Saturday, July 25, 2009

7/24- Revelations; My Reclaimation of Here

So this'll be hilarious. Not just to the folks I've met along the way, or haphazardly stumbled across this site through Google search or something, but to those at home who know me well. I've come to a recent realization that I fell directly back into a very old pit of my old ways that I often do when I'm taken up by something I think is interesting.

In the beginning, I get really excited, haven't really thought it through, but really start running with the idea in what ever way seems right. As I keep going I fall into a pattern, I start ferreting out ruts and routines to keep up on so I can keep hold and properly do what it is that I was so excited about doing. Eventually I get so sidetracked into keeping up with all of these new little rules and regulations I've propped up for myself I become consumed by them and not the excitement. Its been happening on here for probably over a month or two now.

My guess is that right now Todd in particular is reading this laughing his little ass off as he knows this more than ever to be true. Its been much of the source of our tension, although I also wouldn't say I stand alone in the guilt over those moments, and I reckon he'd concur with the mutuality of our occasionally opposing modes of behavior and thinking. Nevertheless, I'm sure there are more of these patterned behaviors that I've been sucking myself into and haven't spotted yet, but at the moment this blog is the one I'm clearly recognizing.

To revisit the history here I'll point out the formats of my past here and in my previous Walking site of 6 years ago. Looking to the latter, formerly dontforgetus.net, you'll notice that every day is chronicled. Not only are they recorded by the 24 hour period, but they are dated and numbered. Seeing as though for many of those days that site would die for a bit, or I'd be lost in some wilds for a while, or I just didn't find a library for a day or two one would have to conclude that I wasn't updating it daily. Instead, I would go back and update days past. A dramatic example is when I was lost out of contact in the desert for 10 days and wrote up from June 5 until June 16 in a five hour sitting breaking each day down into its own post by memory. I did my hands harm that day.

What chuckles me here is that I began this trip thinking quite consciously to myself that I did not want to get wrapped up in that again. I love sharing these adventures, its fun for me to write up my thoughts as they come and the events as they unfold. It quickly becomes tiresome, though, when I sit and try to strain out of my brain exactly what I was doing, much less thinking or feeling, three weeks ago at a truck stop in Iowa. The idea is to provide myself with a place to accurately review events as well as to share them with everyone I meet along the way and my family at home. Riding on my memory of it at this point would give a hindsight assisted write up, with vast chasms of missing details, which would end up mis-leading any memory that would resurface later on.

Can you hear the internal argument still going on in my head about breaking this established ritual I've come up with in the past months? I look at it now and see it as a de-weeding of my mind. As Yoda had advised me 29 years ago when I was 4 and should have listened from the get go, I am unlearning now what I have learned. You laugh, but my Dad has been quoting Yoda in every Christmas gift I've gotten since Empire came out, and I still have the Christmas cards filed away, chronicled by year, to prove it. I mention it here not only to remind myself why I'm not bothering with filling in events of the past two weeks, but in hopes to spread a lesson out for one and all who get caught up in their ruts and routines. Habit and mental comfortability (redundant) have a nasty way of taking over entire lives.

I will, however, summarize these omitted events. I haven't healed that much yet. I foresee a very long process ahead of me (note the still lingering, ever famous budget book). I'm going to try to sum up the main points and ideas, rather than catch myself up in the events that I see more as fun details if I were going day by day rather than points to think on.

Todd and I had one more day out at Iowa 80, but tension was rearing its head again. There were a few incidents that helped stoke those along, like me wandering off to explore the Trucker's Museum for 40 minutes. While I was away, and out of contact, a hippie-type guy driving a moving van to Boulder, CO saw Todd and our Denver sign and caved himself in on agreeing to drive us the whole way. This would have saved us the money we ended up giving to Photo Guy, who was a treat in himself, and the respective bus and train tickets we paid out of Omaha. For me that totaled to about $109 which is significant since this morning I woke up at $0 outside of my "tucked away" landing money. Either way, the guy went into eat, came back out and saw Todd still on his own and left. Frustration ensued.

There was another melt down of frustrations to the likes of our last days in Michigan that broke out on returning from the on ramp after not knowing where we really want to hitch too. That was when Todd confided in me his dream of punching me in the teeth and I think was bordering on actually wanting to live it out. After hashing that one out and acknowledging we weren't really pissed so much at each other, but more our situations, we returned to normal friendship levels the rest of the day, and on to the next, but there was something subtly different. We both knew our split had come, and we were also thinking it had likely come a few weeks ago but had failed to acknowledge and act on it.

That night was restless as Photo Guy kept pushing his arrival time back while we sat in The Kitchen yet again, this time indulging in the all you can eat buffet, all you can drink coffee, and all you can talk to waitress Sanja. Sanja was among the host of smokin' hot waitresses working 2nd shift, and through talking with her we discovered her to be a war refuge from the Baltic area. I don't want to say which country because I can't remember and naming the wrong one would be like saying a WWII refuge from Germany when it was actually France. A bit of a faux pas. Long story short, we chatted her and a funny older waitress there, Colleen, up over copious amounts of coffee anticipating Photo Guy at midnight.

