9/6- Boise Departure

Sunday was an odd day. I sat up into the wee hours of the morning editing photos and uploading them in preparation of leaving that day. Todd passed out on the floor with the cat while I did so. When I woke up the next day I was all geared up and ready to roll back out on to the road, but I had forgotten about Todd's time management skills.

Todd and I communicate relatively well. We travel well together because of that, but we obviously have very distinct methods in which we arrange ourselves. Luckily, we had the Michigan experience (as its now dubbed) to draw on as to how to employ these good communication skills we have between us. As you can see, by where I'm leading this, I did start to have my doubts that day about us traveling back together again.

I knew there were odds and ends to take care of, and I was completely happy reclining in the lap of Lynn and Dave's hospitality while I waited. Mike, on of Dave's kids visiting for the weekend, invited me to a few rounds of Halo and Ben joined in with us. As we rounded noon, word got out of a ham roast lunch in an hour which both Todd and I jumped at staying through for. I was a bit surprised to learn it was only 1pm-ish when we ate since we both rose early that morning. So all in all I was having a grand time as Todd wrapped up posts, reorganized his pack, and assessed what might possibly be missing. I don't want this to sound as if I was waiting by the door tapping my fingers impatiently.

The tinge of possible regret for our upcoming tandem Portland hitch trip seeped in after that amazing lunch, 3pm was wearing on, and Todd popped his head in on Mike and my Halo bonanza to see if I wanted to join him on a jaunt to Staples. That got me nervous. We had talked of trying to be out the door by 3pm at the latest and I was starting to see our departure drift into Monday.

Here I'd like to stop and be clear on something as far as this go, go nature of mine goes. Leaving Monday was not the problem, nor was lingering in Michigan for five weeks back in June. The problem taps back into ancient childhood issues of my Dad and his inability to get anything accomplished on time. That sense of lingering in a place, bored out of your skull, for no other reason than because he could not physically pick me up on time, leave a place on time, be anywhere on time. This was something, in regards to my traveling with Todd, that I've only come to realize now. To dive into ego and all that crap, I believe its tapping that vein from childhood of feeling a complete lack of control as to where I can go and when.

Returning back to the game room with Todd saying he's heading off to Staples to check on something, I suddenly see a four hour trip, running all over the city for a trinket or two, and watching the sunset saying, "oh well, we'll try again tomorrow". This then would conjure the aforementioned unresolved Daddy issue along with the drama of Michigan's exodus, and I would instantly find myself back in that same state of frustration and aggravation all by the workings of my own head. How's that for street side psychology?

In the end, none of this happened. I did become frustrated and no longer wanted to chill out to Halo, but was suddenly infused with an incessant need to get going now. I managed to catch myself enough to sit down with Pocketmail and write up another post for Saturday, and by the time I was done Todd was back, excited to go, and I was just the temporary dickhead who had worked myself up over anticipation of something happening rather than something actually happening. Shall we all say it together now. Sit down and shut up.

When Todd and Lynn returned he packed up his bag and Lynn suggested dropping us off down the road in Star where she was dropping Ben off. All the timing worked out perfectly. We scampered out to the front yard, took some giant family photos, and piled in the car for the ten mile ride.

Among them all I think Dave's look on his face was the most precious to me as we got out at a crossroads next to a cornfield. It was as if he hadn't really believed until now, when he was leaving us in the middle of nowhere to wander further in to this land called nowhere, that we actually were going to do this. He looked concerned, somewhat darkly amused, but most of all in throes of thawing out of a disbelief he knew might be coming but hadn't prepared for. I wish I'd gotten a picture. As we hugged and shook hands saying our "thank you"s and "good to meet you"s they both offered for me to swing by anytime I was in Boise whether with Todd or otherwise which I liked hearing.

They drove off and we walked west. We were on US-20/26 and aiming for Portland and there was a sign for it right there for us to take an inaugural picture together. About five minutes after our futzing about with pictures we started walking down the road together wondering what the comparison would be like in getting rides in tandem out here in the Northwest compared to the East Coast and Iowa. In mid-wonder a red pick up pulled up, told us to jump in the back, and hauled us off to I-84. That was quick.

Dumping us at a Flying J by the Interstate was the perfect spot for us to figure out what the hell we were doing. Todd had just gotten new boots, courtesy of Lynn and Dave, and we were expecting 10 miles of walking to test them out and hash out our plan as far as how we planned to get to Portland. Suddenly we were here in 10 minutes with no idea. The options were this:

- We could both adopt Todd's method and sit at the on ramps looking for a tandem ride on the interstate.
- We could both walk the back roads and hope for a tandem pick up off the side of the road.
- We could split up and finally have our Tortoise and the Hare Race that we conceived in Maryland where I hitch back roads walking (tortoise) and he sits at the Flying J waiting for the big haul down the interstate (hare) and see who gets to Portland first.

None of these options jumped out at us. I have become quite comfortable in my notion that I'm not a big fan of sitting and waiting for someone to get me. If no one is picking me up I at least like to see the scenery change and feel like one day I'll get somewhere if nothing else than by foot. Todd was excited to try out his boots for walking, but Oregon is a big state, and once you veer away from that highway then you've committed to quite a bit of walking if that method doesn't work out. The Race sounded like the best option, but we'd just gotten back together, we didn't want to split up so soon. So we had a coffee, thought it over, and set off down the back roads into Caldwell, ID.

It was a darn fine time. The sun was setting by now and small towns in sunsets are quite gorgeous. Even boarded up windows on a street of concrete buildings looks romanticized and adventurous when basking in the glow of a setting sun. It was finally time for us to be the intrepid adventurers we had wanted to be back east.

