Well I've been back for a while. I have a not-quite-so-adventurous job working receiving at Kohls, and I'm spending my substantial free time building my body and developing acrobatic and martial skills. I will find some time when I feel like it to finish writing the last of my travels. PERHAPS WE MAY EXPLORE THE PURPOSES AND MEANINGS BEHIND MY TRAVELS, AND WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM THEM.

Anyway it's a beautiful day so I'm going to go work out and work on some basic parkour stuff.

I was ready to leave, I gave Kayla a tight hug, and started walking to dumpster some board for a sign, and then I remembered that I left my phone charger at Greg's appartment. I won't see Kayla again before I leave, as I'm leaving today and she's got to go home today, back to Garrettsville. Greg will be back in a few hours so I can get my stuff, THEN leave. So for now I'm hanging out at the library, and I smell really bad, because I've been sweating due to the relative humidity. Also because I've been wearing the same clothes for days. ANYWAY, I have my pack with me, so allow me to transcribe my journal. I think I'll just transcribe it in full, for shits and giggles.



the day i bought the jounral... Mc Pherson, Kansas
June 10th, 2006, 5PM

"Five minutes per user per day;" so apparently I can't get back online on one of the three Windows 98 200 Mhz machines to continue blogging. I'm sitting at a round table which sieats four, and the man next to me is perhaps about 75. He's doing a word find in one of those little journal rags you get at the grocery store. The library is a small one-room building, and I'm the only person here under 40 - out of about the six of us quietly milling about or reading. The town itself is small and quiet - with a beautiful park sided by glowing red fire trucks and a pre-school - but modern. I see and experience and more and more of that as I travel: interesting and functional idiosyncrasies - as a bum with a cell phone, in a small town with a Wal-Mart and Braums, with police fully modernized but missing the hardoned bent of racial prejudice and class war. I got a ride from a Mennonite truck mechanic with an 8th-grade Biblical education. So far, the trip has been really fantastic and lots of fun, with a large dose of hard work and a bit of frustration and pain. [This brings to mind the frustrating incident on my first night out where I attempted to set up my tent in the settling dusk in no less than a SWARM of mosquitoes.] Word. 5:20 PM

Lindsborg, Kansas
June 11th, 2006, 1:31 PM

"Well fuck me in the ass runnin' backwards!" - Tom the drunken hick. I just got a ride from two drinking smoking hicks somewhere in between McPherson and Lindsborg. They pulled over, "Where you headed!?" shouted Tom, slurring and grinning with a beer in his hand. "The next town north of here, I can't remember the name...-" "Lindsborg!" "Yeah." He thought a bit, consulted drunk and dumb Dave, then this: "Aww fuck it! Get in!" And on we wen. Those guys were fun. Tom's a biker and ex-hippie, and he looks just like Beetlejuice [Michael Keaton!]. But scratch the bag about Dave: he's a good, smart (and coherent to boot) guy. God, the people here are amazing. I'm listening to a song here in the music festival ... or I was, it's over. It went like this, though: oh hell, it doesn't matter, I can't remember anyway. But several of these songs are about travelling and Teas, and that's good enough for me. Just one thing: the Good ol' Boy hick image is some measure of bullshit and earnest ignorance. Smalltown doesn't mean stupid, and this confirms a suspicion first raised with discussion I had stumbled across concerning radical peasentry (in 18th century United States, in 20th century central * South America, in Russia and the Balkan states at the turn of the last century) and their very intuitive uprisings against tyranny and misery in various guises. Anyway, never under-estimate the country folk, 'cause they're on top of shit, just like you [comrades?] or me [..?], they're just more relaxed [or fatalist..] about it. The Vieth Minh were mostly peasants, you know. Makhno's army, the slave uprisings since the earliest times in the US; Western ship mutinies -

Let's hear it for the workin' man...
and nothin' keeps a good man down,
n' he's the man that makes the world go 'round,
so let's give him a hand ... let's hear it for the workin' man ...

just a song playing now: case-in-point. Everyone's got their hang-ups, and these Kansans [sp?] aren't without theirs: a continuous but earnest dedication to irrational, unempirical religion; as well as probably continuous unwitting sex [gender*] bias and racism. But, like pretty much everyone, they know what they want and have the capacity to be very intelligent. :) [My meaning was that they are more than capable of understanding theirs and others' social conditions, class relations, etc.] I hear the cops in McPherson are real pigs, front-line class-war ass-heads. The area south of there, around Hesston and such, is full of Mennonites - I got a ride from one! [Redundant; apologies.] - and apparently Mormons and Jehova's Witnesses. Lindsborg itself, I heard from Dave and an old lady in the park back in McPherson that this town is a Swedish community of Orthodox somethingorother religious folks who left Russia (presumably after the October Revolution sometime) to escape religious persecution. They came to Kansas specifically to keep groing the same kind of wheat as they had back in the Ukraine or wherever. Just a bit of interesting history that I've picked up [and likely distorted beyond all imagination] mixed in with the personal stories, ideas and religions. Tom's from Chicago. "I done every sorta' drug, drank, smoked, wore my hair long [?], eckcedra..." Dave "went to the machine shop right out of school, went into marriage while still in the shop, left marriage, y'know ... n' yeah." He was also in the Army. There's a lot of families and trees here, and probably more than a few family trees [what the fuck am I talking about here?]. Lots of elderly and little kids. Not but a few teenagers. I'm propped up against a tree, there's cute harmless little and huge ants crawling on me. The sun is shining through thick old evergreens, it's about 80 degrees here, and smells like fudge and lemonade and freshly cut grass. The next band is getting ready to play. I'm going to go find a place to piss. Girls! [I never spoke to one.] more later. 3:55PM

Colby, Kansas
June 14th, 2006, 10:28PM

I'm in a Wal-Mart parking lot with some radical [not quite, I found quickly] hippy chicks (April and Emma), three hippy dudes (Joe, Lotus, and some other guy whose name I forgot [John]), and a 40 year-old hobo named Kevin, whom which resembles the blonde guy from Dumb And Dumber to an extraordinary degree. It's really fucking windy, so I'm sitting against the car to stifle it. I was in Salina, Kansas for two days, no: three! I spent yesterday at the library, reading and relaxing as the day before that I had been walking for about ten hours from Lindsborg to Salina. I ran out of water, got stopped and searched by pigs (for dope, I consented), and finally got a ride into Salina by Rick the former hitch-hiker. Once there I made my way to the library and thence to a park by a train depot, where I slept - very comfortably, I might add, with a good deep sleep and not one interruption. Today I mozied down to I70 , met Kevin ...

More later. People are pissed and want to use the computer.

...found Lotus enshrined in Joe's van, spiritual eastern music playing loudly. The windows were all blocked off. He'd been in there for two days with little to eat, and, seeing the van, I was slightly concerned that he had somehow or other completely lost his mind. Of course not, though. The music cut off quickly as I approached the van, and I knocked on the door. He let me in and I saw that he'd totally "revamped" the van's interior with blankets and empty vegetable cans.

"Sorry," a sentence which he began and then interrupted with an amusing nervous laugh, "I thought you were the cops." He explained to me that a ranger told him he was not allowed to sleep there overnight, and so he'd in-turn blocked off all of the windows and had slept or read all night. He was still kind of whimpering over his wound from my combat knife. (A day earlier, we'd decided to cut up a watermelon and eat it before we went up the mountain. My knife being the only one we had, I started to cut it, but Lotus interrupted; "Please, let me do it, I'm a trained cook, you'll hurt yourselves." Indignance from condescension turned to an air of pitiful hilarity when the knife slipped after just a few slices and gashed open his hand.)

It was still early in the day, perhaps about 10AM, and so we were there for several hours until early evening when they returned from the mountain. In the mean time, we'd managed to watch two of the worst films ever as well as play a few minutes of GTA: San Andreas. Joe, John, and Yoav returned, Yoav carrying my pack. (I'd left it up there on the "DELICATE TUNDRA ECOSYSTEM - PLEASE STAY ON THE PATH" hidden under some rock a few hundred feet from the path, where we'd huddled together the night before to make a gulash of sorts and camp overnight in defiance of the biggest rules in Rockie Mountain National Park.) As soon as they'd returned, we loaded into the van and proceeded down off the mountain and back to Boulder/Denver. That night or the next - I don't remember, really - we spent the night at Cameron's.

