Days 3 & 4: Canada!!!

I was sleeping in the Lewis and Clark National Forest south of Great Falls, Montana, and I was having the same dream over and over again. It was about my friend Josh mailing me another sleeping bag, which would keep me warm on nights like these. I kept waking up throughout the night, shivering, and anxious–anxious because I knew it was going to get a lot colder than this. The Montana night had merely dusted the grass with a light frost. In the months to come, I might be subjected to truly uncomfortable weather, so I couldn’t help but feel foolishly unprepared.

My drivers, Molly and Josh, were headed to Glacier National Park en route to California, where they’d take a flight to New Zealand. (See their blog at jollymoshtravels.blogspot.com) We stopped at an outdoor store in Great Falls, MT, where I bought a new 5-degree-rated sleeping bag and they cleaned their stove. I later mailed my 32 degree-rated bag home.

They dropped me off 20 miles south of the Canadian border in Shelby, MT. I walked most of the way to the border except for a short ride with Doris, who lived in the town of Sunburst, where she owns a herd of cows. Since I’ll be trespassing on farmland for most of the hike, I’m most worried about bulls, which I have no experience with. “Just look them in the eye and talk to um manly,” she said. “When they charge, just step to the side of them. Tire them out like that.” She insisted that I come back to her place for a sandwich, and while I wasn’t hungry, it was one of those situations in which it would be insulting to decline someone’s generosity. She made me a sandwich, and her 8-year-old son, who shook my hand, offered me a bottled water. I asked him if he likes living here. He said it was okay, but it’s tough “because we don’t have much food,” adding “mom has to use food stamps.” Doris’s ex-husband, who she called an “asshole,” was on the couch and refused to get up or look my way. When she told him she’d brought a guest home, he muttered, “why’d you brang him here?”

Doris dropped me off back on the I-25, and I plodded on to the border. It was dark, so I walked down a steep slope next to a field where I laid out my pad and bag to sleep under the stars, where I was positive neither farmer nor driver would spot me. The sky was a sparkling mural of galaxies and supernovas and fiery meteorites that I was happy to again be re-acquainted with.

In the morning, getting rides was tough, as I was so close to the border, so I had to walk nearly 10 miles to customs. When I arrived, I walked right up to the window where cars normally pass through. I declared my bear spray and knife, and the agent sent me into immigration for further inquiries. I knew what I planned on doing would probably be frowned upon, so I took some liberties with the truth, telling the officer that I wanted to “write a book about the Alberta prairie,” adding that I have my first book coming out soon, and that I’d be “sleeping in motels along the way.” It’s possible that I may write a book and it’s possible that I may sleep in the motel, so these weren’t outright lies, but probably will, in the end, be quite far from the truth.

I quickly got a ride after crossing the border with a young man attending college in Lethbridge, AB. “You didn’t look like a vagrant,” he said to me. Complimented, I said, “Thanks, I prefer to think of myself more of a hitchhiker or philosopher-tramp.”

He told me all about his recent trip to Vietnam and Japan. He took me to a Tim Hortons, where I bought a small coffee, and then to his parents’ house so I could fill up on water. He introduced me to his sister as a “philosopher-bum.”

“Philosopher-tramp,” I said, correcting him.

My next ride was with Shane, who was going 20 miles south of Calgary. He was just laid off from his job in Lethbridge, so he told me he was going to find construction work closer to home. He told me about how is girlfriend of three years was finally bringing up the topic of baby-making, but felt a little uncomfortable about it because “she’s a flirt” and he wasn’t sure if he could trust her quite yet.

He let me off short of Calgary, easily the worst portion of my trip so far, as I had to walk along busy roads for miles without getting any lifts. I’d probably walked another 10 miles until I got a short ride from a woman, and then a really long ride with Jake (I actually don’t know his name–it’s difficult to keep track of them after so many) who worked on an oil rig near Edmonton. He said he works two months at a time, working between 16-24 hours a day, oftentimes with only 2-4 hours of sleep. I wan’ts sure how much of this was exaggeration, but he led me to believe that that line of work was grueling, hyperbole or not.

Last night I slept next to an abandoned barn, in Leduc, Alberta, just a few miles south of Edmonton. With my backpack and fashionably stubbled cheeks, I find that I am suddenly an object of attraction, and have been ogled at by more than one Tim Hortons server. Soon, though, I will soon no longer cut so romantic a figure as the grime builds and the beard gets long and hobo-like.

