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Stories Below are unedited excerpts from my journal from September 2002 to November 2002 traveling Maine to Massachusetts. Current excerpts are on my blog at http://www.whitecrowwalking.blogspot.com. I hope you will enjoy them. Please let me know what you think by emailing me at jwc@whitecrowwalking.com. I can't check my email often but I'd love to hear from you and will get back to you as soon as possible. 15 September 2002 It would be wonderfully easy to say that a few months ago I threw some gear in a backpack after halfheartedly thinking up the idea of exploring America entirely on foot. The truth is I've been haunted by this idea longer than I have ever been in love with anything, or anyone. In my heart it became the one steadfast thing that gave me comfort when nothing else made sense, or measured up to the hopes I had. The walk became my secret passion. I would buy anything for her, and over the years I did. I became a gear junkie. When my military adventures weren't enough, I shared the company of Colin Fletcher, Peter Jenkins, Barbara Savage and many other contemporary explorers through their books. When I completed my tour with the 82ND Airborne Division in the eighties I was a bit wired, a little naïve, a lot younger and ready push my limits. I was crazy. I knew there were things in life, in this country even, that I still needed to explore. I had reached the point where I had to find out for myself--not from books, movies or the good intention of my peers-- where life could take me. For a dozen years, and in many different ways, I've tried to settle down, but it was always impossible to rest in one place while my heart watched the door. I no longer wanted to be a spectator of someone else's written experience. The fever to explore was firmly embedded in my flesh. I wanted to witness America, the creation, for myself. Jumping out of airplanes doesn't do favors for your knees, just as 39 years doesn't do favors for your back. I realized that my procrastination would have to come to an end. If I really wanted to leave the armchair, and was seriously thinking that I could explore the peoples and land of North America I needed to set a firm date. I also needed to train carrying the equipment that I would need to preserve my life, and my stories. I was ready to breathe for the first time as a truly free soul. What began to wake me in middle of the night was no longer the fear of the walk but rather the fear on not attempting the walk. This is my story--my adventure. This is why at nearly forty years old I left my log cabin, family, a slew of belongings, and countless other wonderful people and material things. It is strange that sometimes the hole inside us needs everything lost to begin to fill the void. 17 September 2002 I am constantly amazed by my foolish heart, and where it leads
me. Alexcia walks the hill toward Jordon Pond house from the Cobble
Stone Bridge #24 in Acadia National Park just off the coast of Maine.
I am already sick with want for her company. My pack is thrown open
by my hands, spilling out the gear I spent two and half days packing
and re-packing. Weaning down ounces to save pounds now means so
much less. Everything I have here is all that I now own for sure.
It is littered around me just so I could get to this fresh pad to
record this miserable moment of wanting gone bad. We will be a long
time waiting (no matter how long) to dance for any silly reason
in our kitchen while breakfast or dinner sings on the stove behind
us. 18 September 2002 Today the flood of emotion has seeped into the earth and I am in love with the rich prospect of living walking, meeting and discovering a dearer life. The residual effect of the sunrise stains the ridge of the mountains where earth touches sky. The pond in front of me is the blue of the skies belly. Everything is made round with the song of the first wild loon that I have ever heard. 2000 hours. The wind picks up. If it were not for the brightness of the stars I would have bet anything on rain. In this land of no camping, I have no choice but to not use a tent. Throughout the night large slugs move across my body. Although this sounds revolting is a gentle sensation. Silent travelers cover me, and my island of new equipment as I try to sleep on this ancient forest floor. It is only the travelers coming across my face and eyes that temporarily wake me. Like cool tears that know nothing of gravity the slugs move up and across my head. With gentle fingers, unsure at first what I am removing, I begin peeling the visitors from my exposed skin and eyelids, and toss them onto the leaf litter. Once I fall back to sleep it isn't long until another tourist ascends the summit of my face. 19 September 2002 Walking about 0800 I hesitate against the morning chill, and procrastinate
in the velvet warmth of my down bag. It is still too warm for my
20 degree bag, but it is bliss compared to the morning air. Tossing
and turning while watching the lake below, and ocean beyond, through
limbs of my camp is an easy alternative to rising. My right knee
complains as I break this crude camp of a plastic sheet and a sleeping
pad in a circle of equipment. 20 September 2002 Today is the conclusion of the carriage trails on Acadia. I wish Bad-bad-bad. The wind is tearing rather than blowing. This is my third tent site tonight, minus the tent. I've walked three or four miles since Acadia's welcome center. The first site just happened to be the home of a million fire ants. I moved their log, set camp and became the target of their quick fury. Same field, different site, no dead stump to move, same result. Now I am on a stone-wall above a small creek. The stonewall is as narrow as my mummy pad at its widest point. I scratch and abuse my equipment but I have passed the point of concern. Soon new bites are radiating the thick warmth, hitting all over my body again. Like a drunk soldier I moan from the wall slapping my body with heavy hands. My gear is strapped to my pack as if I've never camped before. I find that I have to talk myself down. With words like I am talking to a child, I tell myself that we will sleep soon, and that I am sorry. It sooths my fury, and eases the knots in my spine. My headlamp is set again on my forehead, as I wander through the roadside hedge out into the tar at 2400hrs. I wander along the roadside for half a dozen miles feeling less sleep drunk but finally admitting I am wasted. After entering the woods where no lights from homes come to me, I curl up at the base of a large tree and sleep. Finally there are no ants. 21 September 2002 0900 hours. A blonde pulls up to the country store I rest in front
of. Climbing out of her green pick-up I notice her shades mirroring
from a pretty face, a white tank top pulled thin over a full bra,
and brown Carhart pants. Walking by she offers me a soft smile that
melts every thought in my head. The romance of being a man spills
over me. Explorer. Discovering a country. For this moment the fire
ants are forgotten. The idea of experiencing this country feels