Isaac, the young cigarette-smoking anarchist from an appartment down the way from Cameron's. Cameron, the guy I met through the CrimethInc. forums that invited me to stay at his place. Yoav, the Kibbutzim-raised socialist travelling abroad. I also forgot to mention that Emma and April had both left before we rode to the mountain, perhaps the day before. There's also a great story about me and Yoav, a foreign national, being disarmed in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The morning after we left the mountain (before we'd gone to Camerons', then), me and Yoav had both awoke early and decided to, after buying some cinnamon rolls at the store, go to the corner and fly a sign, "NEED GAS". We got a few dollars, but shortly a cop identified us from across the street, and sounded his horn to draw attention to him. I put down the sign and he pulled up along-side us. At first, he was extraordinarily friendly, and it appeared as though he was going to help us with money or gas, and I do suspect he would have had it not been for slight absent-mindedness on the part of Yoav and I.

"Woah, stay back!" The cop had noticed Yoav's (relatively small) knife on his belt, and began the process of disarming and identifying him - an indispensible safety precaution for a member of an institution so uniformly and violently hated - when he notice my knife. "Jesus Christ! Sit down!" I sat down and put my hands out in front of me, trying to comfort the clearly young and inexperienced cop. To Yoav he said, "Yeah! Just like that guy's doing! Hands in front of you.." Another cop pulled up, whether on a call or the beat it was hard to discern. We stood up, hands behind our back, one cop holds us while the other slides the knife out of the sheath and hands it away back to the second cop. He'd said, "What the hell do you need that big-ass knife for?" The only thing I could think of was the truth, so I just told him I was wearing my knife - we both were - because we had just been up camping in the mountains. The cop was a little frustrated than his benevolence had been side-swiped by a combination of his own (not entirely invalid) paranoia and the fact of Yoav n' I carrying weapons. They patted us down and took most of the rest of the stuff out of our pockets. The cop was really angry when he opened Yoav's wallet and found hundreds of dollars. "Why don't you buy gas with this!?" I tried explaining that he's merely riding with us for a short time, and that that money is for more urgent personal needs as he travels around and he's not obligated to do us any favors, and though the cop understood he was still angry, probably feeling tricked. They gave us our stuff back (and it's an absurdly illegal knife!) and we woke up John, Joe, and Lotus and took off, to fly signs for most of the rest of the morning and find food and fun (and beer, apparently) in the evening.

We were on our way - after a stay at Camerons' and a brief get-together with his friend Hillary and his girlfriend, whose name I forget - to the Rainbow Gathering, hoho!

Left: Cameron and his girlfriend in his appartment.

Leaving the mountains was really amazing, but I wasn't able to take a photograph of it. The vans wound around the mountains hugging the interstates' asphault, and the rain was pouring down, the sun shining, cliffs and peaks on either side, cars on the opposite side of the road throwing up huge mists to sparkle in the sunlight, among the raindrops. It was just REALLY AMAZING DUDES Z0MG.

THE RAINBOW GATHERING

This was very interesting and I'm glad I held no expectations about the nature of the Gathering, what I'd read about on their website. Incidentally, I'd never until writing this post bothered to look at the Wikipedia entry. *rubs chin methodically* The expectations I did have, were implanted in me by April and Lotus, both of which had been to many previous Gatherings and both of which held the Family very high in their hearts. I was warned that, for appearing to be a cop, I would be dosed (given LSD, for people like me who never would have suspected what the hell that meant) and duct-taped to a tree. Incidentally, no one at the Gathering ever even remotely implied that I was or could imaginably be a cop, and no one treated me differently than they did anyone else. Other than a vague fear of mobbish authoritarianism, I had no real idea of what to expect, and it was just as well because I don't think I could have expected the eclectic yet, inexplicably, near-homogenous mass of people. They were the kind of people who I'd been attracted to at first, repeatedly, periodically, throughout my life; and then repulsed after "getting to know" them. For some brief intermediate period, I'd teeter on the edge of friendship, "open-minded" enough to explore their positions, and then slide back after seeing irreconcilable differences of theory (of any number of things) and approach to life. These people are, for me, initially and superficially platonically attractive because they are different, because they are sure and steadfast and proud. They are consistently rejected as friends, much less comrades, because I always find this kind of person - whosoever falls into this category I've set here - to be fundamentally repulsive to real goodness and actual societal change. Not just "hippies", but individuals ranging the whole gamut of pre-conceived categories. None-the-less, I got on and had several interesting conversations, and many frustrating and idiotic ones (many involving science, religion, and anarchism.) It's hard for me to recount the days, but I do have several journal entries from that time which will (again, at some foggy, mysterious future point) allow me to attempt to fill in the gaps of my memory. The journal itself is clouded with "I think"s and "probably"s, but it should at least help. Here, though, is my best account of that approximately week-long period between the end of June and the beginning of July.

"If you surround me, I WILL shoot you."

Bacon was prolific. The state had turned Routt National Forest into a veritable sty. Okay, so that's an exaggeration. Certainly there was many fewer cops there than there usually are at National Gatherings. Still, it was interesting observing and participating in the dynamics between un-witting anarchists ("Anarchy can never work!" proclaims the hippy at a decentralized and directly-democratic 'gathering' of no less than 20,000 people in the middle of a forest...) and witting police officers ("We should just arrest all these fuckers", from a smug cop...). At first the police were confused and probably more than a little scared, fuelling already inherently reactionary measures. As they learned about the kind of people they were dealing with - "WE LOOOOOOOVE YOUUU!" - they started to relax, putting away the tasers and truncheons and spending more and more time milling about the camps, enjoying the free food and flashing peace signs instead of firearms. This was largely due to the overwhelmingly, glaringly obvious contradiction between their actions and the supremely relaxed, peaceful context of the Gathering. They came in once or twice a day down "Main Trail", on horseback or foot or some combination, and would go into camps taking photographs of hippies (many of whom are also social activists in their communities) and handing out tickets for posession, exposure, etc. (Everyones' favorite, of course, is the ever-present "Illegal Gathering", apparently a real crime and a very difficult one to repress.) At some point, apparently early in the Gathering before me and the crew had arrived, cops needlessly blocking a trail into the Gathering were ran off by a throng of hyper-patriotic, peaceful, chanting idiots. Err, hippies. Err, Rainbow Family. At some point a cop got hit with a rock (can you imagine!? a rock! the only thing worse than that would be ... fully automatic rifles, perhaps like what Nebraska state troopers tote around, or what the cops and Forest Service had for themselves!) and this triggered outrage, somewhere, probably, or something. But they came in the next day crying and asked us to please help them find a bandaid. When some Family told them perhaps maybe they shouldn't march around the Gathering with shotguns and assault rifles, they started foaming at the mouth and beating people. Well no, this is a lie. They came in the next day or a few days later and marched to the valley to arrest whoever they decided threw the fateful rock (I think the cop got hit on the shoulder or something). The Family heard about this and the decision was made to form "Main Circle", an impressively large ring of people out in the valley, with the intent of protecting the cops' targets from ticketing or arrest. I was not there to see that, as I was busy building a bridge with the all-topless, self-appointed "Beaver Bridge-Building Crew", but I did hear about it - ("Siix-uuuuuup!!!!!") - and ran to get my camera and photograph as many cops as I could in case evidence was necessitated for some irritating and protracted court-case over police violence and civil disobedience. It was around this time that, walking along side a group of two or three police officers with an apparent hippy guide, the very nice officer above told me that if I - all one of me - surround him, he'd shoot me. There was also hear-say of cops brutalizing a Krishnan monk for no apparent reason, as well as other various heard-though-not-seen (by me) instances of police brutality. BUT ENOUGH OF COPS.