I’ve spent the morning preparing (printing out maps at a Staples, getting Canadian cash from an ATM, doing more last minute edits for a Duke Magazine story at the library, and trying to figure out my communications issues). Unfortunately, my cell phone doesn’t work in Canada and my iPad is incapable of picking up a cell reception, so I’ll only be able to do blog updates when I have a WiFi signal: maybe once or twice a week.

In the evening, I’ll continue on. My destination is about 300 miles north of Edmonton, where I need to see something before my hike can finally begin.

Days 1 & 2

I’m on the road, headed to Canada.

After three hours of sleep, I woke at 6 am, walked to a bus stop, and commenced my 1,500-mile journey north so I could start my 2,000-mile journey south. Right now, my goal is to get to northern Alberta, where I’ll begin my walk.

I took a bus from Denver to Fort Collins, Colorado. Without any better idea, I took another local bus to the I-25, where I could stick my thumb out. To my surprise, there was another hitchhiker standing right where I’d hoped to stand. His name was Chris and he was eager to talk to another backpacker because he’d been standing there for hours. It was no wonder why. He had burly butcher’s forearms, a shaven head, and he was in his late 40’s. He told me that he’d just gotten out of jail and was headed to California to talk with his ex-girlfriend, who, apparently, out of spite, cut up all of his IDs. He asked me how much money I made hitching rides. I said, “None, I don’t like to take charity, just rides.” (Because all the rides I’ve hitched, from my point of view, have been mutually enjoyable, I do not consider myself a burden, or the ride, charity.) He said hitchhiking is the way he makes money, and he once left Kentucky with $400. I thought that was kind of shitty, but he clearly wasn’t wealthy, so I gave him three candy bars and began walking down the I-25 with a cardboard sign strapped to my pack reading “NORTH.”

My feet were sore on account of my broken toe and a welt that I received when I stubbed my foot against a strange bolt protruding from Josh’s backyard. I was walking for half an hour in between the interstate and a cornfield, where thousands of grasshoppers haphhazardly leaped to and fro. An old man in his Volkswagon was peering at my curiously. I nodded hello, he drove off, pulled around, and picked me up.

His name was Ron and he was coming from Denver, where he attended a model railroad sale, and was headed home to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

He handed me a juicy plum and a napkin, which I quickly devored because I’d forgotten to fill my bottles with water. He talked about his mileage per gallon, and I casually mentioned something about how fuel standards had recently been raised, and while he didn’t seem to disagree with that initiative, it gave him cause to ridicule Obama.

I asked him what he disagrees with Obama about and he said “Everything!” Looking at me suspiciously, he said, “You don’t like the guy, do you?”

“I wouldn’t call my self a fan,” I said. “But I’m not anti-Obama.”

Ron, clearly dissatisfied with my response, said, “Well, if you say another good word about him, I’ll throw you out of this car.” He was joking, but I got the sense that he was perfectly serious at the same time.

“I’ll hold my tongue,” I said obediently.

He went on a rant about how Obama had poorly responded to the Libyan crisis, and expressed disgust that he hasn’t closed the base at Guantanamo Bay. “He’s done everything wrong,” he screeched. “Everything.”

I kept trying to derail the conversation by bringing up his hobby for collecting toy trains, which he’d speak about enthusiastically before something made him think of Obama again.

I’d come across men like Ron before, and I see their vitriol smeared across internet message boards. They’re men that are unhappy with there lives, and Obama becomes a receptable into which they channel all their anger and regrets and bad decisions. By directing their hatred at him, they can redirect the hatred they have for themselves onto someone else. It gives them clarity, being able to blame one person. Don’t blame yourselves. Don’t blame the Democrats. Don’t blame partisan gridlock. Don’t blame how modern society divides and alienates. Don’t blame rapid technological development that has changed our way of being. Don’t blame the consumer-capitalist machine. No, blame Obama.

But there’s more. There’s an underlying racism in their hearts that pulls the strings like some puppeteer that they may not even know exists. If Biden was president, he’d surely receive vitriol from the Ridiculous Right, but not nearly as much as a black guy with a funny name.

Ron was actually really nice when he wasn’t talking politics, and he gave me his number in case I got stuck in Cheyenne, where he dropped me off. “I’m sad to see you go. Give me a call if you get stuck,” he said, “and I’ll come pick you up.”

I normally have success hitchhiking on entrance ramps, but I waited on the I-25 ramp again, for 30 minutes, and had no success, so I began walking. My foot was in even more pain, and I instantly regretted my decision to walk instead of stand with my sign out, but I plodded on until Jacob, a JAG in the National Guard, pulled ahead.