really good again. It is 1000 hours, and people are gathering for the garlic and smoked food fest at the micro brewery across the street. I've already been over to the brewery and made a few introductions, and I explain what I am doing. Suddenly I am thankful for the days I spent at Acadia National Park walking the carriage roads. I wanted to start walking east the first day I began but a clip in the newspaper about this food festival struck my interest. It is already late in the year. I know that there will be few gatherings remaining. I decided to spend the first week getting used to my backpack, and waiting for this festival. This week has been a wonderful prelude for food, company, and yes, beer. I approach the man in charge, Doug, and tell him that I want to be involved. In half a minute I am wearing my own brand new t-shirt made only for volunteers. In my right hand is a pint glass with classy blue logo, " BAR HARBOR REAL ALE, ATLANTIC BREWING COMPANY, BAR HARBOR, MAINE." I am free to fill and re-fill the glass with all the beer I want. No charge! Soon half a dozen volunteers and myself are huddled around a plastic garbage can husking garlic just like K.P. duty in the army, only we all smile and tell stories that keep us from being strangers long. I make fast friends. My pack sits with the rain cover on, hiding everything of value as I rush through the day helping people with their food, and delivering beer. Over and over I contemplate how complete this day is. Even when the crowd grows to over a thousand people I am carefree. The weather is perfectly warm and clear. Hours ago a sea of ants drove me mad. Now I am among the rich, the middle-class, and the sincerely happy to be alive. The autumn air swirls with smoking wood that flavors goat, and pink shrimp. Ice cold beer fills our heads as wonderfully as the live music. We all dance even as we sit and eat. I eat raw garlic dipped in dark chocolate, feeling it grow sharp in my cheeks. Too soon the crowd leaves for home. A few faces linger at the outside bar with mine. We share stories of traveling the world. Each of us grabs the mental hand of the listeners, and we are all in Belfast, Ireland with a gang of streetwise punks taunting our ears. We are on a boat off Mexico. We are a dozen places, but for now we are in the hand of another, and it better than being in a tent alone. We are all still sober. Small voices begin to surface in the minds of those that have someone at home waiting. One by one the small group thins until I am alone walking into the woods behind the brewery. Listening to the quiet sounds of the town I wait in my tent for small voices to talk me to sleep. 22 September 2002 1200 hours. Down the road from a Wal-mart, that I had no need to stop at, I strike it rich. Free pails of tiny wild blueberries. A sign on the ground reads blueberries for sale. I guess the idea was abandoned along with the berries. I look for a money cup, and have some change ready. Nothing. I unclip my titanium mug, dust off the ants, and half fill my cup with pure blue sugar. Prior to now I had no idea that 8oz. of blueberries could alter an afternoon. Yesterday's festival of garlic and smoked food sailed by in a great swirl of flavors, and all the free micro brew beer I could drink. Not having the desire to be sick or mentally lost, I gained and maintained a sweet euphoric tingle in my head while I made countless new friends. The pack is extremely overweight today, but my head is a lighter load of thinking. Tomorrow there will be a post office visit, and I'll wave good-bye to things I couldn't live without a week ago. If your swimming the ocean and your belongings don't float you leave them. Walking I need to float too. My body is only moving at fifteen miles a day because of this load and because my body is still adapting to its new life. If the pack can loose 15 lbs of gear I'll gain a third more miles, hurt less, smile more, and have less chance of injury. My other gear will also wear better. Everything drags now. I am amazed I've done so much and lasted this long. I set camp with just a screen teepee. About 2200hrs a few drops of rain fall. It takes not even a minute to throw the weatherproof fly over the netting and loop the stakes. In an hour it is pouring and the tent drums me to sleep. 23 September 2002 Today I better understand my dogs back home. Even with the desire
to continue walking into the gentle rain, there is the urge to close
my eyes and recharge, but I force my legs to start walking. 24 September 2002 There will be many nights that I will long for a camp as beautiful
as this lakeside in Orland. It is incredible. To wake to crows,
sleep by loons and have hot coffee and oatmeal in the cool morning
air blowing across the water into my tent. This is truly a gloriously
simple gift. 25 September 2002 1800 hours. Sitting at a trucker bar to recharge, I am not so out of place. All are unshaven, wearing rough and worn clothing. Everyone has the obvious air of being from elsewhere else. In the bathroom my sock liners are soaped then rinsed clean as they are at every rest stop that offers warm water from a tap. Liners are thin white synthetic socks that are worn under heavy hiking socks to extend wear, regulate foot temperature, and reduce friction and hot spots that cause blisters. Refreshed and optimistic I see Belfast as a reasonable prospect before the sun is surrendered to the trees. The weatherman said clear skies all night. The skies are a thick gray soup but at least it isn't raining. I am ten days into the walk. Just into Belfast on the right is a pub with an almost hidden sign Belfast Bay Brewing Co. I waddle in, quickly dropping my pack by a vending machine, and aim for the bar. Remarkably I make it on my wobbling legs. For nearly an hour I sit and nurse my Mack Point IPA, and eat hot fries with a free side of saucy meatballs that are tender, moist and everything high calorie that I wasn't going to have on the camp stove tonight. A quarter of a mile later I am standing at a perfect site on a knoll above a field complete with a dirt driveway. Tonight I call it home. 26 September 2002 At The Gothic Coffee Shop in Belfast Stephanie is wonderfully awakened as I walk in with all my gear and scruffy face announcing, "I love you." She at once starts laughing and we are quick friends. Of course I mean fully that I love her when she hands me a hot large latte, and a buttered poppy lemon muffin. With my two seconds of flirting concluded I settle back to a corner table with my back to the wall. 1145 hours. With the coming of rain, thoughts and questions sink
deeper as if it allows them to soak into my soul. I begin to consider
all the half-hearted things I left behind, and how so much of my
life just came about with little action of my own. In truth I never
decided on many things, and by not deciding I am throwing up my
hands on a lot that mattered. This walk is a gesture to myself to
signal that there is more to me, to life. What do I need? What do
I need to give away? What do I need to become to give my best to
others, while still having a little soul left for me? The employment
I left behind was only a means to save for this walk. Returning
to construction is something I don't want. My head and heart want
something more than rip and tear under a barbarity of noise, constant
orders, and speed rather than care. Before I left on this journey
I visited my cousin Peter. He was happily carving slots in a beam
to receive wooden pegs and matching hewn beams for a job he was
working on. As I made small talk in his driveway I noticed the beauty
of, and his care for his antique tools. There was also this incredible
peace on his face. I told him that he looked like he loved what
he was doing. 27 September 2002 The New York Times today reads that you are poor if you make less than $9,039 a year and are single or $11,569 a year if you are married. I wonder how far, and for how long I could walk with $9,000. I also wonder if they know how to measure how rich I am. Knowing a storm was due in today I plan for a camp of several days.
I buy more food in Belfast to add to an already burdensome pack.