I waited at Oz camp for several hours, missing a wedding I'd been invited to, in order to have a slice of pizza, which was the best slice of pizza I'd ever had in my entire life. I was offered pot and acid (declining both of course - I'm quite pleased with the way my brain works, and please, I'm sorry, I was only born with two eyes). I marched around and slept alot and listened to some really great music every night around campfire. I had several frustrating discussions, as I've already mentioned, about topics that most everyone excepting me in the discussion knew almost nothing of - "anarchy is chaos", "science has nothing to do with the real world", etc. I was even made-out with by a recently-"saved" Christian whom which I was not at all attracted to. Blegh. I finally managed to get her to leave me alone by a combination of avoidance and aggressive, frank argumentatry. That's all that is particularly relevant about the rainbow gathering. Its' essence was camping in the woods, hunting for free food, and enduring the absurdly stupid and confused ideas of others. The Christian camp "Bread of Life" had the best toilet, complete with tarpaulin walls and a wooden seat, hoHO!

Nothing more can be said about my experience at the National Rainbow Gathering which would provide any further insight, except perhaps that marijuana and acid were ubiquotous, and that I plan on going to next years' national to see new and different things once more...

In other news, personal highs and lows of the past week end in a gleeful yet sober stance on the next period of my life.

"No matter where [you] go or what [you] do I know [you] will do good things [for] those around [you]. I believe that David. You already have. [You] don't understand how much others love [you]. How drawn to [you] others are. Truly." - teh momz, Kayla sitting next me nudging me with her elbow as I read it aloud from my cell phone's screen, expressionless. Later, me and Kayla went for a walk, and we kissed. As I suspected, kissing is quite nice - really, incredible - when it's someone you really get on with, and not so much when it's some Christian you don't know

Yes, yes quite nice indeed.

SO, to continue the story where I had left off, APPROXIMATELY ...

We'd gone back to Cameron's appartment, they sat around and smoked and drank and I lamented being around people who, while fun and nice, were not particularly intellectual - and my idea of fun is of course something different that theirs'. We spent the next few days wandering about Denver, flying signs for money and exploring the town, there's a story about a great old church in the middle of the night - John, beer-in-hand - and a story about a cracked-out waitress. We went to Boulder and met some hippies, we rode around and ate free food and flew signs, we climbed a mountain. I don't remember the exact order of any of these events, but in any case I can at a later date - when I have more time - transcribe my written journal to this one, so that y'all can see the written counterpart aside from my limited vagrants' access to the Internet. The mountain we'd climbed, (we being Joe, John, Yoav, Lotus, and myself), was Longs Peak, the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park. Lotus gave up within the first 15 minutes, being extraordinarily out of shape despite his healthy appearance due to an unfortunate back disorder and his chronic smoking. I made it through the night and into the first 45 minutes of the next day before deciding that I couldn't make it to the top. It wasn't a pleasant decision. It was a realization that although I could, physically, summit, it would be at the expense of actually enjoying the process. So I decided to balance out and go back down after a brief, heated exchange with Yoav. I heard later that they got much closer, then Yoav gave up, then Joe, and only John summited, where then he promptly smoked a bowl for some or another spiritual reason. I sprinted back to the van, listening to Styx...

more later!

Alright, well, I'd really like to do some writing. Not so much about what's been happening - it's not very interesting, just garbage about police and poverty and what-not - but rather about my ideas. Having not spent much time at all doing any writing whatever, and simultaneously accruing a vast store of interesting experiences, I've got a lot that I've been able to think through, in addition to what I've been reading. My grandma's computer is connected on a 46.6 line, and it's really horrendous, and I hardly have any patience for it whatsoever. It lags when I type and it infuriates me and I want to kill someone because this is completely insane and not necessary.

Religion

Religion is stupid and I've had enough of everyone's irrational, illogical, un-empirical bullshit. Quit having faith in a bunch of fucking nothing and start thinking about reality, because you're really pissing me off and it's hurting a lot of others, most of all the people you're exposed to most often. So quit it. I had a girl tell me yesterday that science is stupid. Does she even know what that means? Of course not, because she's ignoratnt - militantly so - and lets her emotions control her intellect, rendering it useless. And she had the audacity to tell me this over the Internet, on a computer, wearing synthetic, factory-made clothing in an air-conditioned house made entirely out of scientifically-inspired technology. IF you want to argue that science is "stupid", please do so in a consistent way, perhaps by being dead, as that's the only way you'll be making any sense. The entire universe so far as anyone can tell is entirely materialistic. There is no supernatural, no spiritual, and so forth. So close your damn holy book, wipe the drool off your chin, and go outside and think.

And I don't much want to write any more because I'm getting really fucking pissed off about this slow-ass piece of shit.

I TOTALLY DON'T EVEN FEEL LIKE WRITING ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENED.

Anti-gentrification march, grandparents, haircut, NEW SOCKS ZOMG, connections with Michigan capitalists and government officials (z0mg), and MYSTERIOUS HAPPENINGS WITH REGARDS TO A PARTICULAR OHIO INDIVIDUAL. :[

SO perhaps I'll fill all this in when I FEEL like it, as in NEVER.

The end.

The post before last, no, there was no spelling mistake: I really was in Wanena, Minnesota. I wasn't in Winona until some time later, after my days in Minneapolis and the bus ride to Winona with Blair. The CrimethInc. Convergence was really cool. I liked it a lot more than the Rainbow Gathering, because there was very full emphasis on politics. The Rainbow Gathering was really focused on drugs and religion, both of which are, for me, stupid and boring. I met a lot of cool people there and heard from my buddy Mica that the SDS was having their first national convention here in Chicago just a few days after the end of the Convergence. So I've been doing that. Some guy bought me and Mica Subway last night. Then we did a militant march against gentrification with about 30 other folks. I'm about to go find TravelAid to see if they'll buy me a bus ticket to Detroit. Also I'm going to do a lot of flying signs (IN NEED OF: FOOD AND FARE. please, it's for the (A) revolution. (seriously)). But yeah, I'm going to go get food and pick up my stuff from all over random places I've stashed it throughout the city, and also I'm going to go to the top of the Sears tower and eat a sandwich, if I can manage. Then I'll probably find Mica and more food and we may sleep on a roof or on a floor or in a Church. Word up.

THE TALE CONTINUES!

We rode for several hours, randomly stopping for swimming or, once, for Dairy Queen. Eventually we made it to Colby Kansas ("Don't forget Colby Kansas!"), where after flying a sign for a while and hanging out, Joe, John, and Lotus showed up. In THE VANS (John's van being Christened the next day as The Time Machine!!!). We hung out there and they all got high in Joe's van and had a stupid discussion about nothing while I sat there debunking what they were talking about in my head. Then I slept in Joe's passenger seat. I didn't know it at the time, but at some point the girls had communicated to the guys that, yes indeed, I was a cop: just look at his boots! And of course it was completely impossible that I bought them at the Army Navy Surplus store. We also paraded around the Wal-Mart parking lot that we were in, and bought plenty of food in the store. Also some drunk kids told us not to forget Colby Kansas, which consists of a Wal-Mart and probably a house, though I didn't see one.

The next day we spent riding through Kansas toward the Colorado border. At one point, I remember, we pulled into a truck stop to bum for gas. I was set on bumming a sandwich from Subway but I ended up giving up and going outside to see what the other folks were doing. Well they were talking to a cop. I strolled up toward April and proclaimed that I couldn't get a free sandwich, and April shusshed me angrily. She didn't want me talking about trying to get things for free. Because we needed gas, and had no money. And so obviously if you have no money, it looks bad if you also have no money for a sandwich. I didn't really get along with April from the start, primarily because she's stupid, and also because she's very proud of that. The night before was my first exposure to this, and it made me really uncomfortable and upset. I had been talking to April or aloud to myself or something, and was mimicking the stereotype of the crazy evil pirate ("I'll cut your face off! I'll sell my dad! I'm a pirate!"), inspired by a book I had read about pirates, where one individual had threatened another that he was robbing that he would in fact sell his father as proof of his ruthless pirate-ness. This really offended April becuase verbal depictions of physical violence are not funny but mean and upsetting, because there's no humor whatsoever to be had in absurdity, because we all know that all humor derives from puns and being high. Me, Emma, April, and Lotus were all walking down the street together, and I decided to try and explain that this is just how I'm used to talking. I tell people, jokingly, to shut up. We make absurd references to pirates. That's just how I was raised, that's how me and my friends talk. And Emma says, "That's real sad." And April, stupidly, announces, "They're not real friends then." I gave up trying to explain, because it was obvious that none of them could understand how one could be best friends and still tell each other things like "die" etc. Blegh.

