Day One-Hundred-Seven, September 11th, 2011

Find me now in Grandma's Park in beautiful Newport, Nebraska (population "Uh, I don't know, fifty or sixty" or so). I set up in the dark but seems a nice spot. Now showers or anything. But it isn't buggy and beggars weren't meant to choose. I am honored to pee on their trees.

And I am vastly more comfortable than I was last night, on lumps in the tall tall grass. I could have chosen better but I was determined to camp on the spot where I finally stopped walking. A hundred more yards, I thought, might hurt my feet and they've been good to me these past several days. They do complain but they have kept the debate on a purely philosophical level.

It was noisy, though, those blasted turkeys. Gosh, they're a noisy bird. And an owl was hoot-hoot-hooting at me like the sound effects in a movie. The cows, too, had plenty to say and in the very wee hours a diesel engine too near my head started pumping gallons of water. I was not certain I wasn't in the irrigation ditch itself. I felt for all who face flooding.

And, I must mention, I was stung by a bee, right on the tip of my finger. I was trying to shoo him out of my tent and he got the wrong idea. Rotten little fink, I squished him dead. I mightn't have if I'd thought it over. I like bees in the general sense but this one put me in a mood. I was willing to kill a hundred bees to make the pain go away. It's like when you run your toe into furniture and think it might help to hit someone. Or when the country suffers insult and injury and we line up behind the wrong war.

I reached Long Pine in an hour or so, a town of maybe three hundred people. None of them were out of doors. They were in church or watching TV. There was plenty to see and think about today. I heard it on NPR. But it had not curbed my appetite. I was looking for breakfast.

I saw a thin woman about two blocks away. My first guess was meth addict. As I got closer I became more sure. We chatted to pass the time. She insisted I come to her house for eggs. Curiosity got the better of me. While her aged mother screamed at us through the door I ate some banana bread. And carried off two peaches and a healthy tomato. Still, it was a weird scene. My new friend blessed me when I left. "Got any pot?" she added.

No, as a matter of fact, though I'm not against it in theory. Nor would you be if you thought it through. Marijuana ain't a bad thing. The Beatles smoked pot, for Christmas sake, and everyone's nutty for them. So send your excess pot to me, in care of the open road.

I passed on my chance to eat at the saloon. That's where my friend was going. I moved a safe distance down my trail and ate up my peaches. I like peaches. "More than pot?" you want to know. Apples and oranges, say I.

I had too a box of donuts. They filled me up, I guess. But donuts are not what the Japanese call "stamina food" and not what you need for walking. I did, nonetheless, get enough to eat to hammer out nine more miles.

Which brought me to sunny Basset, Nebraska, population six-hundred or so. Which puts it in the top class of towns on this lonesome stretch of road. But there were three times that many people thirty years ago. It follows the general trend. "Because people are afraid of change," said my saloon keeper. I asked her what change she'd like to see. "I'd like there to be more jobs," she said. I think that's a fine idea.

I ordered the biggest burger they had and asked her to heap on the fries. And excused myself to wash my hands. When I got back my bill had been paid. By a kind woman with her beautiful granddaughter and their fairly good-sized friend. Cheers.

But I must say I was taken aback. She did not know my story. It is self-serving, I know, but I think Walking Across America is worth a lunch here and there. I remember I was sitting at a roadside cafe in India when a kid rolled up on a dirtbike. It wasn't a local bike at all. "Where'd you come from?" I said. He had ridden all the way from London. I bought him a 7-up.

I had no money to spare at the time. I wish I could have done more. Because I wanted a piece of his dream, a subscription to his adventure. Because I felt he'd done a beautiful thing. I still think he is a hero.

I wonder, though, if this woman didn't think I was just a bit down on my luck. Which is closer to truth than most of you know, but not at all the point here. So I thank the good lady for her generous heart, but I feel but a wee bit ashamed.

She may have thought I was foreign somehow. I get quite alot of that. I've been accused of being English and Scottish and Irish and, God help us, Australian. It's a mystery to me but I think I can explain it. There are a number of factors at work. I use what I believe are the usual words, but my syntax can be a bit odd. And I have a strong taste for English literature. That cannot do me much good. Add to that the twenty years I spent abroad, mingling with all manner of foreigners. Bad influences, the lot of them. I miss 'em, nevertheless.

Grateful and well-fed, I moved on down the road. I am still on the Cowboy trail. Just me and the snakes, a lizard or two, the toads, the deer and the fowl. And toads and turtles and a few bunnies. We cowboys, one and all. The trail now takes us between vast farms, some distance from the road. It is not quite what you might call wilderness, but I go hours without seeing a soul.

It was well up into the nineties today, a good day to be alone. I'm gritty and dirty and the sweat on my trousers suggests incontinence. And the Cowboy Trail is like a highway designed just for me. No one else would Walk Across Nebraska. No one else has the guts.

Eleven more miles took me to Newport. The sun was by now going down. My trail ran straight into Grandma's Park. I could have camped then and there. No one would mind. This is Nebraska. They're real good about that. I wasn't hungry. I wanted nothing to eat. I made for the one saloon.

I flagged down a truck to ask where it was. The driver was ten years old. With his mom in the passenger seat and his still younger brother between them. I'll be damned if I know how he worked the pedals. I told him not to drive drunk.

"I know that!" he said and glared at me like I was some kind of an idiot.

I walked on through town, a few houses, some trailers, the odd haunted house. A big dog with issues threatened to bite me. He was scared. Those are the dangerous ones. I had to talk him out of it. He felt he had something to prove. Like when you run your toe into furniture and want to hit someone.

I found the saloon and got my warm greeting. Not "welcome" or "what'll ya have". "May I help you?" the woman asked, polite but accusatory. Like she'd come down the stairs for her morning tea and found a stranger sitting in her livingroom. I ordered a root beer.

I really should shave off this beard. I just feel I've earned it somehow. It tickles my nose and makes it hard to eat soup. It puts old women on their guard. It is not helping in my quest to Meet Girls. But I don't know, hell, it suits the adventure. I'll shave when I'm done.

Root beer is not caffeinated. Insomnia has shaped my life. I had four and sat there trying to absorb some local culture. The lady got a tiny bit nicer to me. I was pleased to meet a local farmer. He was feeling a bit pleased with himself. It has been a great year for corn. Bumper crops and high prices. A perfect storm, if you will.

I wish I'd had more time to talk to him. I've got a million questions. Not just about the mechanics of his work--though that fascinates me--but about agriculture and how it works in America. It is an enormously complicated system, not untouched by politics. There are all manner of special interests at work. No one has the whole Truth. Ethanol, subsidies, water rights, tariffs and environmentalism. I could read dozens and dozens of books. Some, I fear, might be boring.

This fellow, I did not learn his name, seemed to have a pretty good sense of things. And he spotted me a root beer, so we know his heart's in the right place. But it was late. I do need to sleep. Tomorrow could wind up a short day. It is past midnight and threatening to storm. I may wind up sleeping in.

I CAN NEVER hear those lines from Ecclesiastes without muttering Turn, turn, turn under my breath. No doubt I am going to Hell.

I TOOK a Google break to make sure I was spelling "caffeinated" correctly and stumbled across several entries for Caffeinated Pants. A weight-loss device. Don't count America out. We invent all the best things.

I SPOKE AT length to another man, James in Bassett, Nebraska. He says it is ridiculous to grow corn in this state. The soil is nothing but sand. All the fertilizers at work are polluting the aquifer. Meanwhile, so is the TransCanada pipeline, which he is convinced is a plot to steal water and sell it to Saudi Arabia. I am not sure he is wrong. There are wheels within wheels.

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