Day 1 in the books

Sorry we are so late getting this posted tonight. It has been a Great and Busy day. We have some pictures that will be attached and bear with us because this is our first attempt at this blogging.
When we arrived at the Fire Department on Saturday afternoon, they were out fighting a house fire. Therefore, when they returned we got to meet several of the members and had an opportunity to visit and chat. They really had some interesting stories to tell us.
We started today by waking before the alarm clocks went off. We slept great in our camp at the Stapleton Volunteer Fire Department. However, the excitement of the venture had us awake and ready to go. Hugh, our shuttle driver today, carried us to Gulf Shores for the start. We have a picture of us at the waters edge after we stepped down and put a hand, (not a toe) in the water. We started walking at 7:45 and about 8 1/2 miles in at 10:40 we were walking in front of the Genesis Church so we went in for the 10:30 worship service. We enjoyed a very inspirational Praise and Worship service. We traveled on completing 21 3/4 miles today. The temps reached 100 degrees on us today and to say it was hot is an understatement. A couple of blisters and hot spots on feet have been experienced but we are moving forward. We have met some very interesting people and have had a tremendous amount of encouragement from strangers met along the way and from our network of friends. (Our email address for the walk is: walkupalabama@yahoo.com and we love hearing from you.) We got back to camp at about 5:45 and hurriedly got cleaned up to visit the Stapleton Baptist Church 6:00 worship service. Our support and shuttle driver Hugh is a member there and after the worship service we had a late dinner with Hugh, Pastor and Youth Pastor. Wonderful people and quite a time of fellowship.
I am going to try to upload some pictures that were taken. Maybe that process will work ok. We are not sure how to place captions. So look for future posting as to who the people are. We will try to be back in camp with a little more time to organize our notes and thoughts tomorrow night. Thanks for taking the time to follow us and sending encouragement.