Day Ninety-Eight, Civilisation

I woke mysef up at six o'clock. Eight o'clock wouldn't have killed me. But I had pitched my tent on a working farm. Farm folk keep early hours. There was no pressure on me, do understand. I was made to feel quite at home. But I wanted to show them that city boys can wake with the cock, if you will.

It looked as if they had been up for hours. I could smell muffins baking. I was treated to a very fine breakfast and a hot shower before that. And some good conversation and gentle encouragement. I wanted for nothing more. Thank you most kindly, Doris and Beverly. You spoiled me, bless your good hearts.

Come nine o'clock I was back on the road, for all the real good it did. All this soft living had left me weak. I walked less than two miles. It was my chief ambition to make it over the hill so they couldn't see me from the house. A big part of Walking Across America, at least for me, consists of sitting in the shade and feeling sorry for myself.

Less so today, for I was packing muffins; apple and zucchini, if it pleases. It delighted me, at any rate. And there was a great smell in the air. Autumn, I believe it is called. In my old age it's my favorite season. It had cooked off by ten or so, but it was very nice while it lasted.

Even then it was not such a very hot day. It never got past the low-eighties. There was something of a headwind but I could not blame it for my thorough lack of strength. I could never seem to go more than a couple of miles without stopping for a break. In my own defense, I was a bit sleepy and Nebraska is hilly as hell. I think I was getting it mixed up with Kansas. One or the other is flat.

Both states are famous for their tornadoes. I ran into one today. Out of an entirely cloudless sky. It must have been fifteen feet high. Rather pitiful, as tornadoes go, but you have to admire its ambition. Even the cows were laughing at it, but it went swirling on. I was hit by something similar in India once. That one sandblasted me. But India is a fairly gritty country in even the best of conditions.

I saw a cross country cyclist, my first in a while. They prefer a more northerly route. I was cranky so I flagged him down. I wanted to ask why they are always such dicks. But he wasn't a dick. He wasn't a he. He was Christine from Vermont. She is riding from Maine to Oregon, all on her delicate lonesome.

We talked some. I liked her fine. She had a grip like a longshoreman. I am sure she can take care of herself. She drinks whisky and smokes cigars. She is a Bolshevik. She is not very big but it sounds like she eats just as much as I do, which made me feel better. I've been ashamed of myself since I met Lee, the recumbant cyclist who eats nothing but dirt clods and bark.

But two friendly cyclists out of hundreds does not change my opinion of the breed. These two are unique, recumbant, a girl, those exceptions that prove the rule. Cyclists are dicks.

I muddled on, never resting long. These short days are doing me in. I would much rather take three or four six-mile walks than two ten- or twelve-mile ones. There is too the challenge of charging my computer which demands one very long break. Which I could just as well do at the end of the day if I can get used to camping in the dark.

I met on the road a Mr. Daniel Long Soldier. He stopped to offer me a ride. We chatted a bit on the side of the road. I could very well have been squished. But it was worth the risk; he was interesting. He makes traditional bows. They are rather rough but more or less like the ones from centuries ago. And long, not the stubby little bows I saw at the Custer museum. They didn't start making those until they got horses. The long ones are hard to ride with.

He said he got a buffalo with one of his bows. He must be a very good shot. Unless you hit him in just the right place it would probably just piss him off. They don't seem like the very friendliest creatures, even when you're not sticking them with arrows.

Mr. Long Soldier is too a Jehovah's Witness. He witnessed at me a bit. I didn't mind; I liked how he talked. And he kept it folksy and fresh. He was quick to admit that even he had enjoyed a sinful youth. He did not expect to save me then and there. His own salvation had taken years. I am hoping to run into him again a few more towns down the line.

I took my last rest on the county line. There was a nice park there. In the middle nowhere, a patch of grass and a big old cottonwood tree. And a swinging bench, much like a porch swing. It was a very nice place to sit. And put there, it seemed, for my own convenience. Nebraskans are a thoughtful bunch.

Somehow or other I made my quota, or did not come up too far short. I arrived in Hay Springs after seven o'clock, and not too much before dark. I needed fed and got a burger at the local saloon. It was good but it was crowded in there. But I got the dope; it turned out I could camp in the city park.

The woman at the gas station shared my understanding of the distinction between camping and what I do. Camping, of course, is not allowed, but if you aren't making s'mores it's OK.

"We don't have any police here, anyway. No one will say anything."