Photo Guy called around maybe 10pm saying he was just leaving Toledo and would likely retrieve us by 7am Saturday morning. Holy crap, that's a shift in plans. Now wired, we decided to see if we could hitch our way out sitting out front bouncing our knees, but to no avail. Not to help matters any, we had also been woken early that morning around 7am to heavy thunderstorms that flooded the area until they cleared up around noon. This meant we were tired from being up so long, but, again, too wired on coffee to sleep, and our little grove by the off ramp was likely a little mud pool so even just lying down in our bivies was not an option.

We stayed up until 5am then decided we could roll up in our tarps and crash down a small strip of grass that had gone unflooded by the on ramp for two hours. I set my alarm for 7am, and by 8am Photo Guy finally arrived. We got in his car and it stalled out immediately. In all our frazzledness Todd was not having it and nearly ditched the guy to hop another Greyhound while the guy went to Davenport to get his car worked on. To be fair, he did seem completely disorganized and likely asking to have this all come down on him now, but I was in no rush at this point and his tomfoolery didn't faze me too much. Todd ended up switching mindsets to laughing at him and sleeping until we got to Omaha that evening.

Once in town, our split was palpable. Todd got his bus ticket and we went for a last stroll together for a while through downtown Omaha to discover it actually seems like a pretty cool town. We sat in a coffee shop for about an hour then snapped our pictures together and went our separate ways. Here is where my mindset got in the way again, though this time I knew it.

Todd had a two hour layover in Denver between 7am and 9am before continuing on to Santa Fe. My train got in at 7am, so we figured we'd meet up one more time in Denver for a quick hello before going our own ways for at least the month. After he left, I had a really nice walk to the station. The whole while a debate in my head was going on of whether or not to catch the train, or to bunk out here and explore a little. Try to hitch and walk a bit through Nebraska, catching rides off the side of the road and save myself some train money along the way.

I passed funky bars through interesting neighborhoods that reminded me of Denver and Seattle's funky hoods that come out of cheap rents for artists and soon get over run by yuppies trying to be hip. These were in the early stage, the good stage, the SoHos of the '80s rather than the '90s, and East Villages of the mid '90s rather than the '00s. I found the train station, and I found it closed. When it opened at 9pm I found out my ticket would not be $2 from my vast series of credits I had, but $99 because my $50 credit was unavailable and the $84 ticket had risen to $131. On top of it, my train was over an hour late screwing up the idea of a Denver meeting the next day.

Now, for a moment, lets look at everything that Todd and I have been writing about over the past three months about listening to signs, following our gut, yada, yada, yada. Now look at that last paragraph. One would think I would've seen something brewing there. Fact of the matter is that I did. It was in no way lost on me that everything was saying stay in Omaha, walk the roads a bit, take your time. Ang's birthday was my main date to get home to and that was in about a week. I had called her and arranged to have breakfast with her the next morning at 11am, but I could easily have just called her again and canceled saying I'd be longer than I thought. In the end, it was the breaking point of my mental exhaustion.

Having been here in Denver for two weeks now I find that incredibly ironic. It wouldn't by any stretch say that I got here too early at all. I've been realizing that this stop is a continuation of what was started back at Trent's in Maryland; the visiting and regathering of old friends. The difference here is that these friends haven't been long lost, but are tuned in already to my current state of mind and are able to give me good insights and reflections on how I work now in regards to what it is I'm following and doing. Every day I've been getting great visits in with different friends who, I have no doubts, will be quite wrapped up in my future as well. The irony is that this stop is not a break for my mental exhaustion to recoop.

Rather than seeing it as getting here too early, I would say that I left "the road" too soon. Sitting on that Omaha platform weighing out whether to buy the ticket with everything saying no, or duck into a patch of woods nearby and explore the city the next day I opted for the ticket home with notions of lightening my pack and trading out my bivy in my head. It was like sugar plums dancing and I couldn't shake them, regardless of how much I knew I was making the wrong call. What I believe would have come of hitching the road, or just staying out there a bit longer in whatever capacity, was that I would've got the mental reprieve. I knew I was in no hurry, I felt no hurry then to get home, I just felt like getting home to relax and didn't see laying out on the side of the road on my own as that relaxation. I can see now that I think it would've been, and would've given me a fresher mind for my return here and the work that needed to be done.

Nevertheless, I came home. I briefly met up with Todd for ten minutes before he jumped on his bus, which was enough time to get introductions to a girl, Erica, he met on the way down. She'd been roaming around hitching as well and was also heading home for a bit. Being from Oregon, and planning to head out again at some point soon, I guess it sparked her and Todd talking about her traveling around with us. I spent an hour or so wandering around with her and was not keen on the idea. She just didn't strike me as someone who would gel with the things we were focusing on. Either way, it was a moot point since Todd and I both came to the idea, as that first week apart manifested itself, that it didn't seem likely we'd be doing much traveling together until the end of the year. Probably a few meet ups here and there, but he seemed like he had little interest in going to Seattle, and had more focuses on being in Montana and the Dakotas before heading west.

If I were to guess right now, I'd say there's a 50/50 chance we meet up in Boise, but quite likely we meet up in Portland. From there we'll likely go down the coast together until about San Fran, but then I'm looking to head east again, and I think he's thinking more south. Either way, the most important thing was that the "tethered together" dynamic was broken, and we were both happy with that. There was no desire on either end to return to that strange vibe that came of our returns home in May and June.

