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!