I make camp on the best site that I can find. Of course level ground
is always more desired but seldom can I shop around when it is already
dark and homes are all around. Camp leans slightly downhill. Water
quickly runs low. Wiping plants and the tent with a pac towel, I
wring it into a pot to filter. This keeps the act of eating and
being in camp close to comfortable. No matter how hard it rains
an empty pan set in a clearing only gets wet. The pan never gathering
any quantity of water that I can drink. My back remains an issue,
so I rest by staying put and naps. 28 September 2002 A young man pulls his car over. His appears to be fresh from the clutches of his parents, and is over eager to know what life feels like. Free life. Quickly he is out of his worn sedan carrying a huge smile, and nothing else. I see myself standing before me. Its is weeks just before I enlisted in the army. I'd forgotten that hungry look. After he asks a couple of details about what I am doing he is thrilled to shake my hand. After asking if he can grab his camera, my picture is taken with one of those send the whole camera in for developing deals. He calls me Sir - and means it. I am extremely flattered by his excitement in my walk but tell him I am at that point of uncertainty. "You have to do it," he says, like I am doing something beyond mortal power, and in the process might just save humanity. Mr. Ohio hopes into his faded blue sedan and is out of my life as quickly as he had pulled in. I forgot that my skin was once so smooth. Thinking about bears I hope for no company tonight. The season
draws late and a hard frost is due in. I hope the blueberries have
been good here so I can save my pink skin. This is the best site
I've had since the first day when I hid away at Acadia. Even now
this covert tenting eats at the nerves. There is always the fear
that my trespass will be caught. And there is always my mind, the
cruel creature inside my head that converts the discussions of the
geese, now coming on water for the night, into people talking about
my tent or the hiker they saw leave the road just before sunset.
Then there are the cruel truths. All of the people you secretly
thought you'd impress--your lover, friends, brother and his buddies
at the gym that lift cars for exercise--it all goes to steam. No
one is really counting these miles, pounds. Almost and what ifs
never enter their minds. The dog that just barely missed biting
my leg today is of no consequence. Tomorrow there will be another
dog just as intent on becoming a target for my swinging stick. Early camp. The earliest camp so far. Tomorrow I plan to burn a
lot of miles so today I charge my soul in the beauty that is all
around me. Twenty feet away the sound of water cupping against large
worn stones gives birth to the sound that is in my ears, and it
circles me like a heartbeat. On a heavy bed of white pine needles
I breathe easy on my back, watching the antlers of fallen branches
hanging white as bone in the trees. 1855 hours. Dinner is couscous, jerky and pancakes. I eat smiling. Clean up is fast. The front of the teepee faces the water. There is always the dull fear of being ousted from this campsite just as the sun fans the horizon with color. From the less than simple inconvenience of having to move camp in the dark, there is also the worry over what I'd lose in relocating in the dark under the eyes, and possible gun, of an overly concerned land holder. Already I've been forced to walk the tar roads in the dark as headlights blew by, but not by the orders of someone asking me to move on. Even with reflectors and a headlamp it is unsettling. Always, the later it gets the braver or bolder my choices become for a place to sleep for the night. 29 September 2002 My dreams have become like movies in their length, meaning, plot
and clarity. Also my memory over the most trivial thing has rejuvenated.
It is as if one of my senses was removed and it has been replaced
with another. Books, the frequent company of friends, and television
have been replaced by dreams. 30 September 2002 0630 hours. The crows have just found my camp. Not unlike the greeting of a loving dog, I love the excited barks and caws that demand notice. I say hello to the black birds aiming my thoughts toward another hour of sleep. Crows are one voice that comes from home like a letter. No matter where I am I stop and try to read it. Sometimes it just says, "Hello, you're not alone." Other times it speaks of love, secrets, giving thanks, and questions if I need all the food I'm eating. China, Maine. 1800 hours. The personality of strangers has warmed considerably. Everyone says hello. Soft smiles replace accusing faces. The smiles are almost jealous. At a small Citgo I eat pizza and buy supplies. I try a local beer, mostly because I don't need all the sugar in soda, and I still feel silly buying water even after all my years of hiking in dry lands. My cell phone drinks a trickle from an outside outlet. Soon I'll be on roads I have never traveled over. 1 October 2002 Camp is down and packed. Again the crows came to wake me. Today
I listened to their warnings. Gunfire began coming from all directions.
They're hunting bird, I think. I must get to the road quickly. 1810 hours. End of the day. Camp is fresh again. Shadows take over
the forest. Throughout the woods are fired 12 gauge shotgun cases.
I surround my camp with houses to help prevent a skylight from being
added to my tent….or me. 2 October 2002 I stopped around 5pm at Little Dan's BBQ. I smell it for half a mile down the road, and had, to find the source and then find my wallet. Dropping my gear, I hope the place isn't doing a special closed function. I walk past the empty picnic tables to the log cabin built on a four wheel flat bed trailer. Not stopping wasn't an option. I ask one of the sons what most people ordered. He recommends pulled pork on a roll. The hot BBQ sauce is added to the butter tender pork that overflowed the roll. I swallow a lot of saliva staring at the delicacy all the way to the wooden bench. I give thanks, but it is a fuzzy blur of words in a rush for the Amen. Bringing the filled roll up to my mouth I am high on the smoky moist waves that enter my nose. I bite, but chewing is only a formality. I hate that I have nobody to rave over the flavor with. The meat is everything smoked meat should be but rarely is-nothing superficial. Every molecule is smoked. I swig my ice tea and try to slow my chewing. Several miles later I am mad that I didn't think to pack some of the mind altering meat with me - it is that good! Dan, the owner and originator of Dan's BBQ goes from small talk to giving me a full tour of his dream that is in the process of becoming reality. Dan's restaurant is under construction just behind the cabin on the flatbed. Inside the building is a kitchen quickly taking shape as a BBQ house. Dan's fatherly pride sparkles over his venture. Dan is ten years my senior but for whatever reason we have ended up on the same page at the same time, living our dreams. Dan's parents used to run a restaurant and for years this has been the very thing he's wanted to do. We shake hands several times, and then I too soon I am walking toward my goal. It feels good knowing that after our talk Dan's assembling a stainless steel table, or by now he is working on some other feature late into the night that will help deliver up his dream. Over half of Maine is done. Even though the miles sometimes fall
past too slowly the people Winthrop, Maine. 1325 hours. By a small marsh I collect enough large snails for my lunch. While the water considers when to boil I wash up and think about this interesting lunch, and how to make it hotter. The snails mark another first. The boil the quarter size shells for five minutes. Draining the water my knife begins the task of recovering the creatures from their shells. A loon sings nearby. With spicy noodles that look a bit too much like thin worms, I brave my interesting lunch. Some of the snails don't surprise me but rather taste…like snails. The smaller snails taste like great white meat. After eating them all I find I like my twig tea the most.