So here I am and glad to be here. It is not a bad little park. A couple of acres on one end of town. I didn't mind doubling back. There are all sorts of trees and even some light, which is a help in putting up my tent. And there are showers next to the pool. Those may be closed for the season. But I don't mind. Three showers in three days; I might develop pretensions.

Perspectives change as you work your way east. I was warned this was a very small town. "There's nothing there," I was told earnestly. But I am no longer in Montana. A small town in Nebraska has six or eight hundred people and a main street with angle-in parking. And businesses thriving and boarded up. And places to eat and a park.

Small towns in Montana are nothing more than a very small dot on your map. I have developed the habit of asking people if the next town up the road is "a real town," meaning can I get water and food there. That has until now been a fair question, but as far as I can tell, all the towns in Nebraska are real. And not so very widely spaced, either. This soft living is going to make me weak.


HAY SPRINGS, NEBRASKA has recently celebrated the 125th anniversary of its founding. Congratulations, Hay Springs.

A REAL ESTATE database informs us that detached houses here go for about forty-six grand, and that rents average $248/month. Reasonable. The main industry is farming, followed closely by ranching. There are no other industries.

THE SICKLY corn I've been seeing is supposed to look like that. It is designed to grow in dry weather. Like those free seeds Monsanto gives to Africa so they can sell them their patented fertilizer.

EVEN HERE people are concerned about the pine beetle. Let's just hope the spectacularly beautiful women of the U.S. Forest Service are keeping on top of things.

I CAUGHT ANOTHER reflection of my beard today. I have gone quite hobo-chic. It scares some folk but I'm keeping it. I earned it. It's mine.

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Day Twenty-Two, Northbound

Made it all of a dozen miles today but I did get some shopping done. Borrowed money is too quickly spent but I will pay the piper someday. Or not; really, you never know. I may just keep walking forever.

Woke up in my dingy little motel after two or three hours of rest. I always have the damnedest time falling asleep indoors. It may be the cable TV. Or the soft bed or the roar of the fan or the neighbors drinking next door. Whatever the reason I could have done with more sleep, another eighteen or twenty hours.

There are many roads that lead into a city. Which you choose may color your view. In New Delhi, for example, there is a regular boulevard, lined with trees and garnished with flowers, leading from the airport to the halls of government. A visiting dignitary would be forgiven for believing he was in a modern efficient city. But two blocks over in any direction another story is told.

I believe I entered Spokane through the sewers, up the canal; in through the out door, as it were. The roads were narrow; the buildings were grubby; the whole place smelled like wet dog and prophylactic latex. Only late in the day did I realise the smells were coming from my raincoat and musty clothes. But by then it was too late. My opinions were formed. I had soured on poor Spokane.

I walked into town on a road with no shoulder in a rain that would not stop all day. I twas cold and my feet were horribly cramped when I arrived in a sort of Bowery. The people I passed seemed as homeless as me and had demons worse than my own. There were some pretty views, though. A river passes through town. And there was a splendid railroad bridge, ugly but nonetheless grand.

There is a magnificient waterfall in the center of town, not high but powerful. It generates enough electricity for a city of almost half a million people. That much I learned from a Scoutmaster who could have been more friendly, more courteous and kind. But the uniform goes to some mens' heads, seduced by their own tasselled socks.

I guess it's harder to be a bum in the city. In the country they take me more as I am. Good or bad, they know I'm a man of the road and are interested in where I've been. In the city they remain suspicious of me, perhaps burdened by the arrogant notion that I intend to stay. The longer I am out here, the wilder I look; but I am still polite and well-spoken. But that doesn't do me any good in a place where people think they know me at a glance. Or anyone, for that matter. Talk to people, for the love of Christ. I am a hobo with business cards. I hate that it makes a difference.

Gradually I came to meet more and more hipsters, young urban youth on the edge. The kind of people who frankly ruined Seattle and are all the more insufferable now that they are in their thirties and forties. I stopped into a trendy but comfortable cafe where they fed me like a king and my attractive young waitress broke my heart by calling me "sir".

From there I was on to REI, where I let an earnest young man called Jake talk me into a new pair of boots. My Wenatchee boots are showing noticable signs of wear. I needed something a bit firmer. And I needed something called "arch supports", if not a Zimmer frame. Old age, I suppose, has something to do with it. Being called "sir" is small compensation.

Young Jake was kind enough not to sell me the very most expensive boots he had, which is good because they can cost a fortune. And even these rugged specimens aren't going to last forever. He did, however, insist on selling me something in a size 13.