I called Cameron and, chaotically, managed to get directions to his house. I rode in Emma's car, with Lotus, and Lotus was throwing a little fit when we couldn't find the place immediately. Eventually we made it there and met up with Cameron and his very pretty friend and decided to get food and booze. I went with April and Hillary to the store to get food. April used her food stamps card to buy the food. She couldn't figure out how to use the self-checkout machine. It's very simple, and I understand how that can be frustrating, but she acted like a real idiot. She thought the machines were stupid and useless expressly because she didn't know how to use them. April is dumb and frustrated me to an extraordinary degree.

I'll have to do more later. Deuces.

Wow, okay, so now I'm in Wanena, Minnesota. It's been a month and a day since I've updated. SO WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THAT FATEFUL DAY ONE MONTH AGO! Well lots of shit has happened since that fateful day a month ago. So I'll start where I left off in the last post, and try to get all the way up to the present. Sadly, I've lost my camera's USB connector and so I won't be able to add pictures until a later date. Also, I can't really take a whole lot of pictures since the card is full, as it has been since the Rainbow Gathering. But I really do have some great pictures of mysterious mountain critters and beautiful landscapes and so on. Also of cops. Because they're very prolific.

So I had passed the intersection of Lamer Road and Old Highway 81, and was making my way toward Salina, expecting to be there in a few hours. I went into a Dairy Queen (Dairy Queen is the only semi-ubiquitous fast-food I can stand, really), and started walking again. About an hour after this, the clouds had cleared and the sun was now beginning to beat down. Kansas is pretty hot. Well I look over my shoulder because I hear a car coming, and of course it's a police car - Highway Patrol! - and so I stop and just stand there looking around waiting for the cop to get out. Eventually he does - leaving his non-uniformed passenger sitting contently in the ... passenger's seat - and asks me all the usual questions.

"So what are you doing out here?"
"Well I'm walking."
"Where are you goin' to?"
"I'm going to this, uh, hippie convention .. thing."
"Oh.. you have any pot on you?"
"Haha, no -"
"Mind if I search your bag?"
"Go for it."

So he does. He opens up the inside and goes through my clothes and books, and then opens up a side-compartment, the one with the plastic baggies and zip-ties. He just holds up the bags and looks at me, and raises a brow: "What are these for?"
"Huh? Oh, those? Just for whatever." Then it occured to me that that looked really bad, so I laughed and said so. Well then he opens up the front compartment, where I'm keeping my combat knife, and pulls it out really slowly, grimmacing and staring at me.
"Now, I understand your situation, so I'm not gonna' say anything..."
It only occured to me later how absurd it was that he was more concerned about the possibility of my having pot than the actuality of my having a 7" Ka-Bar.

SO! moving on. He let me go and wished me luck and I plodded along in the heat. Another hour or so and I was nearly out of water. I decided to sit in the shade of a tree on the side of the road to rest, and also apparently to kill ticks. A while later I started to thumb for a ride. Another 45 minutes of this and I was really pretty pissed off. Salina was a ten minute drive away, and these people were knowingly passing a person coming from a direction in which there was nothing for miles and miles. So people would drive by me and smile and wave like I was the fucking mailman, and I'd cuss them as they sped away blithely. Bitter and defeated, I plopped down in the light and heat (the tree was ways a way and not very visible from the road), and threw my thumb up. A truck drove by and, not slowing down much, the window was rolled down and the driver half-handed/half-launched a water bottle at me. So that was nice and pleasant, being pelted with requisite minerals by very slightly sympathetic truck-drivers. But I had water and I waved a thanks and chugged and decided to start walking again. Eventually a yellow pick-up pulled up along-side and gave me a lift in to town, transforming another 2 hours of walking in the afternoon sun into a quick 4-minute conversation. Rick, the empathetic former hitch-hiker.

I was dropped off at the Nextel store - I needed to charge my phone - and thanked him for the ride. I walked inside, saw a huge throng of frustrated Salinans standing around like cattle, and left. I muttered "I fucking hate this city" because of what a bad day I'd been having, despite the fact that I'd only actually been in the city for 2-3 minutes, and I heard someone laugh bitterly, probably out of agreement. I crossed the street and plugged in my phone to the outlet on the side of the gas station and, after inquiring about the where-abouts of the library, headed off there. I walked happily for an hour as it started to get dark and, finding the library (I had to ask an interesting slew of people for directions, including gangster brick-layers and yuppies walking their poodles), I then wandered through downtown until I found a linear park on the outskirts. Found a little observation-deck-type-thing overlooking a "restored to its' former beauty by the City of Salina Parks Department" cesspool/stream that separated the park from an industrial train station. Sleep.

The next morning I chatted with a local home-bum who had slept beneath me on the underside of the deck, and then wandered first to Burger King to have unsatisfying "French Toast" sticks with a tablespoon or so of "maple" corn syrup and thence to the library, where I had updated again. I spent the entirety of that day reading, excepting an hour I took to find a local grocery store where I got grapes and a loaf of bread and some Gatorade and probably other things that I can't remember. That night I went back to the place I'd slept before, since I slept so well there. Walking to where I was going to sleep, I noticed a ladder going straight up to the roof of the nearby community theater building. The door to the enclosed but open-air area surround the ladder was unlocked. Gasp! I opened, and then noticed a lady walking toward me.
"Having fun?"
"Oh, you betcha!" And then I promptly walked to where I was going to sleep. Also at the pet store on the main road going through downtown Salina there's this iguana that I hung out with for like 20 minutes. Because I'm awesome. That night I found out the home-bum was on parole. He stole a few dollars worth of stuff from a store, but had to go to jail for years and pay some absurd fine when he was caught. He was on parole.

Next day I went to the library a third time, made another update, charged my electronic shit, and then walked to the Interstate. Zohboy! Well I sit down next to this other hitch-hiker, a 40 something guy who calls himself Kevin, and we piss and moan about the heat which really wasn't that bad. About 45 minutes later, a busted-up little black car comes around the off-ramp, stops at a corner - girls yelling at us, but we can't understand - and then they disappear in the building complex adjacent to the freeway. We thought for a second they'd left, but then they came back around and pulled up next to us and Emma, this weird but pretty brunette comes running out yelling and hugs Kevin. Hullo hullo, zomg, how have you been? And blabla, and I accept it all, because of course this randomly happens, and we pile in the car and make our way, listening to old not-really-that-good-music. So we're driving down the freeway, and suddenly we get off in the middle of nowhere - "A lake! It says there's a lake!" Kevin leans over and says he likes the one on the left - Emma, my age, driving. I cringed and ignored him. We pile out of the car and everyone goes for a swim while I sit there and enjoy the day.

Gotta go, more later.

Hey folks. I'm in Boulder, Colorado. The library here is awesome: there's no time limits on the computers and you don't have to reserve them or anything. You just walk up. Thing is, though, most of them have no chairs, and no software other than Internet Explorer. As I'm lazy, I got here at noon but, not wanting to stand, I waited for two hours until the "WHEELCHAIR ACCESS" station was finally available. I was able to upload some pictures and make some light variations to the blog: non-user comments are now permitted. THANKS TO THE HEADS' UP FROM BRANDON AND SOME OF MY OWN SUPER SLY SPY SLEUTHING, I was able to figure out how to make it so that anyone can comment.

