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...