Anyway, that's the summary of how I got to Denver and our split. When I met up with Ang at Dozens for breakfast it was really like coming home. I spent the week at her house for the most part catching up with all the events that have been going on in her life, and the drama of the store, of course. Daily drop ins at Dazbog, my old shop on 9th & Downing, gave me plenty of re-acquaintance time with all my old regulars, many of whom have been following along since the get go. Of these, I mostly got reacquainted with Kia, who you can find occasionally in the Guestbook giving blessings from the Pagan Gods of olde. She's our resident crazy lady, but God bless her she's got a heart of gold along with knowing she's crazy.

I also made a point of getting to see Loreli, along with Izzy and Brandon. Loreli and Izzy, as I've mentioned in some of my first posts here, are a bit of family with me in a very different way than Ang is. Where Ang and I feel and act like close siblings, I feel more like the abstract wandering Uncle Chris to Izzy and some kind of an untitled "family" with Loreli. I've also noticed I have a developing in-law feeling to Brandon which I find kind of hilarious, but quite fitting. Now having also just been directly in contact with her past as well, I feel exponentially closer to being apart of her family than I ever had before. Perhaps I am really getting that family and community I talked about wanting in the beginning of all of this.

Other than these many visits and conversations that took place throughout the week I was able to keep on my pursuits as well. Before even that first breakfast with Ang I went directly to REI and got rid of that damn wire rimmed bivy, reuniting myself with my beloved Aurora at long last. The next day I went down to the library and took out Many Lives, Many Masters, which Stacey had recommended to me on the ride to Ohio in time for me to get it for my sister for her birthday. She had read it, loved it, and read two more of the authors books since, raving to me about how good it was. I read it in two days which, as anyone who knows me knows, that's astonishing. I'm quite likely the slowest reader in existence. I will say, it did make quite a mark on my up and coming plans.

Tuesday brought the three packages that Mom mailed out to me, and Wednesday I bused them out to my storage unit. At last everything was in one place. While there, I unloaded about half of the weight of my pack, and picked up a few things to make moving around the town easier like sandals and a smaller pack. I also wanted to experiment with the small pack to see if I could switch to that. It was that night, sleeping in Loreli's abandoned chicken coop, that I finished Many Lives and became inspired to get more proactive on getting first hand experiences with the more mystically aspects of life.

I put a post up on Craigslist the next day to hear the stories of anyone claiming to have had a near death experience that wanted to talk about it. I honestly had no idea where I was going with this, but it seemed like a decent first step to take toward at least talking with people who have had some clear cut, socially acceptable experience with something inexplicable. I didn't really expect any responses from it, and if I did get any, I was anticipating that they'd be crazies, attention seekers, or pranksters. I got none of those.

After Ang's birthday Friday, and a good gathering with the old crew, and another get together with Loreli on Saturday, I met up with Greg. Greg was an electrician about 20 or 25 years ago until one day something happened with the breakers while he was working on a 480 volt wire and was quite literally fried. He woke up two or three days later pissed off, but not because of being electrocuted to death, albeit temporary death. He described being encompassed by a peaceful, accepting light until he was dragged back by modern science to excruciating pain to find out he'd been in a coma those days off, and that was why he was pissed.

What I initially liked about him over the emails, figuring out what his story was and such things, was that he kept discrediting himself so as not to waste my time. He continually wrote me, and once again told me when we sat down together, that his near death experience was just a generic one from everything he'd read. "Yeah, I saw a white light and felt peaceful, not sure what else you want to hear." That's paraphrasing of course. I told him I didn't really care if it was a generic experience, I told him in return I didn't really know why I wanted to hear it, so there. I've already heard first hand near death experiences from family. My grandfather talked about the time he died for a minute or two back in 1972 and he saw a white light and a tunnel... with his uncle at the end of it. On my walk, back in Wyoming, I'd even met a guy who'd died just a few weeks before for about four minutes total, on and off of course.

Regardless, we sat down and told each other our stories and it completely energized both of us. I'd talked with Todd just the day before sounding lost and muddled because I still hadn't given myself that mental break yet, but I left the coffee shop charged and focused. I've told the story a bunch since, but watching Greg both tell his story and listen to my explorations he seemed to be literally healing (for lack of a better word) right in front of me. He had told me that it had only been a year earlier that he'd started to really come out of his funk about being brought back. He went on to tell me, that the emergence from it came from a sense that it was quite possible he was maybe supposed to use that experience as a way to help others.

I was quite intrigued that it was last year. It seems in the past year everyone has been undergoing a major shift in life in someway or another. On the whole, though, it seems to be in how people are seeing their lives and reevaluating the way they're living it. Hence the emphasis in the beginning of this post about giving a fair shot to the idea of unlearning what you've learned to really see if you're living the life you want to be living, and if you're not, or if you're only living a fringe of it, to really give an honest look at whether a few hard shifts might get you there. Almost everyone I know right now is going through something like that and, scary as shit or not, they seem to be going for the hard shifts.

When we left Pablo's, the coffee shop, Greg told me that he'd been on the fence about a decision he was wrestling with in his life now and that I'd given him the hard nudge he needed to do the one that felt better but seemed riskier. He never told me what that decision was, but I did feel like a million bucks for nudging him to do what ever it was. From there he drove me to the library so that I could check Many Lives back in and hand it over to him to check out again. There you go Stacey, you've directly gotten that book into the hands of at least four people, because I got a copy for my Mom as well.

