I caught up with her at East Colfax Avenue and Ironton Street in Aurora, still not a third of the way to her final destination. Mostly, I wanted to know the dumb stuff.
Like how many pairs of shoes do you go through from Barstow, Calif., to Denver?
Keela Carr laughed, said she gets that question all the time.
She was taping up her feet and putting on socks when I walked up. Her plan, she said, was to walk up Colfax and go another three hours to U.S. 36 before her next scheduled stop.
Her destination is Arlington National Cemetery, which she figures to reach in mid-August.
It is the second time in as many years she has made this trek, part of her A Thousand Thanks campaign. This trip is aimed at improving the lot of homeless military veterans.
She put down the tape, and we chatted.
It all started a little more than two years ago when an Iraq war veteran, who had lost limbs in a bombing, hired her to be his athletic trainer.
She had never taken on a quadriplegic or anyone who had lost a limb, she said. An uncle who had just retired from the Air Force arranged for her a tour of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“I wanted to learn about catastrophic injuries and amputees, how their bodies flow,” Carr explained. “When I got there, I had my mind blown by what my freedom costs, by the sacrifice those men made.”
So a year ago May, she decided to walk across the U.S. to find as many military men and women as she could to personally thank them. She persuaded a friend to tail her in his SUV. They lived in it for her entire journey.
The walk changed her, Carr said. Walking the U.S., you meet all types, including scores of homeless. What she found was that many of the young homeless folks she’d met were honorably discharged vets.
So she decided to do it again, only this time to raise funds for a compound where homeless vets in her native Florida would have a place to start over. She’d found a parcel of land there. It would cost $300,000 to buy. Ultimately, she imagines a nationwide network of similar sites.
She departed June 14, Flag Day, with a sponsored SUV and a trailer to house her food and supplies. She and a crew of three made their way east.
In Kingman, Ariz., Charles Davis, a Vietnam vet who’d read of her, decided he would join her. He runs one of the biggest RV sales and financing outfits in the country.
He gave Carr a 36-foot RV, bought a truck to haul it, and decided to put his business on hold and serve as driver.
“You go to a VA hospital in Prescott or Phoenix,” he explains, his words choked in tears, “and you can understand my decision.”
Carr is 36 years old now with the body of an athlete.
Wolf Creek Pass nearly dropped her, she moans.
“It was 8 miles uphill of hell,” she said. “It took me three hours, seven minutes and 58 seconds to get to South Fork — I timed it. It was a long day.”
She began taping her feet again.
“You want to know if I’m crazy,” she said, half-reading my mind. “Just a little bit, but just the right amount to keep things interesting.
“This is such a good thing. I have seen an amazing country filled with people doing really good things.”
By the way, the answer is four. She is averaging about a pair of shoes per state.
If you want to keep up with her journey, go to .
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
