Day Fifty-One, Nudism

I had what we'll call a wonderful day, thank-you so much for asking. I did get a rather late start. A series of unhappy accidents meant I couldn't leave my tent.

I had been very pleased with my campsite. It had taken a while to find. I had been up and down both sides of an overpass and too close to a railroad bridge. I had been promised I would find there luxury camping and all I could find were pricker bushes.

But damned if right there in the middle of these pricker bushes weren't a sort of tunnel and a tent-sized space. It was completely covered over by vines. I'd be invisible to anyone six feet away. Hobo!

It was, however, a bit skeetery in there and the trains were running a lot closer to my pillow than I had at first thought. And the place was just swimming with great beastly fowl. One of them pooped on my tent. They spent the whole evening rustling about, trying to sound like grizzlies.

I woke up early, maybe seven or so, when a freight train whizzed by my left ear. Startled me, I tell you. Especially as it came at just that point in my nightmare where I was pretty sure I was going to die anyway. Sat me right up in bed.

So quickly, in fact, that I believe I may have torqued something. The earth in my grotto was lumpy. I had a rock or something jammed against my spine all night. Only when I took my tent down did I see I had set it up over a stump. A big one. I swear to golly.

Last night I dined on cranberry walnut oatmeal cookies. I had just three which left six in the box. I meant to have them for breakfast. But at some point in the evening, perhaps agitated by passing trains, I rolled over them and smashed them into a billion pieces.

Understand that I only chose cranberry walnut oatmeal cookies because I thought they'd be sort of chewy, not crumbly at all. But they were crumbly. You see what I'm up against. What's worse, my little rabbit hole let in very little sunlight so my tent was soggy with condensation and yesterday's best efforts. And those cookies melted into an insidious paste and got over everything. I had one little patch to balance on, on what I would later learn was the high side of the stump.

Everything else was either gritty or sticky with paste. I couldn't step outside because that is what the skeeterbugs wanted me to do. So I sat holding my knees and contemplating God's mysteries.

I don't remember how I finally got going. I couldn't tell you what time. I have lost my long-broken watch an my unbreakable pocket comb. It was green. I used it for everything. Picking my teeth, scratching my back, poking at this or that. And to groom every square inch of my body and check myself for parasites.

The watch was rather useful, as well. I used it to tell the time. Maybe I am better off without it. It does tell me what time to camp. But mostly it just hurts my feelings. I don't think I will soon replace it.

I took off walking, eager and uphill. Two miles up the road I passed the campsite everyone had been at such pains to describe to me. It would have been lovely. It was one of those fishing access places on what I believe is called the Little Blackfoot river. But I could be wrong.

[A train as just passed, not much further away than last night. It is not the first since I set up here, but I was listening to the radio and very much engaged in my correspondence with you. It scared the ever-loving crap out of me.]

This highway twelve, I think it is called, is a pretty road. I love the hills around here. They are covered with grass and pines. From a distance the grass looks very soft and carefully groomed. Like a golf course. And while these are technically those very Rocky Mountains which have caused me such fear and slowed my step these many weeks, they are gently curved and almost beg to be climbed.

I regret I do not have much capacity to post photos, but I urge you to google the various place names I mention. Some better photographer than I can make it real to you. Highway Twelve between Garrison and Helena, Montana. Look it up. Thank you.

I hiked eight miles up the road to the Avon Cafe of Avon, Montana where an over-worked waitress brought me thirty-nine Cokes and four glasses of water. And a passable burger and some spectacularly greasy fries, all of which I ate right up.

I also had a slab of coconut cream pie. You know, when I planned this trip, I was sure I'd be eating a lot more coconut cream pie. Most places, though, don't even have pie these days. What is happening to America! And when I have found coconut cream pie, it hasn't been that good. Today's entry is better described as a coconut meringue pie.

Leaving Avon I continued uphill towards Elliston, Montana. I thought Ellison was sixteen miles away. I was going to stop short and breakfast there tomorrow. Turned out it was only seven or eight miles away. I had a fishburger at the Lawdog Saloon.

