From Dorothy in Kansas.

"Water is Life" is the message on the baton we have carried all around the world. The baton is made of a lightweight, strong Dow plastic, white in color and shaped like an hourglass. It is about a foot long and very easy to run with except that it gets hot in your hand. I alternate hands throughout my run which also helps to balance the movement of my arms. The baton unscrews at its middle and becomes two cups from which we have toasted to the cause with water before rejoining the two parts into one. Our message to the world, repeated at every 10 mile exchange point around the world, ends with "now our minds are one." I expect to be toasting from those baton cups with champagne in New York City on September 4!

We're still in Kansas and the flies are driving us batty. In addition to your run of the mill household black fly there are small green biting flies, like the ones that swarm Island Beach on the Jersey shore in August. This is really the first creature annoyance I've experienced since the Russian mosquitoes and deer flies. Perhaps enough time has passed so the Russian experience has paled and no longer overlays the present.

Kansas hospitality is great. The proprietor of our hotel in Oakley, no connection to the sunglasses though you need them here, baked fresh muffins and supplied us with bananas and coffee. She also told us we could swim in her pool all night if we wanted to, a far cry from the rules at most pools. The Kansas folks have been super friendly, supportive and interested in the cause. Another local reporter appeared for an interview first thing this morning at the motel. I think we've had more hits in Kansas from the media than we had in the time getting here from San Francisco.

Every time we comment on a "Point of Interest" our driver Rob says "that's interesting." He's pretty corny so he fits right into Kansas. We continue to be surrounded by acres of corn and sunflowers. I always thought sunflowers faced the sun but have learned that, at least in Kansas, they turn their faces away from the sun. They are like little people, each with their own facial personality. Today we also ran through fields of sorghum and burned out acres of corn. The drought has dried up the corn crop in many places which then gets ignited by lightning. The further we move east in Kansas, the more we see of the drought's effects. In addition to the fields of corn and other crops, Kansas has a spectacular night sky!

We had another time change yesterday so that we are now just one adjustment hour from our finish line in New York City. It is unbelievable. We will get there in great part due to the care given us by our technical folks from Ignition. The boss, Dill, has been feeding us in the middle of nowhere with breakfast for the 9am finishers and dinner for the 9pm finishers from his RV, usually a BBQ. He does this on his own, treating his runner family. He also keeps an eagle eye peeled and does not miss a beat. He is a wild man and his manner can rub folks the wrong way or completely the right way, but no matter what his heart is in the right place. He acts like a guardian angel and even gave each of us one on a small medallion to carry around the globe. When I go to do something like dance wildly or play frisbee, I hear him yell, "Dot, you can't do that. You'll get hurt." Sometimes he is so very right. Simon purchased a long skateboard in Boulder and it was sitting on the ground in front of me by the van as I was stepping out. Dill's voice boomed, "Dot, you can't do that!" He was right. Even if I could it would be an invitation to my death.

It was super hot today, like the reflective stuffy heat in Vegas. The ambient temperature went down and hovered around 90 but the humidity was suffocating. All four of us ran on Old Highway 40. It was ironic to be running 40 on 40. I ran first. The road was dirt, sandy and very dusty with clouds raised every time a vehicle whizzed by. Luckily traffic was light. Jason rode along on the staff mountain bike as my rolling aid station. There was a breeze coming from the north which helped keep the dust from enveloping me as long as I ran on the northern side of the road facing traffic. The first five miles were relatively the same with some rolls and even a few green hills amidst the fields of corn and sorghum. Then we passed through a tunnel of beautiful old giant elms. My final miles were on pavement including some brick road (no, not yellow) through the small town of Ellis. Most of our run today followed the Union Pacific railway. One train passed during my run and, unlike the Trans-Siberian, made a racket all the way through blasting its horn.

We ignited lots of folks today including a group of road bikers who stopped at our third exchange. Locals came out to our dinner party on what was another lovely Kansas night with breezes under the stars.

The bottled water debate continues with earnest. Blue Planet Run is not about bottled water, and its pros and cons. Blue Planet Run is about the six thousand people who die every day because they lack access to safe drinking water. The Blue Planet Run provides funds for locally sustainable projects in developing countries, teaching people how to collect, harvest, filter and protect their safe drinking water. Blue Planet Run does not give people water. It is about teaching them how to acquire their own water and make it safe. The bottled water issue is not about safe drinking water. It is about the trash produced by the containers, the energy used to manufacture the containers, and the misperception that it is a means to save lives. The latter is true in crises, like floods and earthquakes for the short term relief to victims. It is not true as a solution to a lifetime without access to safe drinking water. That solution is what Blue Planet offers through its grants to help needy people who will sustain the solution from a natural water source.

Water is life. Pass it on!