I am not superstitious but, by golly, I've worn eleven-and-a-halfs or twelves since I was sixteen years old. Now here I am at thirteen. Good God, what have I done to myself? I'm mutating. Jake says it's because my arches are in the wrong place and my toes need wiggle room. But were my arches always in the wrong place? Why didn't anyone tell me?

I had cherished the secret hope that if my body were to be at all changed by this adventure, I'd get them chiselled abdominal muscles like the fellows you see on TV. As it is I will be lucky to maintain an even vaguely human form. I'll be hideous. No one will ever love me.

I too picked up a new pair of pants and three pairs of quick-drying socks made out of sheeps from New Zealand. They're a little rough on my feet, to be honest. Kiwis are a hardy breed. I also got a fancy fast-drying towel and a stick of wax which, properly applied, will prevent me from chafing myself. And water purification tablets, for emergencies in Montana. I looked at long-sleeved shirts but didn't invest. I'll pay three times more for sunscreen.

I headed north out of town after long hours there. It just keeps raining harder. It got dark at six when I was still in the suburbs. I was worried I wouldn't find a place to camp. Find me now positioned precariously between Highway 2 and a chain link fence, behind a thin row of pines. It's a substantial fence, the kind put up by the federal government. Or yuppies. Who knows what it's meant to protect. I don't feel safe here at all.

MET: a very pretty girl at the REI who runs fifty miles a day, just for fun. She told me her name but I deliberately forgot it. I knew somehow it would haunt me.

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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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Coasties

Here in the east, people from western Washington are known, somewhat derisively, as "Coasties". A woman wanted to know what we called them.

"We don't call you anything." I told her the truth. "We don't even think about you."

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Day Nineteen, Looking Up

I walked I guess twenty miles today. I could have easily gone two or three more. But it started to rain in cold fat drops just as I was passing a pretty good campsite. Find me now five or six miles outside of Davenport, Washington on a grassy hill overlooking the highway. The rancher whose land I am guessing this is can see me from his kitchen window, half a mile away. I'm hoping he'll understand.

I slept long and awfully well last night, although it was fearfully cold. I put on my thermals and Himalayan hat and zippered in right to the top. I have got a lot of laundry which makes a nice pillow and it doesn't stink so very much yet. Usually I toss and turn quite a bit but I had some very soft ground. I could sleep on my side, a rare luxury, and stayed out for nearly nine hours. What dreams I had were in Japanese, a peculiar language to dream in.

It took me a good two hours to hike to Creston, a very friendly little town. People have seemed colder since I crossed the river and I was afraid that was all I had to look forward to. Over breakfast I listened to a farmer discussing business with his chemical supply agent. It was very interesting. She wanted to know what he was growing in what rotation and how far apart his plants were and what sort of equipment he was using and why and when he applied this concoction or that and in what measure and so on. I didn't understand half of it. I hope I get a chance to talk to a farmer before this trip is over. It is as much art as it is science and I have hundreds of questions.

I got a turkey sandwich to go to have for my dinner but I am afraid it wound up as my lunch. Turkey and tomato and onions on dark rye bread. Gosh, it was good. Could have been bigger and it did little to warm be as I was at a rather bleak little rest area just getting pummelled by twenty-some mile an hour winds. The warming sun disappeared behind clouds and there was lightning to the south. I had fantasised about washing my hair there but instead I spent three hours resting my feet and shivering.

Shivering can be a little scary out here. When I stop walking my body temperature drops a couple of degrees almost instantly and if I drink some cold water it drops a couple more. There was no place really out of the wind and if I hadn't thought to put on my raincoat I would have gone all hypothermic. There was a fellow there resting in his Volvo and I thought about asking if I could sit in there with him but I guessed that would be sort of creepy. So he sat there watching me suffering, playing his radio too loud.

Sometime today, just out of Creston, I think, I left the farmland behind. I turned the corner and went down a small hill and suddenly there they were... trees! Rather sorry looking little trees, some kind of pine, stunted and thinnish and scrubby. Individually they almost make the landscape seem drier but in their numbers they are a welcome sight. I am in now, I guess, ranch country. All kinds of fences here. The land is covered with grasses and sage and is very rough with rocks and little valleys. There are all sorts of places for a clever little cow to hide when market time approaches.

For most of the day the sky was black in columns to the east and south, but as I left the rest area the winds died down and the sun came out and all the blackness moved to the north. The rest of the sky was a gentle blue and the world was absolutely glowing. It was beautiful and I could take it all in because my feet felt wonderful.