More to be polite than anything. I needed to recharge my computer. But it was awfully good and I gobbled it up. I chose fish deliberately. I am feeling more and more guilty about my burger habit. The cows, you see, are great friends of mine and I am having trouble meeting their gaze.

I have no great love of chickens. I don't think they pack the same calories but I am pretty sure I can make that up with fried potatoes.

I should mention that on my way into Avon, when I was still convinced the town was yet miles away, I took a regularly scheduled break and sat down on my pack in a rare bit of shade. I was sitting in tall grass and the people in passing cars probably thought I was taking a dump.

But I was just sitting there. I wasn't tired or anything. I felt great. Ninety-degree weather doesn't really bother me. I just have to drink a bit more. But somehow sitting there on my pack I managed to injure my spine. I couldn't stand up.

I didn't want to lie in the grass because I would be covered in slithering snakes. I further injured myself digging out two aspirin and got to my feet. There was no chance of hoisting my pack until the pills kicked in so I had to stand there like a moron for twenty miles.

And it turned out the Lawdog was just half a mile away. I took two more pills and hoped for the best. Turned out OK, let's hope. I had a nice time talking to the saloon patrons. There were pretty girls and a soldier and a railroad man and an ex-convict. And the usual assortment of lesbians.

I always like talking to railroad men. I am just nutty for trains. He gave me the same story about it being an easy job but he had a grip like a vise. I guess they are extra busy now because a lot of other rail lines are underwater. He zooms around in a truck and does maintenance on the track. It sounds like a neat job. For a single guy. You don't get home much.

He told me about this shortcut around the easiest path over the Rockies. So guess what! I am back country. Back country, bear country. Miles from the nearest paved road. I've gone done it; I have gone Daniel Boone. I am back to my Animal Nature.

I am going to find my own path up and over. I reckon the summit is about five or six miles away. If it hadn't been getting dark I would have liked to camp up there. I would have peed twice, once in the blue Pacific and once in the Gulf of Mexico. I'll do that tomorrow if I remember.

I am a little nervous about this wilderness path. I have to get to Helena in one day and, while I believe this way is easier, I do not know how many miles it adds. Plus there is the whole bear thing. Still, I am very happy here.

I am still beside the railroad but we are on opposite banks of a narrow little river. The water ain't too, too cold; I had a bath and then stood naked in God's nature. I was out there for hours. I had to duck behind my tent when the trains went by, but otherwise I have miles of wilderness all to myself. There were no skeeters to speak of. I stayed until it got dark.

There are signs of someone else having camped where I am now. I was hoping the cumulative people stink would keep the bears away. I don't think they're too fond of trains either. I'll probably be OK.

Still, while I was standing around naked, a badgery creature slid across the water and up the steep bank. He glared briefly at me from a dozen feet away before disappearing high up the hill. He was big and muscular and low to the ground. He had an angry white face. I think he saw I was no one to be trifled with. Being naked saved my life.

It is coming up on two o'clock. I really do not want to sleep. I am too happy, too perfectly content. These moments do not last.


CHEERS to the businessman I met, a cat by the name of Bizzarro. He had me figured at glance. Cheers too to T-Brett and Jim, both of whom made a special effort to say hi to me on the road.

THANK-YOU much for my official Lawdog Saloon hunting cap. It is camouflaged and so at cross purposes to my glow-in-the-dark traffic safety hat, but it is a fine cap and I shall wear it with pride.

IT HAS OCCURRED to me that mine is a romantic nature and that, while I enjoy the freedom that goes with being thoroughly unloved, I really ought to make more effort. Some girl, somewhere, is missing out on some world-class, grade-A bullshit.

So why, you ask, am I Walking Across America? For a while there it was in support of Cannabis Reform. Then it was for World Peace. Now it is to meet girls. I am Walking to Meet Girls.

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