In other news, I think I'm getting stronger. When I first left, I had to pick up my pack with two arms and some leg power. But now I can lift it with one hand, no problem. Also, I'm staying relatively clean, having taken two showers since I started off. AND PLENTY OF HAND-WASHING, TO BOOT! Oh goodness.

THE TALE CONTINUES:

After breakfast - the waitress had to reheat my food because I chugged so much water when I first walked in that I didn't touch my meal for something like 45 minutes! - I wandered West down a road in to town, not really sure where I was going but for a vague conception of the mysterious "Old Highway 81" which was pin-pointed by the State Trooper as being "probably a couple miles down that road there, I think." I stood on a bridge, drank some water, and then crossed the street and marched down some train tracks, spiting the threat of prosecution of passers of the tres. After about ten minutes of moving North on the tracks, I moved through a clearing in to a street in the adjacent neighborhood. Hot and sandy roads; a deep blue sky thick with the sun's light and heat; and DOGGY! Pupppyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Hanging out by a mailbox of a rather nice-looking home, wagging it's tail and kind of half-following me. But that was over quickly.

After a little while, maybe another half-hour of moving through this sparse neighborhood North of Wichita by about 5 miles, I heard the amazing tingling of an ice-cream truck. Rock on! Fudgesicle please, sir. Un dollaro. I enjoyed that as I walked, and also I just now realized that the dog thing happened after the ice-cream bag. But who needs continuity anyway, huh? I walked down a particularly long road, stopped by a home where some dude was working on his car, and asked to be hooked up with some very fine and delicious water. He offered to let me come inside - I was waiting under his tree while his stupid dog (a different dog) barked and growled and just generally rotweiled - but I couldn't help but be wary of hicks with big dogs. Hell, I wasn't even sure of the water: Did they drug it? Kansas Chainsaw Massacre... I turned another corner, flagged a dude down, and asked him for directions to "the, uh, the road that will take me to Salina? Like, Highway something or other..."
"Man you're way out in the middle of fucking nowhere. The Interstate is wayyyyyyyy over there."
"I know dude, but they won't let me walk on 135 and stuff."
"Well, I need to go drop some this trailer off over there, then I can take you back and drop you off at the on-ramp."
"Ehhh..." I wasn't sure. He kind of seemed like a creep, and it's important to be wary of who you ride with, of course. But shit, why not? I shoved my pack in the back of the cab and ascended into the passenger seat.

JP, the former hitch-hiking druggie who "fuckin' came here from fuckin' Olympia, yeah, it's kind of crazy. 'Cause this is just how I ended up here, hitch-hikin'." He gave me a ride down the Interstate about 20 miles, bought me some lunch and dropped me off at the truck-stop. On the ride there I had let him use my cell-phone to call Randy, "this dude up in Salina who, yeah, fuckin' got me clean and took care of me and shit, helped me out", so that maybe he could assist me in some way. And assist he did!

I sat at the door going in to the truck-stop eating my lunch and reading through Bad Trips (a hilarious collection of essays about the contributing authors' misadventures in travelling, appropriately enough, I think) asking truckers if they were headed toward Salina. Nope! Most were going South, and the ones going North either didn't want to give me a ride; simply weren't around; or couldn't give me a ride due either to a full cab or company rules against giving rides. Eventually I got shooed away, and so I wandered over to the on-ramp where I thumbed rides for about an hour or so.

I was starting to lose hope as people grimmaced, swerved, and accelerated (or, it's almost as bad: smiled, waved, and accelerated!), and so I took a seat on my pack. Musing to myself that having a water bottle out would somehow magically get me a ride, I pulled out my water bottle and took a swig. Before I was finished drinking, there were brakes and a honk and a sedan on the shoulder with its' window down.
"Wherrreeee y'goinnn'?"
"Um, Salina!"
"Okkkay.. I c'n take y'to Hesston.."
"Sweet, okay!"
Mike, the Mennonite truck mechanic with a 7th grade education. He drawled more than a self-congratulatory child artist.

Hesston is a truckstop: washed my clothes, took a shower, did some reading. I spent two hours in the Truckers' Lounge watching Desert War! on the Military Channel and surreptitiously calculating the deployment of my sleeping bag on the floor behind the plant. Eventually I got tired and went ahead and laid down. Sleepy...

"Sir, get up." Oh shit, it's the bronze five-oh, and the piggly-wiggly is on the front lines of the class war: the battle of vagrancy, the propertyless! But a fox-hole of identification and the trenches of likely stories won me the (probably not very interested, anyway) heart of the copper flat-foot! "You can't sleep here."
"Um, why?" "I don't know. The people up there knew you were back here, and I guess they saw you sleepin' or something and freaked out and called the police."
I laughed and rubbed my eyes, still sitting in my sleeping bag smooshed between the wall, the potted plant, and the table under a shower of blinding fluorescent death rays.
"But yeah, this is private property and stuff. I mean I personally don't really care..." He doesn't really care! A comrade in digsuise, no doubt; a victim of the inertia of hierarchy and capitalism! "But there's a park down the road that I can give you a ride to if you want, it's pretty safe there..." Lotus tells me that the police in Sweden try to make sure the homeless - homeless by choice; the socialist state ensures homes for those who need or want them! - are safe and warm. "So I guess I can do that if you want."
"Shit, okay! Err, shoot, okay!" And I grabbed up my stuff. I was having a little trouble, and I knew this cop was cool: "Egh, can you help me with this?"
"No." Oh, okay then, maybe he is a dick-head...
"Umm, howcome?"
"I'll tell you once we get outside." Fair enough. So with little more difficultly I collected my things and he "escorted" me (we were walking casually together) out of the truck stop: a wink and a smile and a big thumbs'-up to the trembling idiot behind the counter, terrified doubtless that had she tried to wake me herself I would have stabbed her or something. "It's because, one time, I was at a domestic disturbance and the husband asked me to hold the baby. As soon as he handed it to me, he pulled a gun out. I thought I was going to have to drop the baby and pull my gun on him, and I didn't want to do that. He wasn't pulling a gun on me, he just had it on him, we took care of it, it was okay. But yeah, I don't hold things for people anymore."

I wouldn't either. He dropped me off at the park and wished me luck, and also told me that he'd tell the next cop on his watch that I checked out and it was cool that I was at the park. How did he make sure I was safe? Something like this: "Do you have any weapons on you... knife, any guns...bazooka..?" I told him about my swiss army knife and handed it over while I rode in the front seat, and got it back when he dropped me off.

You wake up on a Saturday morning and you think, shit, I want to go to the park, it's beautiful out this morning! I wake up on a Saturday morning and I'm in the park. Luxuries like picnicking, breakfast and bed, enjoying the sun-rise and the ambience of grandparents taking their grandchildren to the swings, these come natural and common on the road. I sat there for a good hour and shared grandiose lies with the elderly about my trek across North and South America to raise money to fight AIDS ... okay, that's a grandiose lie: I just sat there and chuckled to myself about what I could lie about. I exhanged a few brief conversations with some kids, then decided finally to walk to Subway. Journey's "When The Lights Go Down In The City" was playing, and I bought a full foot-long cold cut combo. Complete with a bag of chips and a cup of syrupy water ... mmm, soda. After doing some people-watching, and finishing with the brunch, I wandered to the on-ramp and sat there for like 4 hours reading and pouting about the heat.

A cop flashed his lights. Man, pigs! His door flew open, his boots crunched in the sandy debris, and his gun, badge, night-stick and polarized sun-glasses (quite prolific, I've found!) stood out like ... I have a bad analogy about bar-hopping that I won't use. "HEY MR. DAVID!" Woah, what? Should I be relieved or intimidated? Relieved: he was the next cop on watch. He gave me a ride in to McPherson, the next town up, and I thanked him and asked him for his name and then promptly forgot it.

"That's a shotgun?" pointing to the weapon mounted on the squad car's upholstry, I squirm in my seat and study the contours as we speed up the Interstate, ever Northward.
"Heh, yeah. We call that the poop gun."
"Ah-"
"'Cause when we point it at people, it makes 'em shit their pants. Or, it should anyway. I would."