I don't mean to say they weren't hurting; they hadn't bothered me much all day. I don't know what they are playing at but I think they heard me muttering something about amputation. But leaving the rest stop, after half a mile to get the cramps out, they began to feel great. I was up to my old four mile an hour pace and every step sent waves of pure pleasure up and down my spine. I don't know what to call it, the Ecstasy of Death.

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Day Sixteen, Gathering Steam

Today I put in a leisurely eighteen miles and am none the much worse to show for it. No records were broken but my toes stayed in line and it is another small chunk off the whole. I am healing or learning to conquer my pain. I may be at last growing stronger. I had been weakening for the past several days and it had me a little concerned.

I woke up early in a motel room, wondering just where I was. That's a feeling I had not yet had on trip. It was for a few moments frightening. I calmed my nerves with a sandwich and a jug of ice cold root beer. Both of these I had bought the day before on the shores of Soap Lake, Washington.

The sandwich came from an interesting place, the European Grocery/Deli. It is run by a couple from Ukraine. His English was thin; hers was a bit better; they were friendly people both. They had a display case bursting with sausages and cheeses and all manner of delicacies. There were cookies and crackers and tins of meat, all labelled in cyrillic. There was chocolate and ice cream and everything good. It all seemed so very exotic. It reminded me of one of those special stores in Soviet Russia where only the top party bosses were allowed to shop, while everyone else stood in endless lines for single rolls of rough toilet paper.

Anyway, so nourished, I was out the door at eleven, or what I've come to think of as "hotel time". I was not at all eager to begin. Yesterday had been a terrible day and I was in no mood for more of that. As it was, my toes did sting for the first couple miles and I did have an unhappy ankle. I was carrying a good gallon and a half of water, a good deal more than I needed. I had filled my jugs at a public spigot in town and only realised too late that what I had got was the healing water of Soap Lake. It is said it will cure you of just about anything, specifically Buerger's disease, but it tastes like Elliott Bay at low tide.

With that dumped out I still had a half gallon of good water and my pack was eight pounds lighter. I felt great. There was for the first time in days a small spring in my step as I followed highway seventeen up past Soap Lake, Little Soap Lake, Lenore Lake, Alkali Lake, Blue Lake and Park Lake. Some two million years ago they were all part of one mighty river. They are long and narrow and run between high crumbling rock cliffs. There is no one on them but a few fishermen here and there and a few thousand squawking gulls. The road runs right along the water. It is a starkly beautiful place. I am glad I came this way.

I stopped to talk to Jimmy and Ralph, fishermen from Auburn, Washington. They each had a tiny pontoon boat, powered by an electric motor. From them I learned that fish very much like creamed corn but it is not sporting to give them any. They gave me good advice for my trip. "You're going to die," said Jimmy. He repeated it several times.

At the Blue Lake Resort RV Park, an oasis, a paradise, I met Karen and her husband Donald, retired truck drivers from Vashon Island, the scene of my earliest memory. They came with Heidi, their tiny little dog, to do a little fishing themselves. From Karen I learned that President Obama is just ruining the country and that you can't trust anyone living east of the Mississippi. Best of luck to all you guys.

Find me now in Sun Lake State Park, camping, I guess, illegally. I wanted to go to the campground but it would have meant following a little road down to the bottom of a hill I had just spent an hour walking up. Sorry guys, I know you need the money. I just didn't have the heart.

DISCOVERED: A new mammal, a small brown ferret-like creature, yet undiscovered by man. "Oh, those are rockchucks," a lady told me. I was going to call them 'James weasels'.

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Day Eleven, Oasis

Hiked a quick eight miles up and down to Wenatchee. Interviewed by the State Patrol. Hiked another eight miles up and down the city looking for proper boots. Washed and swam and accomplished little, not even much poetry here. But the weather is lovely and I feel great, better than I've got a right to. Peace.

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A Word on My Route Map

The route map you see at the bottom of this page shows the route I expect to be taking, at least as far as Montana or so. So far I have stuck to it pretty faithfully, and will likely continue to do so.

No doubt there exists a technology that would let me update my map daily and put an X on my every campsite. But if there is it's beyond me. I apologise. When I have use of a proper computer for longer than half an hour I'll update and make us all proud.

Meanwhile, the odd towns I mention are all somewhere on that blue line. Thank you for your continued interest.

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