It has been five days since I finished walking, and now I am home in Colorado. Saturday night I camped in Lubec, looking out at a river and an island in the distance. Sunday I crossed a bridge, stood in the middle with one foot on either side of a thin line and put my hands on a metal plaque. On the other side of the river I walked to the border station, said a few words with the agent behind the window and simply turned around. By the river I stopped to light my cigar in quiet celebration and no more than two minutes later a man came down from the station and asked me to leave, said that I was in Canada illegally. So I crossed the bridge again, checked in with the U.S. border station and walked half a mile or so to a restaurant where I got some breakfast. By noon I had my thumb in the air.
I hitched rides back down to Portland, got there at six or so the next evening, and then bought a bus ticket. Yesterday I got to Denver, hugged my dad in the station and we drove home.
This is not where anything ends, I guess. Not where it ends but begins once again. I take up the reigns of a different horse, point it in a different direction, but the road goes on and on, unending. There is never a destination, there is only living with purpose.
I know that I'm only remembering to thank a few:
Abe - Miami
Doug - Pompano Beach
Oliver and Leanne - Flagler Beach
Paul - Daytona
Ryan - Bluffton
Anthony and Jerome - Yemassee
Allan and Silvana Clark
Jeremy and the mens fellowship of the Holly Pentacostal Church
The library staff in Raeford
Chris -Wise
The DeLauder Household + Andrew - Baltimore
T.J. Everett - Avondale
Jenny - Oxford
The Hilton Garden Inn and Applebees - Kennett Square
Jessica, Mother, and co - Darling/Media
Don and Carol, Kathy and Fran
The Wheelers - Berwick
James, Cindy, Kalie - Thomaston
Steve and Judith - Bah Habaah
Jimmy - Steuben
Everybody at Soles4Souls that organized and supported the trip. Such a wonderful cause to get to be a part of.
My parents, the beginning and end
Friday, October 1, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Bar Harbor
I'm one hundred miles out, and riding on the tail end of my last planned stop - with my second cousin and his wife, Steve and Judith, at their home in Bar Harbor. Steve picked me up yesterday and I leave tomorrow, because I haven't allowed myself anymore time here, so close to the end. Today I saw got a great glimpse of Acadia National Park, and just finished a lobster dinner and wonderful evening with family that I'd never met. Morning reveals, truly, the final leg.
I walk because there is a coward inside me. He squirms at every corner, nags me when I have a tough choice to make; is the first part of me to squeal in pain, the last to get up and go in the morning, begrudgingly, and walk. He is the first to complain, the last to shut up and sing. If I let him he will take everything from me that is not nailed down, will suck like a Bissel at the edge of my dreams until they are cleaned up and tidy, logical and methodical and lifeless. If I let him he will squander away my soul. I walk because the coward must be fought, and driven out.
I walk because there is a coward inside me. He squirms at every corner, nags me when I have a tough choice to make; is the first part of me to squeal in pain, the last to get up and go in the morning, begrudgingly, and walk. He is the first to complain, the last to shut up and sing. If I let him he will take everything from me that is not nailed down, will suck like a Bissel at the edge of my dreams until they are cleaned up and tidy, logical and methodical and lifeless. If I let him he will squander away my soul. I walk because the coward must be fought, and driven out.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thomaston
The end pulls me, drags me, has a fix on my location, is the smiling magnet that tugs on the lump of iron in my chest more and more with each day, as I grow closer. Too much longer and it will simply pick me up and reel me in through the air, and my walking will be done. I keep a photo of the border under my jacket-pillow and the image crawls up my ear and into my dreams as I sleep in the cold rain. I have a cigar in my pack, still dry and un-bent after all these miles, and it seems anxious, too, for what it knows is coming, and I need only whisper to it that we are through and it will surely self-combust in celebration.
I have left the Wheeler home behind but I have not yet shaken loose of Jay. Twice he has met me along the road as he drives north for his work and has taken me out to lunch.
Yesterday I was picked up by another contact, James, who brought me to his house in Thomaston. He and his daughter, Kalie, showed me around their property here, which reminds me more and more of home in Coaldale, with the garden and apple orchard, wood stove, dogs, and river. This morning I met Cindy, as well, wife and mother. She and James are both artists, as are many of my parents' friends at home and this, too, reminds me of Colorado. My stomache is still steaming from breakfast, now, and though the sky is still overcast after last night's rain and I don't exactly feel like leaving another warm house behind the magnet pulls strongly, and I must.
Fall is here. At my face the wind is cold, stroking the underside of the leaves in these forests and tickling them into changing the color of their skin. They wrile up in laughter, clutching their golden red bellies and squinting closed their eyes. Acorns drop in gusting waves, and I watch my head as I pass under thick trees or I am pelted. At night I have begun wearing my longsleeve underarmor, finally burrowing into the warmth of my sleeping bag after so many hot and humid nights.
I have left the Wheeler home behind but I have not yet shaken loose of Jay. Twice he has met me along the road as he drives north for his work and has taken me out to lunch.
Yesterday I was picked up by another contact, James, who brought me to his house in Thomaston. He and his daughter, Kalie, showed me around their property here, which reminds me more and more of home in Coaldale, with the garden and apple orchard, wood stove, dogs, and river. This morning I met Cindy, as well, wife and mother. She and James are both artists, as are many of my parents' friends at home and this, too, reminds me of Colorado. My stomache is still steaming from breakfast, now, and though the sky is still overcast after last night's rain and I don't exactly feel like leaving another warm house behind the magnet pulls strongly, and I must.
Fall is here. At my face the wind is cold, stroking the underside of the leaves in these forests and tickling them into changing the color of their skin. They wrile up in laughter, clutching their golden red bellies and squinting closed their eyes. Acorns drop in gusting waves, and I watch my head as I pass under thick trees or I am pelted. At night I have begun wearing my longsleeve underarmor, finally burrowing into the warmth of my sleeping bag after so many hot and humid nights.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Berwick. Maine
Don and Carol dropped me off Saturday below Boston, and I had a great walk through the city and surrounding locale. The commons and waterfront were swarming with people, as was the Charles River filled with small sailboats on a windy but sunlit afternoon. By evening I made it to Revere Beach, walking right along the sand, lights flickering on the bay. I camped by a highway turnoff, put my tent up just across from some houses and next to the road and slept well, undisturbed.
Sunday I walked through the towns of Lynn, Swampscott, Salem, and Beverly, where I met and chilled with a couple different groups of students from Montserrat College of Art, just back for the semester. Sitting up on a little hill in the trees, and nearby on the lawn of the commons, I felt nostalgic for my own college, my own college friends just starting their own semester back in Colorado. I'm not ready to go back to school, not ready to enroll again and try to stay focused, but I think maybe I'm ready to stay in one spot for a while, with people I know.
I camped for the night in Wenham, in a big park, rolled out near some playground equipment.
In the morning I walked through Ipswich, then Newburyport later in the day, and stayed the night on the edge of Salsbury, just shy of the New Hampshire border.
Tuesday was easily one of my favorite walking days of the trip. I met the ocean in Salsbury Beach, turned north and stayed nearby for nearly all of the day, sidewalk and water only separated by dunes or dark rock hidden under wigs of green. My neck grew stiff quickly, and I kept kicking the lip of the concrete or stepping on easily visible rocks because I was paying attention only to the waves, my head turned permanently to the right, the endless blue. Instead of feeling ready to go home Tuesday made me think of living here, in a little shack by the water, maybe working on a boat. I know that someday I will live by the ocean.
By ten oclock I made it to Portsmouth, and slept behind a truck stop. It started raining around six the next morning, and I hadn't bothered to prepare so I was forced to get up and pack quickly, then took refuge inside the truck stop with coffee until the rain let up. Back outside, the caffeine did nothing and I only wanted to sleep more, so I rolled out next to an Odd Fellows lodge, stretched my poncho over the deck rainling to ward off the intermittent sprinkles which continued for a couple of hours, and slept until eleven thirty.
Maybe two hours later, not having gotten far, I met Jay Wheeler, who I'd been in contact with, and he drove me into Berwick, Maine, to the Wheeler residence, where I remain now, as I write. Peg and Jay were good friends of my parents some twenty-odd years ago, before I was born, and they have welcomed me in with old stories and picture albums. Yesterday Jay drove me around, showed me the old farmhouse apartment where my parents used to live, the vet clinic where my mom got her first job out of school. He dropped me off at the historic Hamilton House and for a couple of hours I walked the trails nearby, along the river through Vaughan Woods, another old haunt of my folks. My parents tell me, talking on the phone, that they easily could have stayed here, worked here, raised me here, and I flirt aimlessly with notions of what it might have been like to grow in these woods, along these rivers. I question who I would have become, whether I would have ever walked, and if so, whether I would have walked through the forests in Colorado and imagined this life, then, asked these same questions. If there is another me, somewhere, traveling parallel, then perhaps that me began nearby to this place, in the summer of Maine. Here I look for traces of myself, my own footprints in the sand.
Sunday I walked through the towns of Lynn, Swampscott, Salem, and Beverly, where I met and chilled with a couple different groups of students from Montserrat College of Art, just back for the semester. Sitting up on a little hill in the trees, and nearby on the lawn of the commons, I felt nostalgic for my own college, my own college friends just starting their own semester back in Colorado. I'm not ready to go back to school, not ready to enroll again and try to stay focused, but I think maybe I'm ready to stay in one spot for a while, with people I know.
I camped for the night in Wenham, in a big park, rolled out near some playground equipment.
In the morning I walked through Ipswich, then Newburyport later in the day, and stayed the night on the edge of Salsbury, just shy of the New Hampshire border.
Tuesday was easily one of my favorite walking days of the trip. I met the ocean in Salsbury Beach, turned north and stayed nearby for nearly all of the day, sidewalk and water only separated by dunes or dark rock hidden under wigs of green. My neck grew stiff quickly, and I kept kicking the lip of the concrete or stepping on easily visible rocks because I was paying attention only to the waves, my head turned permanently to the right, the endless blue. Instead of feeling ready to go home Tuesday made me think of living here, in a little shack by the water, maybe working on a boat. I know that someday I will live by the ocean.
By ten oclock I made it to Portsmouth, and slept behind a truck stop. It started raining around six the next morning, and I hadn't bothered to prepare so I was forced to get up and pack quickly, then took refuge inside the truck stop with coffee until the rain let up. Back outside, the caffeine did nothing and I only wanted to sleep more, so I rolled out next to an Odd Fellows lodge, stretched my poncho over the deck rainling to ward off the intermittent sprinkles which continued for a couple of hours, and slept until eleven thirty.
Maybe two hours later, not having gotten far, I met Jay Wheeler, who I'd been in contact with, and he drove me into Berwick, Maine, to the Wheeler residence, where I remain now, as I write. Peg and Jay were good friends of my parents some twenty-odd years ago, before I was born, and they have welcomed me in with old stories and picture albums. Yesterday Jay drove me around, showed me the old farmhouse apartment where my parents used to live, the vet clinic where my mom got her first job out of school. He dropped me off at the historic Hamilton House and for a couple of hours I walked the trails nearby, along the river through Vaughan Woods, another old haunt of my folks. My parents tell me, talking on the phone, that they easily could have stayed here, worked here, raised me here, and I flirt aimlessly with notions of what it might have been like to grow in these woods, along these rivers. I question who I would have become, whether I would have ever walked, and if so, whether I would have walked through the forests in Colorado and imagined this life, then, asked these same questions. If there is another me, somewhere, traveling parallel, then perhaps that me began nearby to this place, in the summer of Maine. Here I look for traces of myself, my own footprints in the sand.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Southboro Again
After Don and Carol dropped me off Wednesday night in Connecticut I walked seven or miles into the evening and set up camp off to the side of a grocery store. At five-thirty in the morning it started raining again, which I didn't think it was supposed to, but I stayed fairly dry in my tent at least, and by eight or so the storm moved on and I got up and packed my things. No more than an hour and a half or two hours into the day I made it to Westerly, Rhode Island, and wandered around for a little while along the water.
I walked fairly late into the day, not pulling over until eleven or so in the little town of Charlestown Beach. I put up my tent right in front of the post office, across from a bar and restaurant, and no sooner had I crawled inside and pulled off my shorts did the beam of a flashlight come shining on my rain flap and the burly voice of a police officer called me back outside. "Can you come out here sir? What are you doing on federal property? You're a laud of the post office. You can't camp here."
As always happens when I'm accosted by the police after setting up camp and then told to move, I get a little irritated. This time, of course, it's my fault, as I should have known to at least hide out behind the building instead of out front by the street. My irritation is usually, as it was this time, not directed at the police, who are simply doing their job and seem sympathetic when they've heard my story, but towards the people across the street at the restaurant who must have called me in. Why, I wonder, does anybody think that a guy with a backpack and a tent is such a danger, such a menace?
After they run my license to make sure I don't have any warrants the police tell me about a church only a mile or so up the road where they say I should be okay to stay for the night. They offer to give me a ride, even, but I turn them down and finish packing up my stuff. Backpack reloaded I start out towards the church, then decide as I go past the restaurant that I want to go in and maybe show whoever it was that called me in that I'm not such a threat. The first person I meet, the hostess, acts a little hostile, making me think that it was her. "Guess I'll sit at the bar," I say, because that's the only place with any people, and she says "Well, are you going to eat or drink or what?" eyeing me coldly. For a second I feel like heading straight back out, but I sit down anyway, order a bowl of chowder and make friends with the people near me. My story gets passed along a little bit, I think, and I feel a much better atmosphere by the time I leave and head down the street.
I find the church without any trouble and roll out under the stars, and sleep well, and nobody bothers me the next morning even though people are coming and going nearby while I'm still sleeping.
Sunday I walked through Providence and made it across the border into Massachusetts, and by Tuesday afternoon I was into Boston city limits and Don and Carol came and found me again, by the side of the road. I wasn't planning to stay more than one day with them this time, but the forecast says that Hurricane Earl could stir up some trouble in this area tomorrow, so I've decided to stay under a warm roof to see what happens and then get back on the road on Saturday.
I walked fairly late into the day, not pulling over until eleven or so in the little town of Charlestown Beach. I put up my tent right in front of the post office, across from a bar and restaurant, and no sooner had I crawled inside and pulled off my shorts did the beam of a flashlight come shining on my rain flap and the burly voice of a police officer called me back outside. "Can you come out here sir? What are you doing on federal property? You're a laud of the post office. You can't camp here."
As always happens when I'm accosted by the police after setting up camp and then told to move, I get a little irritated. This time, of course, it's my fault, as I should have known to at least hide out behind the building instead of out front by the street. My irritation is usually, as it was this time, not directed at the police, who are simply doing their job and seem sympathetic when they've heard my story, but towards the people across the street at the restaurant who must have called me in. Why, I wonder, does anybody think that a guy with a backpack and a tent is such a danger, such a menace?
After they run my license to make sure I don't have any warrants the police tell me about a church only a mile or so up the road where they say I should be okay to stay for the night. They offer to give me a ride, even, but I turn them down and finish packing up my stuff. Backpack reloaded I start out towards the church, then decide as I go past the restaurant that I want to go in and maybe show whoever it was that called me in that I'm not such a threat. The first person I meet, the hostess, acts a little hostile, making me think that it was her. "Guess I'll sit at the bar," I say, because that's the only place with any people, and she says "Well, are you going to eat or drink or what?" eyeing me coldly. For a second I feel like heading straight back out, but I sit down anyway, order a bowl of chowder and make friends with the people near me. My story gets passed along a little bit, I think, and I feel a much better atmosphere by the time I leave and head down the street.
I find the church without any trouble and roll out under the stars, and sleep well, and nobody bothers me the next morning even though people are coming and going nearby while I'm still sleeping.
Sunday I walked through Providence and made it across the border into Massachusetts, and by Tuesday afternoon I was into Boston city limits and Don and Carol came and found me again, by the side of the road. I wasn't planning to stay more than one day with them this time, but the forecast says that Hurricane Earl could stir up some trouble in this area tomorrow, so I've decided to stay under a warm roof to see what happens and then get back on the road on Saturday.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Southboro (sort of)
On my ninety-ninth day of walking I woke up in my tent, on the lawn of a Dunkin Donuts. At seven fifteen the manager came out to talk to me, telling me through the open door of my tent that I probably couldn't stay much longer. "That's route 1," he said, pointing at the highway nearby, "and it's after seven now so you won't be able to sleep any more." I didn't know exactly what he meant, but I got up anyway, brushed my teeth and went inside to get breakfast and wash up in the bathroom. Afterwards I packed up my tent and my pack and was walking by eight twenty, under cloudy skies.
I got a little turned around after a few miles of walking, in the small city of New London, because the highway joined with the interstate and I had to guess which way to go to follow it to where it would come out. Before I found the route again I climbed up some cool looking cliffs and took a break at the top, and met a man who was living nearby, his sleeping bag stretched out underneath some scrub oak, above and overlooking the town. Neither of us had much to say, but I felt a cordial warmth from him. He mumbled that I should stay nearby, said that the police wouldn't bother me and said that he would get us a bottle for the night, but I said that I had to keep moving.
After asking several other locals for directions, back in town, I got on the pedestrian path over the three quarters of a mile long Gold Star Memorial Bridge, and after weaving a little bit more on the other side of the inlet found my way back onto the highway. After an hour or so of more walking I spotted a restaurant called the 99, one of which I had never seen before, and figured that I had to check it out. The restaurant turned out to be the ninety-ninth 99, and for the ninety-ninth day I had fried shrimp, french fries, and cole slaw.
At six or six thirty, having moved quite a bit more, I crossed a smaller bridge and spied a boardwalk heading off along the water, and decided to follow it for a ways. After two hundred yards or so the boardwalk ended at a small park, and I unloaded my pack and took the rest of the day off. Walking another path along the water, and then climbing over an old railroad bridge, I was about to jump in for a quick swim, but noticed, fortunately, that there were hundreds and hundreds of pale jellyfish drifting along just under the surface. Schools of some sort of small fish darted frantically among them, too, and I sat and watched them until dark.
For the night I stretched my poncho off of the back of the park bench, pounded stakes in the ground to make a decent shelter, and slept well until six thirty, when it started to rain fairly hard. I packed up early, getting soaked, and then followed the boardwalk back out to the road. Just a little ways farther I found a Lighthouse Bakery, and spent the next few hours drinking coffee and watching the weather channel, then called Don and Carol, who had told me the previous day that when it started raining I should have them come and get me.
In such manner I have been staying with the Hamelins for the last three days, sleeping in a bed and eating particularly well. The rain hasn't let up much since I've been here, but it's supposed to break up later today and give way to a nice rest of the week, so I'm getting packed up and later Don and Carol will drive me back to where they picked me up and I'll start walking again just a few miles from the Rhode Island border.
I got a little turned around after a few miles of walking, in the small city of New London, because the highway joined with the interstate and I had to guess which way to go to follow it to where it would come out. Before I found the route again I climbed up some cool looking cliffs and took a break at the top, and met a man who was living nearby, his sleeping bag stretched out underneath some scrub oak, above and overlooking the town. Neither of us had much to say, but I felt a cordial warmth from him. He mumbled that I should stay nearby, said that the police wouldn't bother me and said that he would get us a bottle for the night, but I said that I had to keep moving.
After asking several other locals for directions, back in town, I got on the pedestrian path over the three quarters of a mile long Gold Star Memorial Bridge, and after weaving a little bit more on the other side of the inlet found my way back onto the highway. After an hour or so of more walking I spotted a restaurant called the 99, one of which I had never seen before, and figured that I had to check it out. The restaurant turned out to be the ninety-ninth 99, and for the ninety-ninth day I had fried shrimp, french fries, and cole slaw.
At six or six thirty, having moved quite a bit more, I crossed a smaller bridge and spied a boardwalk heading off along the water, and decided to follow it for a ways. After two hundred yards or so the boardwalk ended at a small park, and I unloaded my pack and took the rest of the day off. Walking another path along the water, and then climbing over an old railroad bridge, I was about to jump in for a quick swim, but noticed, fortunately, that there were hundreds and hundreds of pale jellyfish drifting along just under the surface. Schools of some sort of small fish darted frantically among them, too, and I sat and watched them until dark.
For the night I stretched my poncho off of the back of the park bench, pounded stakes in the ground to make a decent shelter, and slept well until six thirty, when it started to rain fairly hard. I packed up early, getting soaked, and then followed the boardwalk back out to the road. Just a little ways farther I found a Lighthouse Bakery, and spent the next few hours drinking coffee and watching the weather channel, then called Don and Carol, who had told me the previous day that when it started raining I should have them come and get me.
In such manner I have been staying with the Hamelins for the last three days, sleeping in a bed and eating particularly well. The rain hasn't let up much since I've been here, but it's supposed to break up later today and give way to a nice rest of the week, so I'm getting packed up and later Don and Carol will drive me back to where they picked me up and I'll start walking again just a few miles from the Rhode Island border.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Westport
I'm in Connecticut now, after crossing the border on Sunday and being treated to an all night rain storm. I woke up yesterday morning with a gallon of water in the bottom of my tent and my sign weighing twice as much as the day before. But out of the cold looks of New Jersey and the blank faces of New York I'm finding Connecticut to have a bigger portion of friendly strangers, waving me through.
I didn't leave the big city until Saturday, and it felt wonderful to have NYC crossed off the list. The day was full of sun, of blue sky, and finally the heat took a break, and a cool wind blew down on me from the north. I felt the water to the east, saw the seabirds turning in the air and squawking above me, noticed fall on the street corners, in the fluttering of oak leaves straining to break away, color rushing to their faces and veins throbbing and purple in their effort and I heard, on that cool breeze coming down the evening streets of Mount Vernon and New Rochelle, the whispering of Maine. Like a lover it calls to me, now, as I dance up the coast, telling me that I'm close, that it waits patiently for my step, my barefoot caress.
I didn't leave the big city until Saturday, and it felt wonderful to have NYC crossed off the list. The day was full of sun, of blue sky, and finally the heat took a break, and a cool wind blew down on me from the north. I felt the water to the east, saw the seabirds turning in the air and squawking above me, noticed fall on the street corners, in the fluttering of oak leaves straining to break away, color rushing to their faces and veins throbbing and purple in their effort and I heard, on that cool breeze coming down the evening streets of Mount Vernon and New Rochelle, the whispering of Maine. Like a lover it calls to me, now, as I dance up the coast, telling me that I'm close, that it waits patiently for my step, my barefoot caress.
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