Madison to Chicago 2008

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Day 4 - July 28 The Venerable Palden Gyatso arrived today after flying back from Japan. All the walkers were greatly inspired to have Palden-la join the walk. Today was the first time that we had an encounter with the local police. They had received reports that we were obstructing traffic and that we were sitting on the side of the road. The local city police were quite nice and decided to leave us alone. No sooner did they leave that a local Deputy Sheriff arrived. He was not friendly at all. He ordered us to immediately stop walking and get off the road. Jigme Norbu talked with the officer and worked out a compromise whereby we would not carry our flags. For the rest of the day, we were left alone by the police. During the day, one middle aged male motorist stopped and offered us $20. He then proceeded to speak some Tibetan with us. This was quite exciting and surprising. He had studied Tibetan at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Geshe Sopa-la many years ago. One walker, "Tashi," left today to return home. He had only planned to walk a short time. We walked 15.5 miles today. At the end of the day, we arrived at a private family's home (Chris, Lori, and Nick) to stay and have dinner. After dinner, we all watched a shortened version of a documentary about Palden-la. Everyone was quite moved by this video.