Since getting off my feet back in Colorado City, CO I've been anxious to get right back on them again. I loved riding with Devin and Leif, and catching up with Trent, Bill, and Laura, but my real desire for this trip is to be out on the road in my own space. We packed up our things, said goodbye to Laura again since she had come home again, and were on our way to true homelessness. In fact, that was the first thing Todd made acknowledgment of was that we really had no place to go now. No veggie bus, no friend's guest room or couch. We had packs and we actually needed them now.
As Todd noted we returned to our little book store/coffee shop for some bottomless cup. Then shuffled a bit further down the road to lay in some grass at DuPont Circle. Finally we meandered to a bus we just barely found for a cheap ride out of town and over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
Todd was occupied most of this time by writing posts and listening to his MP3 player. I spent just about all of that time just sitting and thinking. After all, that was one of the biggest things I wanted from this journey was the time to really just sit and think clearly. One thing I realized is that getting to the point of clear thinking that I want is probably that end destination I've muddled through articulating since we came up with the notion of traveling this year. It reminds me of what I've heard was the real significance of fire to the cavemen. All day they run around hunting or doing their work
to survive the day like all the other animals. At night, they just went to sleep. With fire they were given a reason to stay up when there was nothing to do for the day, so they just stared at the fire enamored. It was their one time when nothing needed to be thought over so their brains roamed. Soon art showed up on their walls and societies came with it. This is my time to sit and let my brain really roam and explore.
As Todd has already said, we got off the bus at a cute little Park n' Ride by a draw bridge crossing the Kent Narrows. As we settled into our packs with that feeling of finally being out and walking again settling in, I watched almost transfixed for a moment as those who shared our bus were magnetically drawn to their cars. It was like they were on strings sliding right into place where they would then continue zooming home for supper. That strange "outside" feeling finally hit me again that I remembered from my walk. That oddity of seeing people doing their daily routine, as I had done before, but feeling completely removed from it. Almost like visiting an exotically different culture and watching those exotic locals grocery shop.
This is a mentality I want be wary of in myself. Its funny that I just was talking to Trent about the book Anna Karenina because that mentality is described beautifully by Tolstoy through the character Levin. Levin would often retreat for months to his country province that he owned and ran as landlord. He was a very socially conscious man so he spent much of that time working out solutions to the hardships of the peasants life and such issues. When he'd return to Moscow to hob nob with his socialite and political friends he would tell them his theories, and even as the thoughts came to his head to make the words to speak them he would realize how ridiculous his ideas actually were. I feel that way often.
I do believe strongly that to fix a problem you need to be in it to tinker with it, unless your solution is to just not bother with it any more. That philosophy may make it seem like I'm a hypocrite for going on this trip. I don't know that I see it as that because I don't see that what I'm striving for here is a better stable daily routine. What I'm after right now is solid explanations for these apparent metaphysical questions. That empirical evidence. Once I feel satisfied there, then I'll start working out my coffee shop for that good stable routine, and hopefully a family too.
There you go, didn't think I'd be spouting a thesis in this post.
To get back to the day, Todd and I finally set off walking, and when we set off we were strolling by a gorgeous bay and beachish establishments. A good way to commence things. That lasted until we bedded down for the night in a patch of woods by the highway.
I would like to clarify something in Todd's post about finding this patch. What I'd said, in what he deemed a D&D language, was that "we should go now while there are no cars about." We had just been saying that we should duck into the woods where no one can see so no one messes with us. When he just stood by the guard rail smoking a cigarette I thought maybe he was doing something sneaky of his own so I just plowed into the woods to find a nice spot. This was why I was in a tree when he found me, because I had found a spot, but then couldn't find him. We'll get it down.
We did, however, build our little lean-to fort simply to geek out on the fact that we were finally camping. We tried getting really fancy and technical with it too until we heard the town sirens go off and realized the sky moving in was black, and that this fort actually needed to work. That threw us into a bit of a panic, which resulted in a backpack explosion.
Diving into our bivvies to stay dry, then frantically ripping the packs apart to find things like the crank weather radio and flashlights, things ended up completely disorganized. The wind then kicked up, new rescue vehicle sirens started going off, and the rain came down to the sound of our scratchy radio saying something about severe winds up to 65 Mph.
I felt this needed documentation. Whenever in a stress/panic situation that could possibly damage life and limb, break out the photos, the video recorder, and start running audio. I did just that. You too can be the next dipshit who gave up everything to get killed by nature and have a movie made of it. I like to have my story told accurately, so I document just about everything I do. Please don't equate me to a Nazi for that.
About 15 minutes later the rain slowed to a drizzle and the wind went away. A little while after that I was staring up at stars unfettered by any clouds in the sky. I lay there for probably a few hours excited to be out again before I eventually trailed off to sleep and had a weird dream in Spanish, of all things.
Click here for Todd's perspective.
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