He dropped me off at a Wal-Mart in McPherson Kansas. I bought some batteries and a charger for my camera and got some water from Braum's and was asked a favor by some yuppie ... "You look like a Tom! Haha, yeah! Tell that dude over there that Susan says she doesn't care!" No. Brandon called or I called Brandon or some shit, and we talked off and on the rest of the day, and text chatted and stuff. I tried out my camera walking west from the Wal-Mart, looking out North-East over the ever-present train tracks, this set running diagonally under the bridge.

I wandered further into McPherson, met some random dude who helped with finding the library and ensuring they were open for my grand arrival & also warned me of the cops there: "Yeah, they really fucking suck maaaan. Go and take this other street, 'cause if they see you on the main street they'll hassle you maaaan." I don't remember his name, but he does roofing. "I build ruffs maaaan."

Through the park, between the garages, on to the library we go! I had a bacon cheeseburger and a soda at the NasBar & Grill, a quiet Nascar-obsessed bar with two televisions: ones playing racing, the other with Heartland Fox News. I messaged Mom; "You know you're in hickland when...", finished and paid and nodded to the single, sad drunk at the bar, and wandered back to the park, stopping off at a curious book store on Main Street. It was such that the science magazines - and my readers will know I'm a science buff, or they should - were located directly abreast of the porn magazines! Well being a guy it can't be helped but to glance occassionally at the cover of these magazines - not lude, but beautiful, and there's nothing wrong with that! - while thumbing through Discover and Skeptic. It occurred to me that it probably appeared both to the old couple perusing novellas and the rather large woman at the register that I was, in classic Woody Allen style that Jesse would doubtless appreciate (Bananas!) looking at porn mags and trying to hide it by pretending to look at science magazines. The reality of course was different, and I decided to buy Skeptic and hurry back to the park before God's Holiest township of McPherson, Kansas struck down its' oh-so-righteous indignation upon the lustful Texan adulterer.

I read some articles, lounged on the grass, and marvelled at the fireflies until well after sunset. Firefighters across the street, I slept in the park and wasn't hassled by the - I heard twice more from other people - supposedly ass-hole cops of this little town. I was woken up around 2AM by very, very strong winds - lots of in-your-face debris - and scuttled over behind a tree, and later, due to rain and hail, to the whateverthefuckitscalled building. I woke up in the morning, talked with a quiet old lady who had sat down at a table near me about the history of the Mennonites and the different religious sects in Kansas, and heard about the Jam in the Park in Lindsborg. Fuckin' Lindsborg, dude!

I got some Wendy's (blaagh! no grocery stores around and I was starved), and dragged myself half-assedly down the longest, most barren road I've ever seen in my entire life. Two hours of walking and I'm about a third of the way to Lindsborg. A truck pulls over, the windows down and the radio blaring. "HEY! NEED A FUCKIN' RIDE!?"

Right place, right time. Anywhere else, any other time, I never would have accepted a ride from these guys: one looks like any farmers' dad, the other looks like Beetlejuice. No, not Michael Keaton. Beetlejuice. "WELL FUCK ME IN THE ASS RUNNIN' BACKWARDS!" Tom only needs to dye his hair green and get a striped suit. "Mmm.." Dave needs some over-alls. There's beer cans clankin' around on the floor, and speaking of floor, Tom was speeding like a fucking nut-case. These dudes rocked. Tom was taking rocks back to his house to make a path in the side-yard for his wife's garden. Dave was thinking, or drunk, or something, and so was apparently just along for the ride.
"Yeah, this music festival thing."
"NO KIDDING!? WELL SHIT ON A BIG GODDAMN STICK, LET'S CHECK THAT OUT!"
So they dropped me off, I wrote in my journal and checked out girls for a while (girls I was too shy to talk to, with such superfluous self-arguments as "I'm not from here!" and "They're already hanging out with people!" as if this had any role in socialization) and Dave wandered up and we entered in to a rather deep conversation, various local Kansas folk groups singing songs about hitch-hiking strumming and humming in the ambience of the Rotary Club and ice-cream vendor lush green park. It was a good day, with the clouds lazily tumbling overhead, the sun shinging through the leaves, carpenter ants sprinting along my jean-shorts and sugar ants looking for the water on my soaked cantine. The day slipped into night, and I was forced into a choice between McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and hunger. Big Mac with fries, I guess. The DoT had a complex across from the restaurants, next to the highway I was to take off on in the morning. I explored it, enduring silly questions from a distant cadre of small, curious children ("Are you a HOBO!? What's your NAME!?") and then came to a large, red trailer bed that was far enough away that I could lay flat on my back and see the whole sky light up - the clouds billowing and thulumping, but gone, now. So I did. My mistake, I guess, because apparently I was right in the middle of some fox's (or dogs'..?) place. About every forty-five minutes for the next several hours, this stupid little red bastard would yelp and howl at me from the line of bushes a few tens of meters distant. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Barrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!! "SHUT! THE! FUCK! UP!" more silence .... BARRRR!!! BARR!! It was pretty irritating, and it's hilarious in retrospect: I can imagine laying in my bed in one of the nearby homes, hearing some kid shrieking profanities, this loud repeated banging of something that sounds like a large metal plate, and this ridiculous, shrill howl all mixing together in the middle of the night. I guess it got its' wish, because I packed up - leaving my phone that I'd thrown at it unthinkingly and could not find in the dark, the flashlight not being of much help - and wandered back to the park, fuming and pouting, to sleep where I had earlier slouched and listened and smiled.

4AM: Rain! I moved and fell back asleep. 8AM: Heavy rain! I sat up and read another essay in Bad Trips, this one describing a woman journalists' very bad trip into arctic Norway in February. I was cold and wet and hungry, and it was good to know I wasn't anywhere near the freezing blacked-out hut, nor any boiled fish. The rain subsided, I walked back through the college grounds past a throng of hurrying, giggling girls who I imagine were gitty new students, one smiling at the weirdo with the poncho and the over-sized blue backpack - I smiled back, it helped! - and I got on the highway. This was to be the day I would make it in to Salina, I decided. It was only 15 or so miles. I could do that in a day, for sure.

Moving down Old Highway 81, I encountered the quite-awesome intersection of Old Highway 81 (Kansas State Highway 81) & Lamer Road. Phear it.

Well I'm sick of sitting here writing, and I don't want to be left behind by the crew. (The crew: John and Joe, the tall "we look like creeps but we actually ARRRRRR kick-ass"; Lotus the spiritual being; Emma and April, the hippy chicks that picked me up in Salina), and in fact John and Joe just lumbered in here and let me know what's up: we're rolling out and we're gonna' go fly signs ("NEED GAS") to get gas money and food. And probably beer.

They think I'm a cop because I'm sober and I have combat boots.

How to know you're in a hippy town:

Okay, so it's the next morning and I'm back at the Salina Public Library, on Computer Station 7. BACK TO LE STORY.

I plopped myself down on a hill adjacent to what I figured out was some sort of loading bay for trains, and watched as the occassional car drove by on a road going alongside the building and then turning beneath the freeway. Shift change. After a while I decided there were no Bulls around, and I threw myself over the fence and plodded into the tunnel and down the road toward a conglomeration of train tracks and lumbering or stationary trains. At this point, I decided to wave down some passing Union Pacific dudes and ask them which freeway was 135 or I-35 or what-the-hell-ever.
"That one!"
"Oh-"
"This way's North and that way's East!"
"Haha, okay, thanks!"
"SURE! :D"
So they smiled real big - these very old people who looked more like charicatures of railmen than real railmen themselves, these two old men in overalls and a beat up old pick-up truck with the U.P. logo battered and barely visible on the side - and sped off in the direction I came. It's at that point that I noticed a lake on the far side of the tracks. I decided I'd try and find a place around there to sleep. Weaving between cars and clambering over open-bed cars, I came to the side of the lake and spotted a little garden type place. I sat down and started setting up and noticed a water bottle and some fishing line just sitting around a few feet a way from where I was setting up my tent. I shrugged it off, laid down on my sleeping bag outside my tent, and exchanged some messages on my phone with Brandon, I think, and then went inside my tent and fell asleep.