That meeting shot me off in a new direction for the week. Meeting with him not only reenergized me, but refocused me completely giving me a new insight as to what it was I was going to do with myself in the years to come. Back in Michigan it had already come to me that I think I can, and would love to, live this way for a few years as a lifestyle. It gives me the mobility to be in the places I need to be, see the people I feel compelled to see, while also feeling rooted by my friends in their various cities so that I don't feel detached. Now I was seeing more of a reason why I needed to be all over the place like this. I'm not going to explain it now, because it isn't quite as sharp an idea as I want it to be yet, but it is certainly a strong one.

On that note, this week was much more uprooted than the last. I was at Ang's my first week here, and was fine with leaving all of my stuff there while I roamed about the city. Starting that Sunday, my home base got a bit muddled again with the onset of work that was coming my way. By this time Loreli had set me up with her boss to give me random work like building a dog run for her. I had stayed in Loreli's abandoned chicken coop the week before and loved it, so I figured I'd just stay there some more while I worked for Julie, Loreli's boss. The problem was, one, that Loreli lives in an anarchist cooperative house which is prone to occasional parties and is a magnet to other random people staying in said chicken coop. The other problem in the week was that Julie is not the most organized, or reliable, as far as when the work is to be done so it kept getting pushed last minute.

Sunday night the problem was that the coop was already occupied, so I wandered down to the highway and found a nice little field with the perfect sized sage brush to slide under and sleep. Monday I was back at Ang's, but Tuesday I thought I'd stay at Loreli's to catch a ride in with her for the dog run job with Julie only to find out Julie didn't need me the next day, and I was getting the impression she wasn't going to need me for it at all in the end. I debated between Ang's and Loreli's after that, swinging toward Loreli's because I figured it'd be nice to give Ang her house back for a bit. I've hosted many loved ones who are traveling around, but when they have flighty schedules like mine it does become tiresome regardless of how much they're loved so I thought I'd give her the break before she realized she'd need one. The coop, however, was once again occupied when I got there.

I had been trying to get together with my friends, Penney and Robert, since I'd been back and had only gotten together for a bit the week before. They'd given me an open invite to stay whenever, so I called them up. These were the last pair of my three major draws back to Denver to see; Ang and Loreli being the others. I kind of saw them as the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. In visiting with Ang, we mainly talked a lot about what was going on in our lives now, catching ourselves up on what had happened. With Loreli, since she was moving out of her anarchist house into one of her own, and moving in the direction of buying a house on her own, I offered to help out. She offered to keep the stuff I'm paying to stick in storage in her basement, which would then rid me of my last and final bill to pay. Penney and Robert were also moving, but only moving out. Our futures were looking more and more entwined.

Staying there over the next few days we'd sit down each night before bed, drink some of Robert's home brewed beer, and talk about each of our plans to head to the north west. They've gotten themselves a giant pickup that they've converted to run off veggie oil like the famed Veggie Bus that took us to DC in April. They're also planning on moving out of their house at the end of July and taking a class in New Mexico before driving up toward the northwest area. I've been hankering to go see my sister like I never have before. She is doing some really amazing things up there that I'd like to be apart of, and between her and her fiance, Daniel's, interests and Penney and Robert's interests I think they'd have a lot to learn from each other. Once again, everything has lined up and pointed out a direction, and this time I'm very astute to listen and follow.

Robert is a blacksmith who has come up with a completely non-electric workshop that he will store in the back of his truck to earn whatever money they will need, and provide the tools as well. Both of them have been Wwoofing, farming around Europe and North Africa, with an enthusiasm for biodynamic farming, something my sister's career and interests have focused around since she returned from Nicaragua five years ago. Daniel, her fiance, is one of those guys who does everything from scratch, much like Robert. Where Daniel makes his own wine, Robert makes his own beer. Daniel also dabbles in making boats, in fact he made the one he proposed to my sister in. Penney and Robert both have a great interest in buying a boat, and I've been weighing in on that interest as well as we spend our nights talking. Either way, there's the connections I'm thinking of.

I have weird feelings about the world and where its going. I have for sometime, and, along with Todd, I'm finding out that I'm no where near alone on these thoughts. I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before, but now its feeling imminent. So much so that I'm feeling I need to really start cranking up my preparations for these impressions a bit more. I'm feeling more and more convinced that something brutal is going to happen in September. Watching all those commercials back in Shelly's living room throughout June about every company, and their mother, encouraging cash for gold sales by July 4th and insurance ads telling senior citizens to sell their life insurance for cash didn't help ease my concern. From what I understand, hoarded gold by banks means the onset of inflation.

So that's been the past two weeks. Full, lively, and inspiring. My premonition came true as well, as far as my money goes. I'd had the feeling since Michigan, when I started seeing my savings fall into dregs, that, outside of my locked up money, when I hit $0 only then would money start coming back in again. I almost hit zero last week, but held on to my $6.96 in my wallet as my credit card charges soaked up the remains of my bank account holdings. At long last, the question would be answered of what would I do when I ran out of money. The work with Julie started surfacing, but I held on to my $6.96, and she kept flaking out on needing me. Finally, yesterday I deposited $4 in my account to cover the rest of my credit card balance, and I met up with my friend Nikki for coffee at St. Mark's and gave the barista the rest of my $2.96. Today, I baby sat for Loreli and she paid me.

