If you're wondering how far 5280 football fields are, the answer is 300 miles. A woman named Karen Smith from Solon, Iowa is walking 300 miles to raise awareness for a variety of mental health issues. Karen is a wife, a mother of 2 boys, and the 3 most important men in her life have had struggles with mental health.

Her husband and two sons all struggle with forms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, and ADHD, according to KCRG. Everyone knows someone or it might even be themselves who struggles with some type of mental health. Karen wants to give her family and others, a reason to speak about their personal struggles.


 

While I can't claim to know anything about what these boys and husband go through, a lot of people around the world can relate. I have multiple friends in my life who have been able to be open about their own struggles and giving them a chance to share and talk about them goes a long way. Karen told KCRG that some days are harder than others.

Some days are harder than others, some weeks are harder than others, and in October we had a rough week.

She started on this journey when one of her sons was having a tough time and she wanted to give him and other people a chance to be more comfortable talking about what they were going through. So, she decided to start walking.

She will be following highway 18 and she started her trek on the bridge at Big Sioux River. She will complete her journey in Marquette, according to KCRG. You can follow along with Karen and her journey on the MMMH Walk Accorss Iowa 2022 Facebook page and as of June 19th, she has been walking for 15 days.

So far, Karen has dealt with the excessive heat, blisters on her feet, strong winds, and she's had to climb up hills, and yet, she keeps on walking. She walked a little over 15 miles yesterday with her walk starting in Charles City as she headed east on highway 18.

Karen shares videos talking about her adventure as she walks, she shares photos of places she's stopped and has done a fantastic job keeping her over 200 followers updated on her travels. She has a Go Fund Me page set up for you to donate and at the time of writing this is only $800 away from her goal of $4,000. All of the funds donated will go to mental health crisis and awareness organizations.

Hilarious Iowa DOT Signs

Anyone else share a sense of humor with a state's Department of Transportation? Just me? Well, every Monday the Iowa Department of Transportation puts up a sometimes hilarious, sometimes straightforward message on their road signs across the state. This is called "message Monday" and Iowa DOT tries to entertain and educate drivers through these signs. Here are just a few of our favorites.

LOOK: The most extreme temperatures in the history of every state

Stacker consulted 2021 data from the NOAA's State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC) to illustrate the hottest and coldest temperatures ever recorded in each state. Each slide also reveals the all-time highest 24-hour precipitation record and all-time highest 24-hour snowfall.

Keep reading to find out individual state records in alphabetical order.

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