Day Forty-Three, Missoula!

"You ain't going."
"Stay. You're one of us!"
"The Truth You are Seeking is Here!"

They tried all their wily, cultish tricks to get me to stay at Orange Acres. They filled me full of farm fresh eggs and trained their dogs to wish me good morning. They gave me a pipe to smoke and a comfortable bed. They put me to work welding trailers. But the time had come for me to move on. I said my goodbyes and departed.

By which time it was two in the afternoon. I really didn't feel much like walking. I'd have rather been on Henry's porch, talking and sipping a soda. I seemed to have lost my mojo somehow. I wanted a nap in my cabin.

But there are times, I've learned, when you just gut it out. I barely wept and I didn't look back. The first three miles were straight uphill, a hill I've been climbing for weeks. After that the bottom drops out and it is down all the way to Missoula. I stopped enroute in Evaro to enjoy a life-giving burger. A nice man called Leo bought me lunch. A man called Michael gave me cash for another. A pretty waitress brought me genuine Cokes, not the inferior brand. Join me in thinking well of Evaro, Montana, now and in perpetuity.

As it was I've been feeling awful all day. I have been just a little bit poopy. And my tummy is sloshy and there's sweat on my brow, even when I am not in the sun. I can't say Shitty Smitty poisoned me. I helped him make dinner. I used his pocket knife to cut up the garlic. He keeps it razor sharp.

At the thirteen mile mark I crossed I-90 and would have been delighted to check in to a motel there, but they were both full. So I walked another three miles or so and put up my tent. Ingenious spot. You'd have to be a hobo to find it. Invisible in the heart of the city, or at least around its ankles.


I AM UNACCUSTOMED to pipe smoking. It makes me feel like Fred MacMurray.

CHEVY SUBURBANS are known locally as Mormon Assault Vehicles

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