Entering Caldwell we learned a new method of evading the hassle of being IDed by cops. As we rounded a main street corner a cop rolled up on us and Todd let out his usual "here we go". We had been trying to figure out where US-20 went since we lost it crossing the interstate, so as he got out of the car I approached him quickly with a confused lost friendly face asking him if he knew where it connected. He didn't know, but he did know we weren't in anyway afraid to ask or evasive of him and his big blue uniform. We batted questions back and forth, ours to find 20 and his were more oriented around what we were up to. It was a friendly chat, he could see we were good folks, and because we had stopped him he didn't need to ID us to avoid looking like a fool for stopping us and doing nothing. Everybody happy.

We went through town and on the other end found US-20 and a short cut to it walking some rail lines. To get to them we had to get under a bridge, down a steep concrete incline, which was kinda fun. Then we walked under a full-ish moon for about a mile, crossing a long trestle over a moonlit river. A train also came once we'd found a dirt road to follow out, and we watched it pass with hungry eyes to hop it, but it was moving way too fast for us.

By 11pm we finally made it US-20/26 and began our trek west again. A mile on it lead us to a closed gas station we were hoping for coffee at, but instead we just took an extended break. We had a good conversation here about one of Todd's recent posts he wrote about being up in the Dakotas and Montana. It addressed the McCandless archetype, which he has become increasingly frustrated with, of the rich suburban pretender. When he wrote it he had been concerned about my reaction, because I too come from a wealthy suburb and a similarly decent home.

I bring it up now because I think its a very interesting topic. I have no major struggles in life, I know this, and oddly its taken me a long time to be comfortable with that. In fact, probably only in this year have I really become comfortable with the fact that I've had a very cushy and easy life. I know that many of these adventures in my past, these challenges I set for myself, are set to give me something to struggle over. I've always worked hard, but work has also always come to me easily. I've never gone more than two weeks looking for work and I acknowledge that that's a huge blessing I have. I also have the comfort behind me of knowing that if I completely fuck up in some way I have not only a good family that can afford to back me up and help me out, but I have several great friends who would likewise do the same. In that way I'm allowed to challenge things outside of my comfort zone because there is that irrevocable safety net that I've tried denying to myself but is undeniably there.

The interest in this for me is then, what is the best way to use this for everyone? My answer is obviously what I'm doing, but that was my hesitation in agreeing with what Todd had written. Its true, lots of rich suburban kids jaunt off to Prague, or South America, or Africa to challenge themselves under the banner of charity, but the question is always if its truly simply charity they want to give then why not help the nearby homeless in their towns, volunteer at a hospice, take care of the elderly, etc. I think almost all would admit that it is for the adventure and challenge as well, or the exposure to different cultures, but to do it while hoping they're helping too. I don't see anything wrong with any of this.

What I see as what seems to be the problem is the sophomoric attitude that tends to come with these experiences. Living in a hut serving Peace Corps for three years now suddenly makes an expert on what poverty is like, even though the true tyranny of impoverishment, in my observation, not my experience, is the hopelessness of being unable to live any other way. Again, I've always had good support, so this is coming just from what I've seen, not experienced, but I've seen this sort of impoverishment of spirit in more than simply the financially poor. I see these trappings in probably 80% of the people I come across, and it seems to be what Todd's battle is truly being waged against.

I've seen this sense of life entrapment in everyone from the extremely wealthy trapped by obligations and responsibilities to whole companies and networks, down through the upper middle class bound by mortgage payments and TV addiction, middle class mired by college loans, mortgages, and car payments, lower middle class clinging to job security and insurance hassles, and the completely broke both trapped by providing for their kids, keeping a roof over their heads, and doing their damnedest to put food on the table. Everyone seems roped in some way or another, and the ropes seem to be tied by not having the free time to even attempt to rethink a new strategy on how to take it all on. And these are all just financial in regards to work, housing, and families. There appears to be a much more vast web here under that financial skin, but that skin is thick enough to prevent so many from even considering getting through that to tackle the obstacles beyond it.

Maybe I'm just babbling on here, and as I said, this is what I'm seeing all from the side of the road, not in the hot seat. What I've noticed lately, though, is that more people these days seem to be working on reworking this dilemmas. I'm meeting a lot of people now, through rides and visits, who are at that point of being so fed up that despite that lack of time to reflect they're taking it anyway and rethinking all the bullshit bogging them down from being happy.

Maybe I should have put a rant alert on that one. I should probably reread it.

I got a little lost in my train of thought, but to get back to the crux of that conversation at the gas station my main wonder is what would be acceptable for a wealthy suburban kid to do that wouldn't be a charity vacation. I agree with my good friend Gela Bibs, its okay to fake it til you make it. To condemn those kids from going out and helping just perpetuates the class war, in my mind, and the class war is really what seems to be the ancient roots of all other social wars like racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on when you really bring them back.

When McCandless burned all his money that was done out of anger. Why didn't he give it to someone if he didn't want it? If you want to strike out of your little suburban lifestyle and give something to the world my advice would be start with the adventuring first. If you're looking to help some other culture, be it another culture in your home country or a foreign one, you probably don't know anything about the real troubles in it and it'd be best to just get there and listen first if that's what you want to do. I recommend reading about Jonathan Strange helping Wellington in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough about that. We wandered on about a mile after that gas station and eventually found ourselves a nice little nest of tall weeds to crash in for the night. There was some barbed wire to cross, which tore up Todd's pants something terrible, but other than that we were snug in there safe and sound.

Click here for Todd's story.