A visitor is in camp. It is nearly midnight. I roll while sleeping and an instantly a recognizable scent boils into my head. SKUNK. The animal has only released enough smell to announce itself. It stamps its feet in anger, sniffs, and again all is silent. Complaining softly I go back to sleep. As soon as my breathing is relaxed and I feel myself slip into a mild snore another slap comes across my face. There is nothing that I can do. If I opened the tent door I'll get sprayed. If I yell my tent will get hit full force. For the next hour while the nosey bandit explored my camp I receive a scent complaint each time I fall asleep. Happily, heavy rain begins sending my visitor off into the forest. Finally I am able to fall asleep. From twenty feet away I can smell my tent A groups of crows come to my smelly tent. I'm amazed at this feat. Nearly every morning crows come to my front door waking me at 0620. This is not an easy task considering I have a round base tent with only a zipper identifying the front of the shelter. Another blessing that is a constant is all of the great gifts the road offers up. If I want it or need something it is guaranteed that I will find it within two days, usually one, on the side of the road. These are little things, certainly, but just as the birds do not worry where their food will come from…….. 4 October 2002 When denied childhood we spend the rest of our life looking for it. Yes more success or fortune would insulate me from the chill of hard times but really experiencing life-not through books or television alone-is essentially me. Television really has done great things for this world of over six billion. I think of how crowded all the parks, galleries, forests, lakes, streets and land as a whole would be if the globe shut off its television as a whole, and everyone ran outside. Everyone would be at the mercy and manners of those around them, intimately knowing this earth, its sunrises and these leaves ripe with color. Guess I'd have to bug out, and try my best to find a good thick book. 0900 hours. The rain has stopped, and I've found the remains of a moose. It was a victim of a car. Its remains are now little more than fur and bones, and a large patch of greasy leaves that circle out from the dead animal. The huge frame amazes me. Lifting the bones to get a understanding of the animal tells me nothing. A hollow feeling grows under my layers of clothes. Putting a hoof in my pocket to make into a rattle later, I whisper thank you and walk away. It is strange how the mind works. My brother Steve has been dead for nearly twenty years. When I think of returning home I see him there, as if my returning home will return all the people that I have ever lost. I am excited even after I explain the truth to myself. I think it's the moose. 1930 hours. White sage burns in my small teepee tent. I inhale the clean calm. My breathing is smooth as if the air has been combed. Tonight is the first heavy frost. The color today was unearthly. Maple, birch, oaks and the blonde hair of the white pine all ruffled in their colorful intensity. My memory is repairing itself. Names, faces and events from long ago become vivid.
As I passed one front porch in a series of homes that blinked behind
a thin line of trees a voice called out to me, "Where you headed?"
"On a long hike," is my response, figuring that I would
give the 25-year-old brunette a smile and take my leave. "Well,
why don't ya come up here and tell me about it." 6 October 2002 Camp Kokatusi. Todd Southwick, part of the family that owns the campground, oversees the camp. Looking at him I notice that he's a few years younger than I am. As I rebuke myself for not being carved into society like Todd I see the faint gleam in Todd's eyes grow as I answer the questions asked by the people who have gathered outside the camp store. We are related. As I ask about Todd's world I think what if, and can tell that he is doing the same. Most people are afraid to live the life I have adopted. I am equally afraid to live a conventional life. Todd offers the use of a camp shower, but I just showered yesterday and don't want to shock my system after these weeks without. As I feed my phone a charge in the game room, I watch the campers leave. I miss traveling in my old Airstreams, and the strong sense of community that comes with seasonal trailer-parks. 0200 A scream, louder than any real scream I've ever heard, tears me from my sleep. It lasts about ten seconds and sounds like a cross between a cat and a woman. The cry ices my nerves so completely that I know sleep will not return to me tonight. It is an hour later. A sleep drunk squirrel fell from a tree limb above my tent, landing right above my head. I freak, and start punching. The petrified animal claws, and cries down the side of my shelter until it hit the ground, and then I hit it. Still scared by the airborne visit I punched the side of the tent, sending the little traveler on another flight. I hear him barking madly into the black of the forest until my pulse calms and I try to steal more sleep. The travel cards have been a wise investment of time and materials.
Whenever I give one out eyes light up, and my walk becomes real
to them. We live in a paper driven society. No matter how silly
it seems we tend to accept paper as truth. I rely on this fact,
especially in the minds of those that don't trust strange faces. 7 October 2002 Brighton, As I walk through a delightful Victorian section that is totally unexpected. A man in his late 40s or 50s begins to talk to me as he walks his Jack Russell Terrier, and another small spotted dog of similar breed. We begin to converse with simple ease that usually only comes after knowing someone for a long time. Even as I begin to walk away, we compare lives in our conversation, reasons we are here on this stage in our lives, travels done or yet to do, and the beauty of the unexpected things life constantly offers up. He gives his name but it slips my mind as I juggle all the things that we were talking about. I tried to understand the instant feeling of comfort I have with this man. We shake hands like relatives that will meet again. Fortunately he has my card. Maybe our futures will reconnect. 8 October 2002 Naples, although as attractive as any clean town is adjacent to well maintained lakes, came and was gone in little more than one sweep of the road. I had expected Bridgton to be a farmer haunt badly in need of new boards, paint and a lot of financial blood in its veins. Clearly I was wrong. No one mentioned this town to me before I arrived, or its romantic look. The town survives an era when every layer of a house was decorated like a wedding cake, and every storefront is worthy of special attention. I slept in the hills above Brigton, and I surprise myself by returning today to visit the village with its shops open. It is very rare for me to backtrack to see anything. 9 October 2002 There is too much to write about, and describe. All around me is an impressionistic painting that moves in slow frames of light. From where I sit on a bench, rocks squat in front of me in the shallow shore. I can see Mt. Washington and its dusting of snow arch its back at the sky across the water, and also in a perfect reflection. Water for hot chocolate begins to boil. Pancake batter waits for the stove, promising gold brown circles of bread that already have my mouth watering . Hot cocoa is poured. I sip and watch the loons while the frying pan heats up. They are so close that the speckling of their feathers is clear. Their song comes to me. I pour batter on the hot metal and a familiar hiss sooths the pan. I unwrap my plains flute and begin to play for the loons. The notes move easy over the water even though my fingers feel stiff. Contrary to the breeze the water remains glass. Logs well below the surface are seen in perfect detail. Just outside Brighton, Maine The Little Mountain Store seduces you in with its large wooden
rocking chairs on its front porch. I had to stop. Becky, whose family
owns the store, introduces herself and asked the usual question. "How far are you going?" Fryburg Walking through the center of Fryburg I meet a man that says he's
seen me hiking earlier but his son and he thought I was from Australia
because I was hiking in the middle of nowhere, and winter almost
here. "No one from America would be caught out on a journey
this late in northern New England," he remarked. I shrugged
weakly. Yards away from the state line I settled into a thin forest beside the road. Tomorrow I'll get my first state line crossing on film. Prompted by last nights camp, I think the moose will fish with the bears in my dreams tonight. 10 October 2002 1600hrs. I start the day with a picture at the state line. One
state is behind me. I am giddy and light. On the side of the road
I find a perfect apple. Polishing it on my shirt I can feel my mouth
prepare for the sweet taste. I bite the hard apple and it is heavenly.
