NEW YORK — Eight months, two weeks and two days after she took her first steps eastward, Jazzy Jordan, 17, will be finishing her cross-America run Tuesday of this week by trotting into Times Square, sometime between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

The Ashby, Minn., teen is raising money for the St. Christopher’s Development and Relief Fund, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to truckers who need but cannot afford medical aid.

A few days before her trans-continental trip ended, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sent an envoy to meet and congratulate Jazzy, calling her a true-American hero.

That she is.

If you check out www.runwithjazzy.com, you can find a day-by-day account of her incredible journey, including the message from LaHood.

“That,” her dad Lee told todaystrucking.com, “is a blog worth hanging on to.”

Jazzy had numerous police escorts during
her run across America.

Her run has indeed been heroic. Accompanied all the while by her dad, Lee, who is a trucker and former professional wrester, Jazzy has endured storms, road closures, rock slides, injuries and even an MVA in which the truck her dad was driving got T-boned by a passing motorist. The truck was totaled.

And Jordan Sr., who operates a pilot-car business out of their home in Minnesota, helped rescue the car driver from her overturned vehicle.

They’ve also run into red tape but always managed to snip their way through. At one point during the run they were told that Jazzy would not be allowed to run across a certain toll bridge in Maryland.

“One call to OOIDA in Washington, and the next day, at 8:40, we had full clearance to cross that bridge.”

And the next bridge? After the run?

Lee says Jazzy will probably return to high school in Ashby to finish her senior year and “act like a kid again.”

He also said he wasn’t sure yet how much money they’ve raised for the St. Christopher’s fund.