Valerie and Tracie in the Santa Barbara Independent

Christian Van Den Heuvel (left) signs the Revoke 8 petition and participates in a "If you could speak directly to the Supreme Court Justices, what would you say?" video interview with Tracie Jones (center) and Valerie Paget (right).

Full article here. I can't wait to see the results of Tracie and Valerie's video diary and interviews!

-Sarah

Video short on the March to Revoke 8

Thanks to David Pritchett and Cathy Murillo of Off-Leash Public Affairs!

-Sarah

Quick hit: Valerie and Tracie in the Coastal View News

Larger version for reading here. Thanks to David Pritchett, who's been blogging here about the March, for the scan!

-Sarah

BLISTER UPDATE

So sorry I forgot to give a blister update!! You have all been so kind and thoughtful, offering tips and suggestions about how I can get rid of my blisters. After trying everything, I went back to my old standby (from backpacking) of duct tape! That and a new pair of tennis shoes. Thank you Janee at the Lady Foot Locker in Ventura. Thank you Michelle for suggesting that I go back to duct tape. Thank you Edna for suggesting that I go to the Lady Foot Locker. I'm healed!! I actually haven't had blisters for 3 days straight!!!

DAY 10 - THANKSGIVING AND THE 101 FWY

DAY 10 - We spent all day on the 101 freeway with our new support/rally car, powered by Valerie's sister, Michelle, and her niece, Melissa (pics to come tomorrow).

LOCATION UPDATE: Tomorrow (Black Friday), we will begin our walk on Clark Street at the 101 freeway and walk through Orcutt and Santa Maria.

We began our day with a little bit bigger team... Michelle and Melissa drove from Denver to help us on our journey. They were INVALUABLE! They dropped us off to start our walk, scouted routes for us, brought us lunch, gave us moral support, and spent Thanksgiving with us!

We have been told that we can't walk on the 101 freeway, but when we called the local CHP office, they said that we could walk on the stretch from Buellton to Santa Maria. They said that after Santa Maria we would see signs posted stating where we could no longer walk. So off we went! We walked maybe one quarter of one mile when we saw this sign....

We decided to go with what the CHP officer said, and we kept walking!

Along the way, we saw more locals...

We went to Los Alamos and when we were approaching the Los Alamos exit, a very nice CHP officer pulled over and told us that we couldn't walk any farther on the 101 freeway. He was very supportive of our cause, and stated that he wanted us to be safe. Thank you officer!

The highlight of the day was Thanksgiving dinner with Sandra, Barbara, Michelle and Melissa. They prepared such a wonderful meal... they shared wonderful stories... and Rags (in Barbara's lap) put his two cents in too! We loved sharing Thanksgiving with Barbara and Sandra. They were wonderful hostesses and lovely women with such rich histories. It was such a pleasure spending time with them.

We're heading off to our next lodging place... more tomorrow!

Thank you again for all the support, blog messages, honks, text messages, etc. It really does keep us going!

DAY 9 - SANTA YNEZ, SOLVANG & BUELLTON

DAY 9 - This is how we looked for the first half of our walk!

We were wisely advised by several locals not to drive over the pass from Santa Barbara to Armour Ranch Road just past Lake Cachuma. It had NO shoulder in most locations.

We began our day at Armour Ranch/246 towards Santa Ynez in the pouring rain!! Once we reached Santa Ynez, we decided they needed a little love from the Revoke 8 crowd (the two of us). We detoured off of our path to walk through town (which amounted to about 8 blocks round trip).

On our walk we were mostly ignored. We did go into the local newspaper office and ask if they'd like to take a picture or hear our story. An anonymous individual spoke with us outside the office and said we'd be more likely to get married in Texas than to get our picture published in their paper. (This person was very supportive of us, but kindly sent us on our way.)

A little bit outside of Santa Ynez, we stopped at the YMCA to get out of the continued downpour (and to change our socks!).

We then set off for Solvang, where we received much more support - and it rained very little after that! Mark (who blogged on the 11/27/08 post) pulled over onto the side of the road to encourage us. He also gave us a very kind donation to help with our lunch - thanks Mark!! Once we were in town, a man sitting at a stop light told us that he'd read about us in the Santa Barbara News Press and he wished us luck! Once we got closer to Buellton, we were given advice by some of the locals...

Once we reached Buellton, we headed to our hotel for the night where Valerie's sister Michelle and niece, Melissa were going to join us.

Several days before, we receved an email from Gina offering support along the way. She included the contact information a friend of hers, John, from their UU church in San Luis Obispo, stating he could help move our car on Wednesday. This turned out to be such a wonderful thing. We REALLY needed our car to be moved. John (on the right) and Jerry, picked up our car and delivered it to our hotel. THANK YOU JOHN and JERRY!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Today Valerie and Tracie are walking through wine country in the Los Alamos area (lucky!) and Friday they'll be reaching Santa Maria. They promise to post soon - they haven't had internet access for the last few days on the road. I'm sure they'll have lots to report... Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving!

-Sarah