. 1930hrs. Another day resigns. The sun never did bother showing itself so
darkness comes more like a slow deepening of gray. I tie the food
up in a white birch. I wonder whether it matters. All of this climbing
and tying is for nothing if Mr. Bear likes the smell of my mountain
soap or foot powder. 11 October 2002
With five to eight thousand black bears in New Hampshire combined with this being their "Eat all you can" season I again tie the food bag in the trees. Equipment is always being cleaned, repaired, unbent, sewn or tinkered with in some fashion. It is part of the trip. It is ironically a very enjoyable part. There is a great feeling that comes with caring for the things that care for you. When I first went into the army in the early eighties I hated cleaning my M-16. We cleaned our rifles a lot. As soon as we flawlessly cleaned and oiled our weapons we'd run to do field exercises with them, or spend a day at the firing range. With a great deal of time spent doing something I hated I decided to find peace in the task instead of dread. I learned to enjoy the meditative pleasure doing a good job on my machine gun. For hours I was free to think of my girl back home, my grandmother, friends I lost, and the joy of just being alive. To this day I still enjoy breaking down a firearm and spending hours cleaning it while I wander in my mind. I am my grandfather, and his grandfather before him. Tomorrow Alexcia will meet me in Laconia. A month has gone by. It will be so good to have her companionship. In my sleep I dream of food but when I wake my ribs are still hard against my skin like a greyhound. Soon I'll be seriously chowing. 14 October 2002 1930hrs. Quick camp. Where Alexcia found me beside the road two
days ago she has returned me. I walk a half-mile in the dark after
Alexcia's tail lights blinked good-bye, and then I walk into the
trees. A horse across the road complains in a long whinny that is
unnerving. He is afraid. So am I. 15 October 2002
Moultonborough, NH John Oliver greeted me when I stopped for coffee at a small market.
I gave my card, and soon my stories were being shared to several
new faces. While eating the leftovers from Alexcia's visit I watched
John go about his care-taking job next door. Soon we were talking
again. John told me about his son that traveled the way I do. I
talked about where I'd been and where I was going. A lot of people
asked questions. John really listened. He had lived his life in
the area, and talked about his town in a proud and loving way that
made you glad he was there to share it with you. We shook hands
several times the way people do when they finally met someone they
never expected to meet but hoped that they would. 1830hrs. In my tent I consider the hand written signs on Rt 25B.THREE
HUNDRED PLUS POUND BLACK BEAR WITH TWO CUBS SEEN HERE October 2002.
I cook dinner behind an antique graveyard set in the woods, always
watching the trees. I hang the food sac over a large gravestone
from the limb of an old oak. I feel like Huck Finn in the cemetery
with a dead cat after dark as I try to hang my food bag. Again I
sleep with my tomahawk at the ready. I am ten feet from the graveyard. Wasn't it Dr. Wayne Dyer that said that it isn't turning forty
that causes the distress, it is the knowing that you will never
see or do so many things in this life that before now were open
to you? What helps me put these boots on week after week, month
after month is this knowledge. I have always been good at leaving
and remembering. There is often the dull pang as I release another
handshake or fall from another embrace good-bye, but I think of
the faces that are still stranger to me, and I am hungry again.
Twenty years ago exactly I graduated high school. They were right.
Without even a square of rubber at the end of a stick to slow the
speed of one day the years have raced past. My last employer told me that I could not talk and work at the
same time. "Give one up," he said. Sometimes it is easy
to walk.
1430hrs. Again it rains. I am in a shower with my clothes on and no soap. Burger King. Hot food. My cell phone drinks a trickle silently
beside me, as I unwrap burgers like presents. The rain falls harder.
I sigh contentedly as my clothes and pack make puddles on the floor
that connect under my table. Sometimes a warm burger with fries
is just what the inner stove needs to thaw the whole house. I think
I am eating with my eyes closed. 17 October 2002 1200hrs. Already out of Plymouth I worry that I am moving too fast
but the newspaper shows that they are shoveling snow just north
of me as winter closes in. Starring at the sky I walk faster. The morning paper reads about the dying moose population. Thousands
of ticks are covering the young. As winter does its tour they are
so weakened by the ticks feeding on them that they die. Ten young
moose were given tick collars in a study case. All died. The paper
talked about the effect on hunters. I felt worry for the moose. 19 October 2002 A dog bays. He is brave in the sunlight. The coyotes that sang
heavy throughout the night are partied out. Today life is everywhere.
Crows waited for me in a short tree outside my tent. I say good-morning
and half the congregation flies off. Even the beaver that spanked
the river in front of my tent all night, protesting my visit, is
gone. The sun reawakens the color of the leaves. It is a good morning
for pancakes. With fingers dumb from the cold I make batter and
hum a song that is warmer without words. 1300hrs. Wentworth. The heart of the village falls on the right
of Rt 25N. With leaves falling, the village green looks like an
autumn table cloth. In my mind minute-men gather in formation on
the green in front of the white steeple and vintage buildings. Without
a sound I can hear the church bell toll. This is a living postcard
of New England. My camera stays asleep deep in my pack. Often when
I take a picture I don't stop to really see what I'm trying to capture,
and then weeks later I will begin a long journey wondering what
existed outside the frame of the photograph I barely remember taking.
Today I just look. 1430hrs. I am spoiled. As soon as the trees are weak in view, or
the air does not seem as magically new, people blow into my life.
The river of Wentworth becomes a reservoir. A green truck with Oregon
plates pulls in front of me. The truck stops with windows down.
Hazards blink as the passenger excitedly offers food and questions.