Weirdly, I never worried about it too much. I did a little at times, but not too much. When I got my $25 today, plus some crackers and cheese, I felt my conviction solidify and am now convinced that as the money is needed it'll show up, but I'm not worried about it. Life is working out perfectly just as it should.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

7/9- Trucker's Jamboree

An action packed, fun filled, family day at Iowa 80 it was this day. To kick it all off we started out with meeting one of our absolute favorite waitresses at The Kitchen, Christi. She would not even let us dip below 3/4 of a cup before she was swinging back to top us off. We also spent a lot of time chatting her up telling her about our travels and what we're up to, and hearing her story about raising her daughter and the ordeals of single parenthood with a deadbeat dad. In fact, we got along with her so well we hung out drinking coffee, talking with her when she had a moment, until she got out of work at 3pm.

Once she left, we decided we should too and see what this Jamboree is all about. The day somewhat reminded me of my visit to Baker City, OR back when I was walking the US and was taken in by a family there for the day. Their was a Miner's Jubilee going on in that town when I arrived (odds of 1 in 365 that time) and I wandered around exploring that until they got out of work, then they took me to a rodeo on a spare ticket they randomly had.

This time, no one took us in other than the welcoming family of the Iowa 80 Kitchen, but the feeling of being apart of this community event, with families roaming around and kids eating ridiculous treats was the same. It always throws me back to The Big E which was a carnival that rolled into Springfield, MA every September and was a huge deal if you were a kid. Seeing these events like the Jubilee and the Jamboree as one just drifting through gives it a whole new perspective. Like walking through the family pictures on an unknown family's mantel if that makes sense. Being apart of something and welcome while not really belonging there.

Todd and I roamed the truck display once again for a bit, actually get a good look at them this time now that they were officially displayed. This too harkened me back to my strange obsession with the shipping industry that I had while I was walking. Although this time, it wasn't the web of truckers, mariners, and engineers tying the world together that was enthralling me. It was the history of those folks stretched out across time. Seeing these old trucks that used to rumble over dirt roads when roads were just beginning to connect the east and west coasts. When you didn't go for a drive, but went motoring. Some of these relics were over a hundred years old, which was a strange realization when you see the date 1908. I guess I never got over the turn of the millennium, because Todd had to point that out. To me over a hundred has remained as 1899 or earlier.

After meandering the grounds a bit we thought about trying to find a ride out. It was about 5pm, and we figured we'd seen it now and were good to go. A quick jaunt out to the ramps changed our mind, however. The roads were jam packed only going into the truck stop, but the ramp heading west was empty. Traffic cops were directing traffic as well, and since we weren't quite sure of the legality of hitching, or if anyone would be likely to pick up two hitchers in front of a cop also made it difficult.

We sat a the Pilot station across the way where the Greyhound had dropped us and decided that it was pointless to stay out here now. Aaron Tippin, a big country singer, was playing at 7pm until 9pm and after that the roads would be jammed going the other way, perfect for hitching. The obvious answer was just go back to the Jamboree and enjoy it, stop trying to find the quickest way out of where we were. The funny part of it was that both of us were happy being there as well.

When we got back to the Jamboree we decided to plop down at the hay bale seating arena and enjoy the show. Leaning against our packs was our way of advertising quietly to a big crowd wandering around that we were hitch hikers and might need a ride after the show. It didn't work, but I did get into a really good conversation with the lady I sat next to.

Betty was there with her husband and some friends, she was probably some where in her 60s and lived just across the border in Illinois. We got to talking just from the packs, and making sure each of us had enough room, that sort of thing. Eventually, Todd wandered off on the phone and I found myself completely embroiled in explaining every bit of what we were doing to Betty. How we lived, the following of our intuitions, and the joys and perils of this way of life. She seemed deeply concerned and inspired at the same time. One major issue she wanted to make sure she understood was how well I kept in touch with my mother, and if I worried her sick. It was a bit of a shock to her to hear I was completely supported by everyone in my family. Not even reluctantly, but enthusiastically.

I had a really good time talking with her. We talked all the way through the show and into everyone packing up to go. I was a complete foreigner in her way of life yet I still seemed quite welcome by her. She reminded me very much of my Dad's side of the family. Not so much the immediate, but more the extended parts. When she left to go home I still don't think she agreed with what I was doing, but she did seem somewhat inspired to see I was happy to share it and was going to do it anyway.

After she and her family left Todd returned and we moved over to a bale of hay acting as a seat for a display of fireworks. Most of the people had cleared out by then except for gaggle of young moms and their toddlers jumping from bale to bale. They were by far more interesting to watch than the one at a time fireworks show. Following that we made for our traffic jam out front to hitch on.

The jam style of hitching is not as affective as one might think. Either that or our hearts just weren't in it. We set ourselves up on a well lit corner, away from where the traffic cops were, just below a stop sign so that trucks and cars stopped on their way out could get a good look at us. We too got a good look at them as they saw us and kept going, or kept being aggravated that they were stuck in a traffic jam. Rain started rumbling in as well after half an hour or so, so we returned to the truck stop proper and propped ourselves up by the door in front of the gas station.

