Day Fifty, Beefs

It is one-thirty on a warm afternoon. I still haven't walked a step. And I don't intend to, at least not for a while. The Ranch House opens at four PM and I am going to have me a burger. I am now belly up to a still closed bar, watching TV and drinking Coca Cola. T-Brett in outside mowing the lawn. My offer of help was refused.

It ain't entirely about being lazy, this additional day off. The towns ahead are spaced such that a half day is what I need right here. It'll put me in a good spot the following day to begin my assault on the mountain. This road to Helena is, I am told, the easiest path through the Rockies there is. That is just fine with me. Six short miles from bottom to top, and then I have conquered America.

Things may get a little bleak after that. Eastern Montana is for all intents another Dakota. There are going to be a lot of long stretches between towns and I am not sure how to manage them. I'll figure it out. I am hoping my Victory Over the Rockies will sufficiently buoy me, body and spirit.

Or I'll just limp along like I've been doing. My feet are in good shape but my Spokane boots are already wearing out. I am hoping to switch back to running shoes once I get to the Middle West. They're a lot cheaper. I guess I got weeks to puzzle it out, especially at the rate I am going.

I am self-conscious about my rate of progress. I ought to be in Nebraska by now. But it's not my fault I keep meeting nice people. Or that I am so easily tired. Or that I like to sleep in. Or that I enjoy staring into rivers for long hours. Or that I am gluttonous and lazy. Or that I am in way over my head.

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Find me now later in the evening, camped in the woods by a river. I am closer still to the railroad tracks and I am not that far from the highway. Yet I am all but invisible in a dense thicket, which turned out to be hollow in the middle. I found it when I was looking for a place to poop. I had my tent set up elsewhere but I carried it over here. I love places like this. They give me a hobo pride.

I pooped elsewhere, should it interest you. Thank-you for your concern. There were a good many mosquitos about. That's all I've got to say about that.

I left the Ranch House at five PM. You might say I got a late start. But it is all according to my own careful plans. There are wheels within wheels, I tell you. I walked seven or eight miles and set up my tent. I call it a victory.

I have demonstrated some tendency to grow comfortable in a place and just sort of stay there, ticking off the days until winter. Today I pried myself loose and left. That, my dear friends, is heroic.

I climbed over the barbed wire fence and onto I-90, which took me sharply uphill and straight into a thunderstorm. Yet onward I went. I saw a sliver of blue sky between the hills in front of me which gave me some hope. The storm did pass ovet but it was followed by two more just like it.

It was nevertheless a very pleasant walk. I have left the interstate and am now on Highway 12, pointed at Helena. I am glad to be back in the country. Those superhighways are no joy to walk on. They make a fellow feel small. And folks drive so fast and there are no trees to rest under and you are hemmed in the time by barbed wire.

These fences, I gather, are not so much to keep hobos off the freeway but to prevent cattle from strolling on. There are cattle guards too at the bottom of every ramp. I guess we are in "free range country" which means that cows can wander sround wherever they choose.

I have lived in India so this is not entirely foreign to me. It nonetheless causes me some concern. You see, cattle love me. I can't pass any two of them without hearing an encoraging moo and seeing their ears waggle in friendship. As often as not they will follow me along the fence and we'll exchange moos back and forth.

"Moo," I will tell them and for whatever reason I have adopted a Spicolian intonation, the sort a Californian uses to draw out words like "dude" and "cool."

"Moo," the cows say back to me, using the local accent. Sometimes I address them in Japanese. They answer just the same.

So life is good and I am moving forward. One little step at a time. And though I may seem like the last person to succeed at this sort of adventure, I may just surprise you all.


I HAD WANTED washboard abdominal muscles like those fellows you see on TV, but I have more or less given up on that. I do think this constant exposure to wind and weather has been good for me. I am starting to look more and more like Robert Redford, late career.

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