The young woman driver smiles. She's amused. In a minute they are
in the back of the truck searching through groceries. They'd just
left a co-op of some sort. Food is everywhere. 20 October 2002 1420hrs. Vermont. It begins to rain. I write quickly. All the leaves flutter in pre-storm excitement. Heading north on Rt 5, I am certain of snow. My house is pregnant with food. I am swollen with excitement like a buck in rut. I am far enough from everywhere familiar to feel my pulse in my forehead. Here the cell phone is a paperweight…but I have no paper outside of this pad. Farmer Hodges Country Store Stepping out of the drizzle I enter the market after leaving my
pack by the wooden bins of apples. Once I walked in the door I am
not allowed to keep to myself. Mrs. Hodges addresses me as I wipe
the rain from my face. 21 October 2002 More rain. I finish Peter Jenkins book Walk Across America 2. Over
a quarter of a century has ticked by since he began his walk in
1973. Twenty-nine years later I wander a similar road, but it often
seems unrelated. Everything is so/too different today. Even Cadillac
Mountain where I began my walk seems years ago. It is Sunday. I am hungry but this is different. Without any spiritual
food I walk always feeling like I forgot something. I love having
a belief in a Creator that sees what I can be rather than what I
am. I can rarely do that for myself. I stop beside another river
until I am a deeper calm. Today this is my congregation. East Corinth People here appear to have time for life. Everyone smiles, asks
questions, and then hurries off for some outdoor adventure of their
own. People pass me on the road riding quads, with bodies fat in
warm clothing. The small markets is packed with day-hikers, and
hunters in red plaid. We all want sandwiches, but the line is more
like a town meeting than a column of wanting stomachs. Wait River Passing a small ranch house with chickens running all over the
yard makes me double back. Always I have been in love with the idea
of stopping at a farm-house to buy eggs for a foot journey. Although
my mind wants no part of it my body refuses to leave. As I knock
on the door I can't believe my body just over-ran my brain. 22 October 2002 0800hrs. The first real snow has fallen. I sweep it away from my door flap, shake from my shelter an inch of snow, and start the stove. Eggs are for breakfast, and I eat nearly a dozen. With cold fingers I cup my hands around the fins of the stove that hold the pan stable, and enjoy the warmth of the eggs spreading light inside my ribs. 1335hrs. Below freezing. The wind has not left my face all day. At thirty-nine I am too old today. Everything pulls fast and heals slowly. Above me the sun winks free of the clouds. Hope. The mountains are unceasing. My legs quietly complain in their own montra. They are sure that I can't hear them. A dozen years ago this would be a bother, or an insult. Today these mountains slap. A gentle fear that I can't build this tower sits up in me. 1730hrs. Orange, Vt. RT 302. Re-supplied my pack is a large stone.
We are strangers that sometimes just can't get along. An elderly
lady asked me into her house when I asked for water. This is odd
to me. America is nervous after Sept 11th, and now there is a gunman
in the news that is targeting random people. People are not rude
to me, but I am not offered the key to the city. So when a nice
older woman asks me in for water, and hands me an apple she picked
the day before I feel unsettled. She is simple and kind. I fear
for her. She turns her back to me to fill my water in her sink and
I want to warn her to be more careful. What if family comes and
finds her entertaining this large stranger. Too quickly I walk on
but what I misread was my own fears, and being alone too long. Maybe
she too was lonely. I grow sorry for fleeing so soon. Her kindness
is too rare to bruise. Barre The city of Barre comes up fast. It is one of the largest cities
I've hit. There are many angry faces that are only happy yelling
nasty things as they drive by me. I follow Rt 302 straight through.
A man in a wheel chair waits alone on the sidewalk right in my path.
His salt and pepper hair is long like mine but holds more white.
He reminds me of no one, yet everyone. We talk. In minutes I find
I like him. He spouts out the names of various authors and their
works that he assumes I have read. Internally I question my education.
The whole conversation began when I asked a question that I knew
the answer to. I am glad I had. In no time we were trading stories.
23 October 2002 I lose days quickly. This journal is the only thing that stops all the mornings from rising together. Berlin,Vermont Coffee is people. Coffee is conversation. Even when my telephone
is charged, and the last thing I need is more caffine I pull my
load into another quick stop gas station. Unfastening my titanium
double-walled cup I fill this time with decaf so my heart stays
in my chest. The pizza seduces me from a revolving plexi-glass case
near the register. Quickly I inhale two pieces that taste as good
as the commercial says they will. I feel sane now, less urgent. 24 October 2002
A young woman who has just started working at Green Mountain makes
my coffee. It is a good day to be in Waterbury, Vermont. The air
smells heady and sweet. Nothing is better than these autumn days.
The new recruit finds a rubber stamp in her drawer and offers to
stamp my journal. I now have the stamp of a little blue house in
a circle to prove to myself that I was here. Another plush camp. I start a fire while I unwrap the small pan
to start my steaks. It is like the opening of a sacred bundle. Giving
thanks I move the meat in the olive oil that is sill a cold white
line on the pan. In minutes I have a large cup of twig tea, and
eat the meat hot in my bare hands. This sounds crude but it is out
of respect. I do not want to taste or feel a tool in my mouth. Pulling
the hot meat with my fingers from my teeth I feel the wind cold
on my bare skin. The wrap that I've worn around my neck is unknotted
to clean my hands. Because I am so blessed I laugh slightly. I am
sure now that my eyes are as bright as stars. West of Bolten, 4 miles outside of Burlington where the railroad
and interstate run together I stay with Rt2. Up ahead a bridge is
out. Construction is taking place. Backtracking I climb down a steep
bank until I'm standing on the train tracks. I follow the rails
to a corner. I climb into the woods, and up a steep hillside. From
where I sit I can see in most directions, but thorn and unhealthy
poplar trees conceal me only when I don't stand. Soon it will be
dark. Sitting by my small fire I am alerted by a spot-light coming in my direction from the opposite hill through the pitch black of late evening. In an instant I have the fire covered with dirt. The light stops, waits, and then returns in the direction it had came. I swallow my heart. 25 October 2002 It is early morning. As I lower the food from its haven in a tree I see two men down on the road searching the hill I am on with their eyes as they crawl along in a state truck. Quickly, I drop my tent, but I know that I am already confirmed. In short order I break a new trail onto the rail tracks and wander out onto the road. As I pass the bridge construction site a group of men gather near the road across from me. Many faces look up and stare at me as if I am the one suspected
of stealing the king's gold. I try to hide my concern. Smiling I
offer up my richest good-morning. They are silent, but stare with
straight faces. My pulse quickens even though I normally never worry
about being spotted during the day. Maybe they have had problems
with their work site being tampered with. Front cover of Burlington Free Press (Vermont) Sniper Arrests End Weeks of Fear in D.C. 2 men jailed The story talks more about the type and caliber of the rifle than it does about the two men, as if the rifle talked the two men into their reign of terror. On the televisions of several of the quick service stations and donut shops that I had stopped at in the past weeks I have seen police and government suits holding up various weapons that they said may be like the one used in the murders. Tables were loaded up with black similar weapons as the press fluttered about taking lots of pictures of the military style weapons while asking hypothetical questions no one had the honest answers for. The weapon is already on trial, and the outcome doesn't look good. At the junction of Rt2, Rt2a, and I89 I climb onto the hill above the city to find a hide in the woods. Success. Camp is fantastic, lacking only a stream of water. Under a large oak I set up the teepee, staking the base extra tight knowing a storm is due in tonight. I call Alexcia on the cell-phone using the hand crank I carry for energy. For every minute of cranking this powerful little motor I am supposed to get five minutes of talking on the phone. I usually get two to four minutes, but I am still thankful for the invention. The extra pound of weight it harbors in its plastic case keeps me from loving the crank generator completely. 27 Oct 2002 Finally the plunging waves of food poisoning weaken. I can now
lift my head without all around me swirling like the earth below
a plane with its tail shot off. Days have passed but I have gone
nowhere. Inside, my mind has worked and carefully reworked the sour
details of the fabric weaving through my shirt and other redundant
courses of brain waste. Whenever I am this sick my mind does me
no favors. I can think of nothing except this swirling of my insides
in a perverse loop hour after hour. I am in South Burlington. Hunters fire over my tent but I just close my eyes swallowing old spit. This is no place to be sick and alone. I call home on the cell-phone. Alexcia says that she can find me. With more manliness than I feel, I say no. I say that I will stand, dress, pack and walk, but I don't know if I remember how. The smell that comes with sickness doesn't forget me out here.