Now here was a moment that I attribute again to the weirdness of how things work. Sitting here on this bench was a nice way to see a lot of people and talk with some as they went in and out grabbing snacks and paying for gas. We were relaxed and unanxious for a ride at all, but we set our sign out for Des Moines/Denver and just hung out doing whatever. Often I would run off and explore something then come back again.

At some point while both of us were sitting there I was staring at the ground just thinking. A man and a woman walked by and something dropped out of the man's back pocket landing squarely in front of Todd and I. It was a $50 bill, neatly folded with the "50" staring right at me. As soon as it dropped and I recognized it I reflexively snatched it up and ran after the pair catching them just inside the doorway. Trying to tap them on the shoulder saying "excuse me, excuse me" they seemed to want to shrug me off until I told the guy he'd dropped something he probably wanted. There was a split second in there where the thought surfaced of maybe that was their way of giving us $50. But then he saw the bill and was obviously surprised, took it, and sort of muddled off a thanks that was overtaken by his own shock at having been handed his own fifty to him.

I went back to our bench and answered Todd's confused look on his face as he'd missed what had happened. I didn't really think much of it afterward, and we joked about how I should have just kept it, but acknowledged there's no way we'd feel right about keeping money that we knew where it came from. Had I been off looking at something, as I had periodically been doing all night, and came back to find it there then of course you keep it, but not when you know who you can return it to.

Anyway, we sat there for maybe another 20 minutes before the two came back out again. I didn't recognize them at first and thought that the woman of the two was a trucker woman we had talked to about an hour ago saying we might have a ride with her. The lady came right up to me handing me $2 saying thank you so much for being honest. It took me a second to realize who they were and we ended up chatting a bit with them.

Connie was her name, and she told us it was too bad it wasn't Tuesday because that's when they come through heading west and they'd love to give us a ride. She said if she ran across us any time and were heading our way that she'd have no problem giving us a ride, so we swapped numbers. Its worked so far with Ken for Todd, so we figured as long as we know her route this could work out really well.

A little while after they shoved off we returned to our old haunt, The Kitchen. Here our brains started churning up ideas of getting to know a bunch of truckers, possibly setting up a network of trucker friends to hook up with depending on where we're going. Thinking of Jess and Christi, we hit on the idea of becoming regulars in as many truck stop diners as we could so that they could introduce us to other truckers who might want riders along. The whole world blossomed once again.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

7/8- The Dirty Dog to Iowa 80

Greyhound, the dirty dog. An old familiar way for me to move around the country cheaply when I have the time to ride it out, and always a mode that I vow never to do again once I've finally reached my destination. Legs cramped, hungry, and usually in a strange haze. Its like a mobile hallway through Alice's wonderland; entering in one land, exiting in the other, and the journey in between immemorably memorable. I believe it will live on past its days as a surreal national icon to be romanticized in future novels like Skid Row and The Pony Express. Horrible but amazing.

Our ride was a mild example of the extremities Greyhound brings, starting with the legal booby trapping of the bus station in Kalamazoo. A bike cop rode up on Todd after he lit up a cigarette simply to ID him by way of threatening him with a smoking violation ticket. The interesting part being that the signs are put up in such away that makes it suspiciously ambiguous as to where the non-smoking area is by saying "in premises" and only putting the signs against the station and not through the loading area or above the bench. In fact the cop confessed, or boasted really, about having busted 164 people in the past year due to this very tactic of threatening a ticket so that they relinquish their right to privacy. Yea, do-gooders?

Anyway, so these were our last moments in Kalamazoo before getting on the bus and getting out of there. The ride itself was little to comment on. It held its cast of characters to watch, but no real stories went on. We drove through half the night and arrived at Iowa 80 around 1:45am. Having just done some bus napping we were a little foggy, but excited to be somewhere new. After some wandering about trying to spot a place to bunk down in the dark we decided we needed food and to sit comfortably to get an idea of what to do next.

Some diner food, coffee, and chatting with our waitress, Jessie, got us right in the mindset we were looking for. Jess, as Todd was calling her after two hours of on off chatting, informed us that we'd come just in time for the 30th Annual Trucker's Jamboree. Both of us kind of looked at each other and all ideas of catching a ride out of there the next day seemed to evaporate. What were the odds that we'd end up here right when they're having their Jamboree? They actually weren't all that remote, because I actually calculated them over coffee (1 in 26 being that its a two day event, probably even closer than that since we were a day early, but whatever). Downing our sixth or seventh refill we bounded back out into the night to make camp.

We woke up around noon in our little tree grove between the on ramp and I-80 to the pitter patter of rain on our bivies. I actually had woken up around 11am and just lay there not wanting to get out into the wet, but eventually we must come out. Crawling out of our bivies, we packed them up wet and hustled our way through the deluge back to The Kitchen to dry off and eat. Like wet rats crawling out of the ditches we were a bit of a spectacle as we sat ourselves in a booth for more grub.

Sally was our elderly waitress and kind of frustratingly hilarious to watch in action. Our breakfast lasted a good two hours again as we unwound, dried out, and chatted out a strategy for the day. All the while Sally would swing by maybe once an hour to refill our coffees. After long being dry on our bottomless cup she'd eventually wander over with a pot, lighting our eyes up with the hopes of more, and she'd fill Todd's mug... then half of mine. One time she completely ignored me altogether. I had to laugh, but it was a bit frustrating too.

