Friday, June 10, 2011

Day Fourteen, Roadkill

LWoke up at five-thirty in a sprinkling rain with snoofles up in my nose. I wasn't about to let that stop me. I was on the road by seven.

"What's that?" you say. "Seven o'clock? You sure took your own sweet time. It takes you a full ninety minutes to pack up all of your gear?"

Yes, it does, thank you so much for asking. Sometimes more and rarely less. There are zippers to zipper and straps to snap, all in a specific order. This changes daily depending on the temperature, whether or not it is raining, whether or not it will rain, whether or not it has rained, what percentage of my laundry is dirty, how bad it stinks, and a number of other factors. There is a lot of uncomfortable squatting and fussy detail work with cold brittle fingers. I pause between steps to curse my lot and wonder which of my sins brought me to this.

But today, like I said, I was up early and was on the road by seven. It gets light around four-thirty and I thought I should get out of there before someone came and yelled at me or otherwise endeavored to make me feel poorly about myself. I don't need those negative vibes. I spent all day yesterday tripping on time and money and wound up talking myself into a head cold.

I have never been a positive person, but I can lie to myself when I have to. You might say I have done little else. I marched forth into a misty rain, my leprous little toes be damned. I wore my snot like a badge of honor. I kept my head held high. I walked ten miles well before noon and collapsed into a heap.

I was at the time just in front of the Pacific Springs(?) RV Park/Driving Range and with the gracious permission of the young woman at the counter, I went to sleep on their lawn. When I woke up I spent a pleasant hour talking with her, a reluctant Seattle transplant. She told me what it's like to be a hippie in cowboy country and shared all the county gossip. Cheers, Rachel! Study hard. You will make a beautiful lawyer.

I made it another five or six miles to Ephrata, where my legs went out from under me. I checked into the cheapest hotel in town and I am deeply ashamed. Some man of the road I am turning out to be. I don't get sick as a general rule and sixteen miles is as nothing to me. I let myself be defeated by trifles.

SEEN: just one rattlesnake, medium-sized, thoroughly mooshed by a truck. Poor little fellow. I hope I fare better on America's highways than these snakes seem to. But then I don't deserve to die.

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6 comments:

  1. From Lee,

    Check your e-mail for an update on Chelee and Charlie. Hope you guys made the connection. I tried to get you room number to them, hope they listened to their phone messages.

    Keep us posted on your journey.

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  2. Charlie...now that's a funny timely thing but never mind.
    Glad to see that you are sinking, yes sinking, more and more into your humour James, it is your saving grace, well, one of them.
    Keep on trucking my man we all have every faith in you (god help us) you can do it, who knows? the world might depend on it.
    How many Hippie waitresses is that already? God, and to think I've got a BIKE. (The sensible option)It doesn't wear your new boots out.

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  3. I almost said..just go for it and fuck the rattlesnakes but realised in time that it may well have been misunderstood. Phew!

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  4. For the love of God, man, my mother reads this blog. Let us all try to behave like little ladies and gentlemen.

    james

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  5. "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours".
    Thoreau, philosopher

    Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.
    Mark Twain

    Miss P

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  6. My step dad Walt grew up in Ephrata.

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