searching for Keith

I drove out today to assist in the search for Keith Kennedy. I was dressed and prepared for scraping through forest, dense brush, and high prairie. I was not ready, though, for swamp. Oh, sorry.... marsh. Near as I can tell people use the word marsh when they don't want to admit that an area is a swamp. As soon as I got home, I tied my boots up on a pole in the backyard to dry for a few days, dropped all my clothes in the washer, and jumped into the shower, then took a pleasant hot bath to do a thorough check for ticks and other nasties. (None found.)

It was about 100 miles each way. (So that's about $30 in gasoline for the whole trip. Ugh.) When I arrived, they told me to turn around and drive back a few miles to the local fairgrounds. They had shuttle buses carrying folk back and forth. When I got back to the site by shuttle, I signed in at 1:05pm (signed out at 5:50pm) and was the 300th person that day to join their search.

Most of the effort was coordinated by the sheriff's office. I waited about 15 minutes until the next batch of group leaders were ready. Then a fullsize schoolbus took about 60 of us on the next search tour. Each tour, I was told, lasted from 1 to 2.5 hours. Ours, unfortunately, took longer. They drove us about 4 miles away and we got out, lined up along the road, and waited for the signal to start. Lucky us, swamp (oops, I mean marsh) was only a few strides away. I started out this adventure by getting my hiking boots filled with water. There was another swamp farther ahead where I had a hard time pulling my legs out of the muck, and we found several other very wet areas.

I spent the next 2+ hours walking in squishy boots and soaked pants legs. Not pleasant. Supposedly we crossed only about 1 linear mile in that time, but we changed directions a few times and bypassed two fields with bulls so it was a longer walk. I scared off two small deer and one pheasant during my search. I found some beautiful purple daylilies. Who knew that they grew in swamps but not prairies?

We didn't find Keith or any evidence of his trek. I overheard the leaders talking to someone else, and they said that even the "corpse hounds" (was that the term they used? I can't remember) in other groups weren't sniffing out his decomposing body either. So it's been about a week and people still have no idea where he is. While we were waiting for the bus to pick us up from the end of our assigned trail, one woman mentioned that the camp had popped lots of popcorn on Sunday, attempting to lure him back to the site on his own power.

Being my first manhunt, I didn't know what to expect. I think their method is pretty good for getting untrained people to find something/someone that's staying in one place. I think it's pretty bad, though, for finding someone who wants to avoid being found. On my next manhunt, I'll plan to bring waders (for traversing swamp (I mean marsh)), walking stick, and fanny pack.

I hope someday to wander off into the forest and not come back. I don't mean that statement as a metaphor for living on a plot of land away from the cities. I mean it literally. I'll be sure, though, to announce my intentions so that this kind of effort is not launched in a misguided attempt to locate me. And it'll surely not happen while T'Reese is here. She does like her kibble. But someday.... *pleasant daydream*