When I woke up, lo and behold, a big old black guy - a railman, I think - sitting by the lake with a cooler and a broad-rimmed hat, line in the water. I clambered out of my tent and started packing up very matter-of-factly, we exchanged a few short words ("G'mornin'." "G'mornin' to you...") and I headed off along the side of the Interstate, hoping to find a place with food and water. But first I had to jump another fucking fence. It was at this point that I was really beginning to appreciate my decision several months ago to begin jumping fences to accustom myself to basic, essential urban movements. Had I not, I would be moving much more slowly and I would be much more irritated. With no water, I was really pleased - for the first time in a long time - to see a large billboard that read "WENDY'S: EXIT 14". I was at exit 11.

Well I never made it to Exit 14, because I was so hungry and dehydrated that I had to sit down and wallow in self-pity twice. Then, on the forced march to Exit 13 where I had identified a motel and surmised they would have some sort of restaurant somewhere, a strong wind came along to my back. "Excellent," and I turned around to walk backwards on the shoulder to let the wind blow on me. After a few minutes of that I decided to open my eyes, and I was pretty surprised by what I saw: A state trooper pulling up to me slowly with lights flashing. I took off my POLARIZED SUN GLASSES (thanks Brandon, they've helped), smiled, waved, and started to walk up to 'em. He grimmaced and his index finger shot up, telling me to stay unless I wanted to be pinned to the ground. Or rather, his finger and his expression told me that, and I didn't have to be told twice. He stepped out of the squad car and marched toward me as another trooper pulled up behind his car. I greeted him and he asked for identification and the conversation went something like this:
"What're you doin' out here?"
"Walking to Denver."
"Denver, huh?"
"Yep."
"Well, you been taking the Interstate the whole way? Where you comin' from?"
"From Dallas, n' yeah."
"Dallas! Dang." Just then, the next trooper walked up to the first guy. "This kid is walking all the way from Dallas to Denver! Can you believe that?"
The second cop's eyebrows arched, equally out of genuine amazement as out of sarcastic disbelief: "Denver! How about that."
The first cop straightened up and set his eyes back to mine - having been switching between mine and the other cop's gaze in an epileptic fit of stupid grinning: "Well haven't you seen them signs at every on-ramp that says No Pedestrians in big black and white letters?"
I had, of course, but instead I made up some ridiculous lie to maintain my innocence: "Uh, no, I've been going around."
"Going around."
"Going around," echoed the second cop.
The whole conversation was rather comical, as I could not for the life of me tell whether or not these cops were toying with me or whether they were serious. My experience with authorities told me they were being ass-holes, but standing there in front of them I couldn't get around the good-ol'-country-boy aura. It was really hilarious, not being able to tell if a couple of cops were being sarcastic and mean or genuine and kind. Anyway, the first cop told me I couldn't be walking on the side of the Interstate - any Interstate in Kansas - and that I would have to get off here.
"That's fine, I was going to go get some water here anyway," which sounded like a silly lie but which was actually the truth.

They headed off, I meandered down the off-ramp, and basked in the glory that was ... Country Kitchen. Having never been happy to see this disgusting little abode before, and never imagining myself ever being pleased to see one, it was an awkward and repressed euphoria. I struggled through the doors into the empty waiting area and kind of stood there looking pathetic for a few seconds until a waitress hurriedly seated me and said, "Um! Would you like to start off with some water? You look really hot!" really nervously. I think maybe I was a little dissheveled, because I felt like collapsing and my mouth was completely parched.

I ordered a large breakfast. Four eggs, four pieces of bacon, two glasses of orange juice, three glasses of water, two pieces of toast, and nearly ten dollars later I was on my way to some random town whose name I forget.

Well I have to end this post here because I only have 40 seconds left, so I guess I'll post more the next time I get access to a computer.

DEUCES!

z0mg. So it's the next morning and I'm back at the library. I slept at some park, in an observation deck overlooking a smelly "restored to its' natural beauty" river, across from an industrial train station. I give the place a 10 out of 10 for sleeping: I got a full ten hours of sleep, I slept really well, no one bothered me, there were no mosquitoes, and in the morning I had a short conversation with another bum. I sat around for a while drinking water and taking in the sunshine, and then I packed up and brought myself to Burger King - the only place in sight - and got ... french toast sticks with corn syrup. Not even real syrup. Corn syrup. The criminals, I know! I wrote a kindly "Live free or die trying" on the bathroom wall after brushing my teeth, dropped off some Fighting For Our Lives, and then wandered here.

SO, back to THE GREAT ADVENTURE or whatever. I woke up that morning, sat around, packed up my stuff, and wandered past the gas station to a bridge. I stood there for a while watching birds and fish, as the water was clear and full of fish and apparently insects, with the birds moving around hunting something I couldn't see. I walked to a McDonalds and sat there reading and trying to think of what to do. Then I got bored of sitting there, so I just grabbed my pack and started hiking north off the side of the I-35. Passed through a construction yard, got sunscreen at a dollar store, almost hopped a train - a recurring urge, for sure: train tracks and attendant trains are everywhere! - and then found a street that would take me directly to downtown Wichita. For the rest of the day I was walking down that road, and I eventually found a QuikTrip where I got water and a gatorade (and plenty of stares). From there, by asking around, I was able to find where the library was, and I made my way there in the sweltering heat. Though I had made it to the library, I didn't find the time to put in a blog entry, as I was instead busy chatting with folks via www3.meebo.com, and also trying to not laugh hysterically at the guy at the end of the desk who was wearing headphones and grunting and groaning. I also took time to help the illiterate next to me to fill out a form. Fruitlessly, as it turned out: he asked me how to get an e-mail address, I gave him the URL for Hotmail, and he then entered "www.hotmail.com" as his e-mail address in the form. So I hung out there for a while, wandered back outside, and found my way back to the Interstate. I discovered that through this part of the city, the Interstate was elevated, and beneath it was a shaded and desolate-looking linear park. Onwards!

After a couple hours of enjoying the graffiti and the sound of big-rigs tumbling over-head, I came along-side a very large, very green park. I dropped my stuff at the side of a bench and sat down, intending to just sit for a little while. As it turned out, I was there for a good three or four hours. It was really pleasent watching the dandelion fuzz float by in the sun-light in a light breeze that would also occassionally build up to a puff of wind and rattle the otherwise lazy trees. After a while of struggling not to fall asleep, I found I was out of water. SO, I wandered across the park to the pool where I found out where the water fountain was, and then lolligagged (what the hell does that mean?) over to it and filled my bottle and cantine. I didn't really feel like walking any more, since I had been walking pretty much all day, so I plopped down on the grass and laid there for another hour or so, just drinking and rolling around and looking at the bugs and the clouds.

Eventually I got back up and started walking again. And I came across something that has so far been a recurring theme, and a very confusing one. Randomly placed fences. The linear park ended and the Interstate dropped back down to ground level, and several hundred meters from that point, at a street passing under the freeway, there was a chain-link fence with a gate locked by a bunch of thick wire wrapped around. There was no apparent reason at all for this fence to be here. It was just a fence, randomly sitting there. There was a similar fence in Oklahoma City that I had to clamber over. They fenced off 35 from an off-ramp to an intersecting freeway .... for no reason. Anyway, yes, random fences. After that I ended up in what apparently was Wichita's ghetto, reserved for the mostly-black lower-class, complete with unkempt shoddy houses and roving pigs, two to a squad car: the occupying forces no doubt in full force to minimize proletarian "crimes" like trying to eat, sleep, relax, and express and enjoy themselves. Anyway, I wandered away from the Internstate in search of a place where I could get some food. I found a place, but, thinking I could do better, I made the stupid decision to merely buy a drink and wander up the road. Having found nothing, I came back and discovered that the restaurant was closed. I sat around pitying myself for a bit and plotting to break in to an abandoned (but fully stocked!) gas station to gorge, and after deciding I wouldn't get away with it, I got back on the hilly side of the Interstate - surmounting no less than FIVE more fucking fences randomly placed - and walked for a bit before noticing the train-tracks emerging out of some giant concrete building that looked like a cross between a dam and some kind of spaceport out of Star Wars.