Sickness has its own scent. What I taste in my mouth is the same
as the smell of everything I'm wearing. With a weakness that makes
my limbs stupid I re-pack gear that is now more complicated than
I can believe. It is Monday. The clocks have fallen back an hour
just as they did in Franklin's day but I don't think it'll save
me any whale oil tonight. I walk the four miles to the Rt 7 junction in Burlington on legs
that seem to move as much from left and right as they move me straight
ahead. My head pounds to the beat of my walking while my stomach
considers giving more offerings to the fields along the road. Soon
a salsa colored Jeep comes into view with a blonde woman waving
madly behind the wheel. My best friend has arrived.
Behind Best Western in the trees I set a quick camp in the dark. Alexcia looks on with a reddening face that already talks wordlessly about leaving. Watching her I try to remember how to set up my winter Moss tent but I put poles in the wrong holes spilling my glass of Blackstone merlot. Swallowing my temper I drink the ounce I saved and smile. We talk about the dogs. We mention the many places we saw together and how great it was to share again. Still there is this coming separation that opens its mouth until it is so big that we fall into it. We hold each other until she is again small tail-lights reaching back to me weaker, and weaker. For long minutes I stand there letting the ache drain down to my feet. In my tent I recover my food bag. It is heavy with new food that I can't wait to attack. At a concrete picnic table in a clearing above the hotel I put on my headlamp as the stove works its magic of making water into tea. I eat the food cold chewing slowly missing my dearest friend too much. Down below a laughing couple leave their car running as they hurry inside to get a room for the night.
My headlamp is dead. Today's priority is to find a pack shop and
swap out my lamp. A block from Church Square Market I find a backpacking
gear shop. I am drunk on all the shiny boxes, and new toys. The
headlamp is exchanged with new batteries at no charge. I'm thrilled.
I also buy another filter for my First Need Water Filter that dropped
a couple of its guts in the river a week or two ago. I have to mail
the old filter in and then that too will be exchanged for free.
Not as easy as the headlamp exchange but I am still happy. After
buying a couple small oddities I am again on my way. I wander back
to the market center. At a roomy coffee shop I get a latte', top
off the charge on my phone. I wish the slight fever in my cool damp
brow will vacate.
With the increase in cold, morale has constricted. Already I have walked twenty-four miles. I care only to move in the pulse that is my feet. I feel more weak than strong. Food is not of interest because it too is work. Snow falls as I march south toward warm homes and free conversation. With this in my mind walking is easy. Walking is breathing. Hobbies that I miss lay on clean tables in my mind. I see leather and stone, silver and old tools that glow in failing winter light. One of the greatest things I miss is creating. I miss creating anything. When I was a child I stole razor blades. For the rest of the day I'd hide in the thick cover of sumac and carve the soft-wood until my little fingers slipped. They always eventually slipped. Warm round drops of blood hurried down my hand from the deep painless slice that would ache latter when I would be forced to lie. I love to carve so dearly. I never considered betraying it. It loved me too. It told me so in the head of the bird that was a moment ago a branch, and in the stick that became a feather. I did not want to pray to it, but rather it was a release of energy that grew into anger if I tried to contain it. Creating is a calming. Creating is always a coming home. What was hard days ago is harder. It is 1600hrs. I beg the trees to open enough to let me in for the night. In three days I have not cooked a thing. This is abnormal. Sleep overrules eating until my furnace runs out of fuel, and I am awakened by the trembling of my body. Cheese, I bought a day ago, is brought into my mouth without really waking. I faintly chew, not to taste but to swallow. Instantly the pipes rattle as the glow that is in the boiler feeds the house. The town people have been rolled up and put away like carpets.
Leaves are still falling but they are a conclusion of what began
weeks ago. No one is watching now. I wake to the smell of leaves
and sap and it holds me all day. Fewer dog rush to bite at my legs.
Water is always gloriously crisp and cold with a crust of ice on
the threads of the bottle. Ice is on everything inside of my tent as I wake up. Outside is a thicker version of the same. Yesterday I made it to the junction of 22A. I am excited with my progress. Coming out of a rest room I find a woman with her car still running
waiting to talk to me. It feels odd but it has been days since I
have talked with anyone. I'll take odd. The romance of the road is either so thick that my head swoons or it is as stark as powdered road-kill. I guess in some way there is a romance in that too, but death is the last great seduction. I would like it postponed. Today the crisp air is comforting. My pocket radio sends out classics
from my shoulder pouch that fills the air around me softly. All
of a sudden too many cars drive by, and everything becomes just
noise. A pretty blonde in one car passing slows and she gives me
the most loving smile. I can hear the music again. Bridford, Vermont A heavy file of clouds rolls in with the sunset. Everyone is talking
about snow. Even the radio looks up at the sky and says a long discourse
on snowfall averages. The clouds drift unproductively suggesting
depth, quality and form. Now is the magic. The air is thick like
water before the freeze. Tomorrow will not be this soft holding.
