By Caroline Downs

Walking the prairie . . . Rosie Swale-Pope of Tenby, Wales, traveled along U.S. Highway 52 last week, pulling the "Silver Dream Machine" that holds the gear for her walk around the world. Rosie, as she is known to the thousands of people who have met her since she started this venture in 2003, crossed from Canada into North Dakota on January 23rd and plans a route across the state to Grand Forks on her way to Chicago. She hopes to return to her home by Christmas 2007.

"Running around the world is really about getting your work done," said Rosie Swale-Pope of Tenby, Wales. "It’s about working one’s socks off and worrying about one’s family."

Rosie should know. She left her home, grown children and grandson in 2003, shortly after her husband died from prostrate cancer, to take a walk around the world.

"The death of my husband...taught me more than anything about how precious life is," she wrote on her website. "...You HAVE to grab life, do what you can while you can, and try to give something back. I’ll be trying to raise awareness of the following very special small charities--to represent the world: The Prostate Cancer Charity, The Siberian Railway Cancer Hospital at Omsk, the Kitezh Community for Orphan Children Orphanage, the hope of the future of European Russia through its children, and the Nepal Trust...in the Hidden Himalayas."

Rosie had experience as a distance and marathon runner, and had previously sailed around the Horn of Africa with her family and made a solo voyage across the Atlantic. "I practiced for this for several years," she said.

With no major corporate sponsors, she funds her trip by renting out her house in Wales and submitting articles via her Blackberry on a regular basis to Runners World magazine. She also corresponds with her agent about the book she is writing about this trip, titled Just a Little Run Around the World.

She occasionally leaves the road, and her cart, for speaking engagements and presentations that benefit the charities she has selected, with hundreds of thousands of dollars collected so far. In fact, after staying one night in Bowbells, she designated any money donated on the North Dakota leg of her journey for the Bowbells School "Pennies for Patients" fund-raiser.

Despite the obvious weather factors, Rosie chose a northern route for her trip for practical reasons. "It’s best to run around the world where there’s the most land!" she said. "And I like these latitudes. I like the northern people."

She walked across Europe through Holland, Germany and Poland to Moscow, then followed the Trans-Siberian Railway route before crossing the Bering Straits to Alaska and Canada. She plans to continue east through Chicago and New York before heading back into Canada, then Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland and home to Wales.

More information about Rosie’s journey, and the people and places she has seen, can be found at www.rosiearoundtheworld.co.uk. The website is updated and maintained by her son James, complete with information Rosie sends and a guest book that includes comments from her new friends in Kenmare, Bowbells, Portal, Donnybrook and Carpio.

"How exciting to be in the Lower 48," Rosie said as she prepared to continue her walk Friday morning. "I have never been to the heart of America. I’m interested in farming, I’m interested in the people. And I love the prairies. The wind makes up for the flatness!"