Hydration Station

Can you believe it has been 6 years since the Joplin Tornado. Man, life has changed. Joplin has healed, maybe not all the way, but has healed. They’ve started to rebuild, but the streets definitely don’t look the same. The new hospital has been built to replace St. John’s. It’s not just Mercy. A memorial park has been created where the old St. John’s Building was.

But every year there is now a memorial walk/run in honor or memory of those who were in the tornado. People come in from all over so I’ve heard. There’s a memory walk, a 5K, 10K, and a full marathon. People run for all different reasons. And all throughout the route are names of the 158 who lost their lives during the tornado.

Our Red Coater Friends have to do community service projects throughout the years and this is the second year they’ve decided to pass out drinks, water/powerade, to the runners. I think for this event we became honorary Red Coaters because we were there at 5:30 at their hotel to meet them and go help set up. I was kind of self-appointed/asked to be the photographer.

We were shocked how cool it was. By the end of our time with them (say 11am) we went on the hunts for sweatshirts/jackets. Luckily for hubby I had a lightweight jacket in the truck he could wear. I already had a sweatshirt on luckily so I sorta saved him. He was still cold. Like I said, it was a lightweight jacket. My sweatshirt wasn’t a whole lot better.

And this last picture, we teased these people running by that they might have been running after the beer truck.