I'm in the Salina Public Library on Elm and 9th, and it's just after 8PM, and I've been walking since 10AM this morning. That was fine until about 4PM, when my feet were really hurting and I had been out of water for nearly an hour. So, I started to try and thumb rides.

What the fuck is the matter with people? "Oh shit, look at that kid, he looks pretty hot and tired. And he might be in trouble, as he's right smack-dab in the middle of fucking nowhere. SPEED UP, HONEY!" Fuck Salina (that's suh-lie-nuh), and the 200 or so cars that passed me in the MULTIPLE HOURS that I spent walking backwards with my thumb to heaven. A special fuck-you-and-go-to-hell to the dumb-fuck that smiled and waved at me, as well as the jackass who gave me a thumbs-up back. Thanks to the dude who slowed down and handed me a cold bottle of water, and also to Rick, who "fuckin' hitch-hiked all the way from g'damn Warshington State" and was kind enough to drive me into Salina. Having reached Salina, I promptly found electrical outlets on the side of a Phillips 66 gas station and charged my phone and camera batteries. Then I spent about another hour or so walking from the city limit to the library, where you all now find me.

But to continue on with the story...

Brandy's mom dropped me off at a 'Quik Stop' or something like that, and I bought a pack of sandwiches and some water and a bottle of gatorade, as well as some beef jerkey and probably something else that I can't think of right now. There was a Pentacostal church across the intersection and a drive-in movie theater directly across the street. I shrugged and headed toward the church to find a way on the roof or at least a place to chillax in the shade and plot my next move. After finding a quiet place on the far side of the church and exchanging texts with my mom, I decided that, as it was a Wednesday, I'd attend the service. After milling around a bit, I wandered inside and sat down.

The Pentacosts are good people. They're just completely fucking nuts, like all other religions and sects and such to varying degrees. Sister Rose Somethingorother introduced herself to me and gave me lots of silly Christian literature to pour over and a guest slip to fill out and I told her about my journey and all that jazz. Well the service got started and there was a lot of "PRAIIIIIISE GOD! PRAISE GOD! PRAISE THE LORD!" Before and following every sentence. There was also plenty of clapping, swaying, singing, and groping & fondling of the Holy Spirit via waving hands in the air. Though I was warned and later asked about it, I didn't observe any "speaking in tongues", though there was a curious point at which members of the ministry (apparently tired of running around the congregation with tamborines) huddled together like ants on a dropped piece of fruit and continued to chant "Praise Jesus! Praise the LORD!" At one point, apparently my friend Sista' Rose told such-and-such about my passing-through, and there was a lot of congratulating and admiring and "Good luck on your journey!"-ing. At one point, some guy came up to shake my hand and wish me luck, and had slipped me a 20 dollar bill. I tried to thank him but he scurried off.

I stayed for a bit longer in the church and then said goodbye to my crazy friends and wandered into the increasingly dark field behind the church. I laid down for a bit, but, being swarmed by a throng of apparently very-bored mosquitoes, I began an attempt to set up my tent. Well, this was an extremely frustrating endeavour, because dusk was almost at an end and the mosquitoes were intent on ensuring I left Wichita bloodless. After much "God fucking DAMN it!"-ing within ear-shot of some remnant Pentacosts, I finally was able to climb inside my tent and fall asleep.

More of that story later, as I only have "4 minutes remaining". So, here's the good photos I've shot thus-far.

Or not. I'll edit this post more tomorrow, ... maybe. Deuces para ahora, camaradas.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/TapiocaDeath/tehpwnz0mg42345df.jpg

Another library. I'm in the library in McPherson, Kansas, wedged between a Union Pacific station and Main Street. It's been cloudy outside all day so I haven't really had to wear my hat, and I've also had to drink less water than usual, which has been nice.

So, since my last blog entry, I've made it from Oklahoma City, past Wichita, and I'm almost to Salina Kansas, which is where I'm going to begin following I-70 west straight in to downtown Denver.

So that morning, after Zach and I said our goodbyes, that was back on Wednesday morning, I started hiking down the freeway in downtown Oklahoma City. Within an hour, a guy in a raddy little dinghy of a car pulled over and asked me where I was headed:

"Denver, actually.."
"Haha, umm, well I can take you to my exit which is like 15 miles from here..."

So that's what I did. Matthew, the youth group leader getting ready for taking the kids to church camp.

Wednesday afternoon, I ran out of water and was quite a ways a way from the next exit - I had been walking for about an hour or so after Matthew dropped me off, and I was finally out of OK City, and definitely parched. I decided to try to hitch a ride. After about 10 minutes of walking backward with my thumb up in the classic style, a Middle-Eastern businessman pulled over. I told him where I was going - "I am not going this way, we are going other directions!" - and finally he let me in and drove me a short way. For such a short ride, it was an awesome conversation. We talked about God, I explained I was reading the Koran, he told me about his family and I lied to him about mine. Yassir, the travelling Muslim salesman from Gaza.

He droped me off at a gas station, the Capitol Building of Bumfuck Nowhere. I bought a gatorade and stole some cheese and beef jerkey, and parked myself outside in the shade, munching and studying the map half-heartedly. After a bit, some kindly lady walked by and asked me if I needed water or anything, I explained I was all good, and she asked me what I was doing way out there. When I told her what was up, and practically begged her to relent with her offers for food and water, she said OK and wandered inside. After a while she came back out and wished me "a good safe trip, sweety," and was off. I shrugged and thanked her and smiled and went back to eating and drinking and sweating and kind of staring at the map. A few minutes later, a woman came out and got in her car and rolled down the window: "We're headed to Wichita, get in!" I glanced at the car, shrugged, and got in. Apparently, she over-heard the earlier woman asking the clerk in the gas station to watch out for truckers to give me a ride, and decided to give me a ride herself. She was a mom, taking her kids Tom, 17; and Brandy, 20 back from some random event in Houston to their town in some random place in Kansas. The mom didn't really talk, and Tom was up front with his nose burried in Palahniuk's Choke, and so I found myself squeezed in next to pretty college-girl Brandy. So we talked about politics and my travelling and some other stuff, I gave her some Fighting For Our Lives, and just generally enjoyed the ride. They dropped me off in the south of Wichita and me and Brandy traded e-mail addresses and they headed off. Brandy, the 20-year-old "probably an anarchist" Kansas college girl and her back-pains mother and studious brother.

I wandered into a gas station, grabbed some eats, and mozied over to a Pentacostal church.

I only have "4 MINUTES LEFT" to use this computer, and next to me is a balding, sweaty businessman in khakis who apparently never learned to type, as he's hunting and .. no, not pecking, but pounding the keys as if for dear life. So, I guess I'll just have to add more, as the lady at the desk said I'm simply not allowed to get an extended period on the computer.

In news, I've got a journal to take down thoughts until I can blog them, which will make this somewhat easier. Also, I'm out of cash excepting change, so I need to visit an ATM and check how much I have in my checking account.

"1 MINUTES LEFT".

This is McPherson, and I'm sleeping in the park tonight. YEAH, BUDDY!

Me and Zach are sitting in some sexy library building in Oklahoma City. It's like 5:30 or some stuff. We've just been wandering around handing out Fighting For Our Lives to cops and businessmen. Earlier we were trying to look out windows of high-rise office buildings but the receptionists were all on the rag. We were standing there and the receptionist for Megacorporation Bank of the Universe was like, "CAN I HELP YOU?", then some random lady from an office down the hall acted like we were with her so the receptionist would quit trying to shoo us away.

No pictures. I don't even technically start travelling and crap until tomorrow. But, whatever. I do what I want: I'm a grown ass man. *flex*

If we risk our lives, it is because we know only by doing so can we make them our own.

And the security guard at the entry to the library made us leave our water bottles there.

...

Word and stuff. CHECK PERIODICALLY PEOPLES.

Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees...