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...