After settling up there, we took a tour of the back lot where the Jamboree was to go down. Still being a bit wet, we did a little tour up and down the aisles of the old trucks on display. We then sat out in front of the truck stop for a little bit, looking for rides mildly by just sitting out front by our packs. Through that, we ended up chatting with a guy who was on his last hitch trying to get 200 miles up the road. After 30 years he'd finally had decided to retire. He was a cool kat to talk to, and to see that he could do it for nearly as long as I've been alive. His stories were intriguing and he seemed like a fairly honest guy just doing his thing. On a whole though he seemed to be doing something different than what we had in mind. He seemed to be hitching to get away and be on his own, where as that's what I worry about me ending up doing rather than pursuing.

It didn't take long, though, for us to feel called right back into The Kitchen for some dinner and more coffee. Dinner lasted another few hours as we admired the 2nd shift crew. This was the shift, for whatever reason, was just loaded down with really cute waitresses. We mulled over our ideas of this and that, sipping on our more regularly flowing refills of coffee, but mainly we were just winding down the day. In fact, we stayed until dark, sat outside again for a little bit, then I decided to call it a day. By 11pm I was back in my bivy and sacking out, while Todd returned yet again for more coffee.

Click here for Todd's perspective.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

7/7- The Last Weekend

I'm sorry to say I was probably not the best house guest for Brian and Joey. I felt kinda bad about just sitting around drowning in TV and internet but I was having a hard struggle now trying to figure out what we were still doing in Michigan.

Todd seemed to be under a similar yoke in that he too was wondering what was manifesting itself in the aether. Despite this, Brian and Joey still seemed pleased to have us. We all took to vegging out around the house for our stay.

For the Fourth we did nothing fireworks oriented, but indulged in the great American tradition of TV marathon watching. This weekend was non-stop Rod Sterling classical Twilight Zone. By Monday, I had also re-hooked myself on The History Channel as well. Along with this I took to drinking all too much coffee, as it is readily available at any given moment in their home.

Again, though, I must apologize to Brian and Joey, because I sunk into a strange deflated funk. I was starting to fall back into a state of agitated disconnect as I wondered what in the hell I should be doing with my time now.

Todd and I had a strange level of communication going at this point as well, I think due to this ethereal confusion. I was feeling a definite draw to leave by Sunday night and random things were still popping up on him that would suggest a longer stay. Much of my struggle was trying to figure out if this pull to leave was coming from just really wanting to finally get going again or if it really was time for he and I to split ways, as we'd always thought we eventually would. The third possibility, making "the feeling" ever more muddled, was whether or not it was my task to muster him to come with me or not. That one felt terribly wrong, but it came from the pressing notion that we'd be in Iowa together.

This impression of bumming around I-80 through Iowa together was the only internal guide I had for what I should do. My ego was really getting in the way as I kept feeling like I was just being lead around, coming and going, at Todd's will. It was a completely unfair accusation, but it is exactly how my brain thinks when it feels like trying to be a victim. Luckily, I'm well aware of that tendency so the idea never manifested into actual thought, much less on to my outside voice.

This was how the weekend was for me, though. It was spent dancing in my head trying to figure out which lesson I was to be learning. Was it to recognize when its time to move on alone, or, our old favorite, patience being strung out in countdown form? I think it turned out to be the latter.

Looking back over my writings from last month, destined departures were a week or two away. In the past weeks I'd declare I was leaving in a few days. Then it dwindled to a series of "next day" exits. By Monday and Tuesday they turned to promises within hours. What held me to stay was identifying that strong, but hazy, feeling of Todd and I in Iowa mucking about. That was the only thing I couldn't shake.

By Monday it had boiled down to Todd straight up telling me I should go on by myself. It came from me trying to press out where he was and what his thoughts were on heading west, probably with a heavy edge of agitation to it. He was also pretty full with frustration so we sat down and got it out that neither of us were agitated at the other, we just couldn't figure out why we weren't leaving. In fact, we still don't know why.

We hashed out a few ideas on what we felt stuck on, different methods to leave, and shout outs to Craigslist ride shares. Nothing clicked. We got quite a few "perfect" ride responses through Craigslist, but they all fell through one way or another in the end. I kept thinking that this had to be a Tantalus test in patience.

Finally, Tuesday, we were at our stations of feeling completely lost debating taking a series of commuter rails from South Bend to Joliet when it all finally snapped together. We had debated busing to Davenport, Iowa often but for some reason this time when we hit on it it seemed like the perfect solution. Iowa 80 is the mecca of all truck stops and the perfect place to hitch, camp out, and eat. For the same price we discovered a bus that would drop us off in that parking lot. Our clue that we'd finally found the right way out came with the old familiar surge of energy that lights us up.

It was quite a feeling to feel the guidance surge up again through all the muck we'd slathered ourselves in. We had four hours to get everything together and catch our bus. I even had my brief moment of heading out on my own opting to walk the three miles to the bus station while Todd stayed to see if Brian might come home to drive us. If he didn't he figured he'd catch a cab, but I needed to stroll at least a little bit.

I got about a mile or so before they swung by and scooped me up. It felt right to be able to at least hug Brian goodbye in the end, so I was glad they caught up with me. At long last we were now finally, and definitely, getting out of Michigan.



