican Restaurant. The next day, March 17th, we headed for El Paso, Texas, 452 miles away. We stayed there at the Gas Light Square RV Park. No rest for the weary, we traveled on the 18th from El Paso, Texas to Tucson, Arizona, a distance of 318 miles. We checked into the Crazy Horse RV Park and then "the accident" happened.

To make a long story short, I was in the Malibu, which we tow behind our motorhome, backing it up, when I stopped and thinking it was in park, I got out. The car actually was in reverse, and the door hit me and knocked me down.The door hit my chest as I was lying on the ground. It went on to hit a parked RV and then a parked pickup truck. I was in some pain by that time and John called 911. All this resulted in some badly bruised ribs on the left side. I have been taking pain medicine and am slowly recovering.

Sunday, March 21st.

Today we went to the Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson and saw Rick Goodman, John and Ruth's son, fly his F-16C, Fighting Falcon with the Air Force Thunderbirds. Rick's position is Inverted 5, lead solo. They put on an excellent show and if you every get a chance to see a Thunderbird air show, I would encourage you to go.

Monday, March 22nd.

We went to the Family Autobody and Paint Repair shop to see if we could get the Malibu patched together. They told us that it would take a week.

Wednesday, March 24th.

Today we visited the Tucson Habistore. It was a nice store, about the size of the one in Hot Springs. Terry, the manager, told us about the operations of his Habistore and how they obtained a grant to get the Habistore started.

Thursday, March 25th.

Today we traveled to Tombstone, Arizona. The site of the famous "Gunfight at the OK Coral".Tombstone was a mining town and some of the original structures are still there. After a picnic lunch, we drove on to Bisbee, AZ, an old copper mining town, very much preserved.

It remined us of Eureka Springs, only bigger. We were going to tour the Queen Copper Mine, but their tour schedule and our schedule didn't match up as we wanted to drive to Sierra Vista, AZ to visit Ruth's brother and sister-in-law, Wayne and Carol. We visited the RV park at Ft. Huachuca, where John and Ruth had camped before and then on to Wayne and Carol's house. After our visit, we headed back to Tucson and had supper at El Charro. Delicious chicken fajitas and other Mexican dishes. Highly recommended.