The fire sits small before me. This is now all that I want. This now is what I have dreamed about in the secret part of the mind that dares to dream, and promise. I had the jobs with titles, and great pay. It was not enough. I know that I cannot walk forever, but for now it is what I do. This is what I am. 1 Nov 2002 The wind slaps my face raw. It wants to steal my hat but the retaining
cord is under my chin. When a tractor trailer rolls by, and it feels
like I have bolted an open umbrella to my head. Closing my eyes
I lean into the wind. So far this has kept me grounded. All day I am able to look over to the mountain range to my left,
and mountains appearing to my right. I talk out loud to birds about
distance flown vs. walking. A crow shows off by flying directly
toward the largest peak far to right horizon. Watching for only
a couple of minutes I see the bird become a speck and he is already
at the mountain. For miles I wonder how far I would have to fly
to cure this knot in my heart, if I were a bird. Porches have become ghost towns. All of these miles that I have walked, and I have not seen one person sitting in front of their house. The weather is cold outside now, but still most homes are lifeless until the well after five. It is sad how little we actually live in our homes, and how much of our lives we sell to pay for them.
The sky is airbrushed to perfection. Pinks move into blues with light variations that dance and glow. It is 10 degrees. The pen leaves ink with difficulty. I know my blood is the same thick syrup. Sitting up in my tent makes the walls swirl around me. Drinking water has not been enough of a priority. 1700hrs A hundred and twenty miles until I am home for winter. Alexcia
drove up to spend a couple of hours with me. We make a great feast
on my mountain stove with the fantastic food she brought. It is
simple, and wonderful. There is no break in my eating. Even while
I eat I talk about foods I miss, and flavors that I crave. 3 Nov 2002 1130hrs A better place to sit and watch the world amble by than this green
is rare. Church bells chime through the thick stand of park trees.
The leaves still hold fast. People walk their dogs. Lovers intertwine
each others fingers as they pass me with faces all wind stained
bright. For a long time I simply sit watching. I remember college
in New Haven, and New Year's on the Yale Green. There was this marvelous
feeling of being part of something large, important and socially
binding. Just as there are times in our life when we need to be
alone, there are also times to drink in the life and lives around
us. Many people stare at this backpacker in their park. When I smile
they are disarmed, and wave. Granville Walking along 22A south I am on the edge of nowhere. A few teenagers find fun mocking me from a doorway up on a hill above me. It is nothing but I am unnerved. It is clear that they've done some partying. I walk faster to cover miles, lessening the chances of a car full of intoxicated twenty-year-olds swerving up from behind me. I see an old man with a metal detector out in a cornfield with a metal detector. Harry is dressed in insulated coveralls that are well worn and soiled. His fingers, retarded by large yellow gloves pull old coins, and pewter buttons from his pockets, supporting his story. We talk for a long time about where to go prospecting, and simple things like the weather. Harry has lots of stories. I could see that he appreciates having someone to share them with. We talk hard as if a bell was going to end our recess, and our stories. We both want the sun to stall in the sky so that we can talk, treasure hunt and find a place to make camp for the night. Another half of an hour rips past before we return to our passions. Camp is made on a flat above the road. Blaze orange is tied to everything around my camp. It is 15 degrees. The cell phone is dumb weight tonight. It will have limited value for the rest of the walk.
More snow due in, but so far it has only been an inch here and
there. I love the way the snow looks piled all over me as I hike
into a store or coffee shop. No matter how long I have traveled
it always looks like I have circled the globe when the weather paints
my clothes. 5 Nov2002 Camp is stowed leaving only flat grass and frozen fingers. I slept
under a posted sign but I had little choice. Being thankful cuts
the sting of the miles, as much as removing weight from my pack. Now there are no brown and green bodies propelling themselves into my legs. Even the fat crickets have stopped their ventures across my path. The sun watches me freeze from behind a cloud. Seconds later it is out doing a ludicrous dance that makes my legs sweat profusely. Today the sun speaks out of the side of its mouth, and is not to be trusted. It begins to snow.
In the center of a large pumpkin patch on a piece of untilled earth 6'x25' I set the tent. I notice how fast my hands grow stiff. Throwing my arms downward several times helps me to move my fingers better but still I am wanting. Blackberry thorns reach for everything I pull out of my pack like a child helping its mother unpack groceries. I talk to it just like it is a kid until it grabs my hand, and bites with cat teeth. It is too dark to see but I try to bite back. Hundreds of pumpkins surround me. It is like a battleground. All of the bodies have been looted leaving only orange skulls staring wide-eyed at the sky. I consider how long it will take to cook pumpkin for dinner. Everything is now thought of in relation to food. Round pancakes have taken the place of thoughts about women. It is a great night for pancakes. The pack has worn heavy into my shoulders today. The joints near my neck throb like a broken tooth that I can't push my tongue against. I tell my pack that it's fat like it cares. Every night I tell it this. I am overwhelmed, yet exhilarated. For ten minutes my legs are stupid until they remember how to walk without a pack above them. Having traveled this far anyone would think that I would know which sleeve the longest tent pole goes into. The tent yawns incorrectly to one side. I lean on the darkness as an excuse, mutter, and try again. Thinking about smashing pumpkins, and how unfortunate it is that
I've outgrown the desire, I notice that my titanium cup is not on
my pack. Instantly my mind races back to the Citgo Mini Mart at
least fifteen miles back up the road. I am standing in the employee
bathroom washing my cup after a nice cup of coffee. Deciding that
this was a wonderful time for a quick sponge-bathe I set my cup
with all the others behind the toilet, and begin removing layers
of clothing so I can wash. In five minutes I am cleaner and lighter.
Much lighter. My sixty dollar double wall titanium cup that I eat
and drink out of all day long is M.I.A. 5 Nov 2002 It rains ice water. I pack the wet tent on top of my rucksack like a large wet skin. It is all I can do to try to keep everything else as dry as possible. Thinking about walking back for the cup seems ludicrous today. At each turn in the road I seek out a phone but so far there's none. I worry about someone adopting my Snow Peak titanium cup but this thinking tires me more than walking. On the side of the road lays a white plastic cup with a handle. For now it is enough. Check back soon. More to come. |