Click here for Todd's perspective.

Monday, July 6, 2009

7/3- Back To Kalamazoo

At long last we were heading west of Hillsdale with packed bags and a notion of departure on our minds. My restlessness was no longer a secret to anyone as Bob would joke about me finally being released as he drove us to Coldwater. I felt kinda bad about it, but hopefully those I'm close to can reassure through comments below those I just met this past month that its in my nature to keep moving even when I'm meeting some really good people. Anyway, we said our goodbyes in the Big Boy parking lot before he returned to his normal life.

We went in and had coffee and burgers for a bit, then laid out in the grass until Mike and family showed up a little while later. I won't go into the specifics as much as Todd likely will, but it was an interesting meet for me too. It was actually the first time I would witness him meeting one of these long lost siblings for the first time. With Shelly I saw them say hello and hug, but once Stacey drove off I excused myself to the shower for as long as I could to give them some privacy to get acquainted. There was no such excuse here, and Mike had his entourage as well so I wasn't quite left feeling like a fifth wheel.

They chatted for a bit in the parking lot before we returned to the Big Boy for their lunch. Both he, Bobbie, and Ally were interesting characters so it wasn't hard for me to sit back, listen and observe for a while.

After lunch we joined them in the drive down to the fireworks shop in Angola. However, true to our usual form, Todd and I had changed our minds once again on what we wanted to do with ourselves. While laid out in the Big Boy parking lot we got to joking about hitching a plane until Todd realized he knew someone who could make that a reality. This someone lived back by Kalamazoo, so we asked Mike, since he was heading back up to Lansing, if he could drop us off on I-94 and we could maybe see Brian and Joey again as well. They would make a nice bookend visit on this Michigan trip.

So we perused the fireworks shop and looked over all the different sorts together. I was quite surprised to find historically oriented rockets like The Lusitania. Just waiting on the Pearl Harbor Raid Rockets and The Twin Tower launchers to get a plunged-into-war set. Maybe an exploding newspaper that makes brilliant yellow sparks for The Spanish-American War.

After a few hours of visiting we were soon in a parking lot to a gas station off I-94. Mike was feeling weird about "just dumping us there", but we did our best to convince him that this was normal and good for us. They took a few more pictures together and then they were off. We were back, temporarily, to being two hitchers at a truck stop for the next hour or two.

Brian and Joey did come through, however, and by sunset Joey had sped out to scoop us up for Kalamazoo. Not long after we got to their house we got the final word that the plane was in the shop and our plane hitch would be a no go, but the guy had liked the idea. Nevertheless it was nice seeing Brian and Joey again. We all went out for Ihop that night and just sort of reclined and caught up with each other a bit.



Click here for Todd's perspective.

7/2- The Wait At Bob's

Our Wednesday would come, but slowly and steadily I was starting to come unhinged. I like Bob. I like most everyone I've met so far in both Ohio and Michigan. But we got here the evening of the last day in May and we were now looking the Fourth of July in the face. In looking over some of my private journal entries from the 9th of June I was reading that I'd leave in a week or so, which would be three weeks ago now. I was aching to move on, but still feeling deep within that it wasn't time.

Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to blame something that's aggravating you on someone else and knowing that it really has nothing to do with them what ever. I really wanted to smack Todd around and say that we'd done what we'd come for, I've waited far longer than I ever wanted, let's pick up our shit and go already. The problem was that easy as it was to peg him to blame this extended stay on him, it wasn't any fault of his that we were still there. Even worse, he wanted to go now too and he also couldn't figure out why we weren't. Something was going on some where and, blind to it as we were, we were tuned into it and waiting on it to show up in our sites. It went right back to our lessons in south Jersey. We aren't the center of the universe. We need to factor our guts into conscious logic because our guts are tuned into the decisions around the corner that others are making and affecting us as well. Its a weird theory we have, but so far its been pretty solid.

After much laying about, watching TV, playing video games, drinking beer around the fire, and watching Bob and Todd play some softball our Wednesday arrived... in the late afternoon. In the midst of mulling over methods of departure, seeing if we could finagle a ride to Angola to hitch the freeway there, Todd got a response to a friend request on Facebook that he'd sent out in the middle of June. His brother Mike.

Mike was the last of the family to have any kind of story with. Pam and Kim were his full sisters, and the first ones Todd had come in contact with fifteen years ago. Shelly, obviously, we'd spent the month with. Lynn he'd been talking to online for about two months now. Skip, their full brother, had sort of made it known he was opting out of this reunion month. And his Dad he had just finally reconnected with that past Sunday. Todd had sent Mike a friend request in the midst of all these meets falling through back in June and by this time, I believe, had given up the idea of contacting him. Now here he was accepting right at a time we'd "had a feeling about" three days earlier.

There was a brief email exchange. They chatted online that night, then talked on the phone Thursday night. In a whirlwind we were set up to meet up with him, his daughter Ally, and her mom Bobbie, in Coldwater on Friday. They were heading that way anyway that day to go get fireworks for the Fourth in Angola. they offered to give us a ride.

Sit down, shut up, and listen to everything going on around you whether you can hear it or merely feel it. The world works everything out for you, you just need the patience to let it. This event did reinforce my confidence in this, but I was still struggling in a raging battle with this overall lesson in patience.



Click here for Todd's perspective.