Day Twenty-One, Spokane!

I woke up at six-thirty but stayed in bed. It was awfully cold outside. I sat listening to the trucks roll by, gnawing on a cold hunk of bread. I had slept using that bread as a pillow. It did not warm it up much at all. The winds had been down when I put up my tent so I hadn't bothered staking it to the ground. Now they were howling and my tent was threatening to go tumbling end over end.

When I stop walking for a minute or an hour or, God forbid, eight hours' rest, my feet tend to cramp up some. I think they shrink a size and a half and grow thicker about the middle. The bones in my ankles get creaky and sore and my toes ball up into fists. It takes me about a mile to reach my full stride. It's the awfullest part of my day.

I am accustomed to pain. I embrace it. I love it. Pain is my oldest friend. I have been in more or less constant pain of one kind or another since the earliest days of my childhood. I laugh at pain; it tickles me. It's the fuel that drives my art. But I am not without some small sense of pride. I would keep my dignity. And limping along for that first half mile I feel like an absolute ass. Here I am supposed to be the big transcontinental walker and I look nothing short of feeble. I feel the pity from passing cars. It takes all the fun out of life.

But always I recover, sooner or later. Today it may have taken a bit longer. But when I rolled into Reardan at ten-thirty I was feeling on top of my game. Reardan is rather a pleasant little town. The houses are very well kept. The people are kind and the food is good. I had a very nice breakfast. I had some hope of visiting the library; perhaps they would let me use their computer. But it was closed so I was back on the road without my customary three hours' rest.

It was then I rather surprised myself. I felt good; I walked twelve miles non-stop to Fairchild Airforce Base. I was just outside the gate when I felt one of my toes explode. A blister had gone; it alarmed me somewhat, though I should be used to it by now. I was worried that if I stopped there some MP would shoot me in the head. I am a socialist, after all, and we are a nation at war.

But as it turned out there is a nice little park-like area, inside the fence but outside the gate where civilians can come to pick up their loved ones. I filled my water bottles at the visitors center and spent a relaxing ninety minutes on a green lawn, doctoring my feet and talking to some old hippie who was waiting for a bus.

He was about my age. He looked more or less like me. But smaller. His name was George. He said he was an indian but he didn't look like one. He was drinking beer and missing teeth and began every sentence by laughing and saying "Fuck, man...", which for some reason I find a very pleasant mode of conversation.

So cheers to Fairchild Air Force Base. They made me feel at home. I don't know what they do there, or even if I am meant to, but the word is it has something to do with "refueling". I must say I was a little disappointed with the base itself. I walked along their fence for an hour, peering in, but I guess they keep all their experimental spy planes and captured UFO technology in back where no one can see it.

From there it was down a bleak stretch of road known as Airway Heights. You see that same ugly highway outside of every airport in the world, but Spokane's has got to be the worst. I can't say what it was specifically, but gosh it's an awful place. There were the usual fast food places and dive hotels. Behind them were some horrible little houses. There too was, I think, a prison of some kind and some sort of factory pumping out foul chemical odors that burned my throat.

There were too a few farms but nowhere to camp. Find me now in a motor court motel. It has perhaps seen better days but, even with my Walking Across America discount, it is not cheap. Tomorrow it is into the city and from there, God knows where. There are high mountains on the not too distant horizon. Some of them have snow on them.

ACCOMPLISHED: 22 miles today. Respectable.
DINED: on the rest of my bread and a can of sardines I've been carrying for weeks (thanks Lee and Polly!). I'd been afraid to eat them in the mountains because I read that the only thing bears like to eat more than sardines is people who smell like sardines.
MET: a charming young woman called Perry who refilled my water bottles. She had freckles. I am consistently charmed by freckles.

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