Jacob was part of a task force in Afghanistan who set up tribunals so that prisoners, who’d been held for years without trail, could finally be sentenced or go free.

Jacob was a breath of fresh air after Ron: free-thinking, open-minded, and determined to find the truth.

He told me how complicated the situation in Afghanistan is, where the Afghans are 80% illiterate, easily propagandized, and offered a month’s salary for planting a roadside bomb. He said he got to know a ton of Afghans, living with them, eating with them, even affectionately holding hands with men, which is a common Afghan custom. “If someone here in Wyoming was in their situation, I don’t think they’d act differently.”

Wyoming, by the way, didn’t leave the most romantic impression on me. Looking over the landscape, I saw an oil rig dipping into the ground, a giant two-chimneyed coal factory, and an army of revolving windmills in the distance. Man, Wyoming likes their energy, I thought.

Jacob let me go in Casper, Wyoming just before dusk. I held out my sign on an entrance ramp again, but, again, had no luck. I could see that the I-25 had a nasty, potentially dangerous culvert ahead, so I took a side road. My left foot was in worse shape than ever. It was getting dark, and I heard an ominous “pop” in my sock, which was a blister breaking. I didn’t even know I had a blister, but clearly it had something to do with the welt. Each step forward was painful because I was stretching the loose skin of my broken blister. The broken pinkie made things worse.

I got my medical kit out of my pack, cleaned the wound with alcohol and draped bandages over the suppurating blister. I hobbled down the road, nervous, now, because it was darker and this appeared to be a low-income industrial part of town with no trees I could escape into. Luckily, I soon happened upon a campground, but it was full and I didn’t want to spend the $20 anyway. Behind the fence of the campground, though, I saw a small creek with big bushes next to a railroad. I left the campground and set up my sleeping pad and bag under a tree, hoping that no one would see me. It was a warm night, but altogether uncomfortable otherwise. A train would roll by noisily every hour, and the small creek was rank. The odor was extremely offensive, made so all the more by the chemicals and waste surely mixed inside. Yet its odor, like one’s farts, was embraced as much as it was repelled. I was astounded to see one train holding car after car of windmill blades, a a promenade of gigantic blue whales.

In the morning, I got a lift from Blaine, an oil worker headed home to Billings, MT. He’d just finished a 12-hour shift, after 12 straight days of work.

He said the work was long, hard, dangerous, and he had to labor alongside assholes. He’d been doing the job for six months, grudgingly, but had to because his mom needed help, as she had cancer and couldn’t work. He had a son too, who he had to provide for. He told me about all the dangerous chemicals he was daily exposed to, and the high cancer rate in local towns. Recently, some of the oil had contaminated a local water supply, so large cisterns had to be set up in town, though the people still showered in the contaminated water.

He also warned me about my hiking route, telling me about the wolves that had spread out from Yellowstone, after they were repopulated there, along with cougars, grizzly bears, freakishly high winds, and snow that could come to Montana as soon as this month. “Do you have warm clothes?” he asked. “Not really,” I said, thinking about the foolishness of my path and my planning.

The desolateness of Montana was frightening. We drove over flatland, then slightly lumpy hilly land covered in hay colored grass but nothing else. No trees, no creeks, no rivers, just grass and hills and deer and black cows. I thought about hiking over that and how easy it would be to get disoriented, to go thirsty, to be whisked off your feet and dropped to a gory death by an errant and angry zephyr.

We got a breakfast buffet at a J.B.’s chain restaurant. I offered to pay, but he refused to let me.

He let me go in Billings, and I walked the I-90 for an hour before getting a ride with a couple in there twenties from Maine, Molly and Josh. They were on a several-month long road trip to California, where they’ll take a flight to New Zealand and travel there for four months.

Overall, the collective IQ of my drivers has been through the roof, and the conversations, well, unforgettable. Sometimes, walking down the road, on my own, I find that I am experiencing something close to ecstasy, an overwhelming joy sets me aglow, and I feel so thankful for this life, with which I may do anything I fancy. Oh, what happiness to live my own life, fully and unabashedly, wholly and unfettered. Yes, there will be misery and I will be miserable, but right now there is no happier person on this earth than me.

I write this from my iPad in my tarptent in a dark Montana night, maybe 100 miles south of Great Falls, in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, with a clean, cold gurgling creek to my side.

Onward north tomorrow. I best get moving. Winter is coming.

The journey begins

Last night, while watching the Bears-Packers game with Josh and his wife Amelia, we were all startled by what sounded like someone frantically banging on the front door. The sound was actually about a half-dozen gun shots from our street, just in front of the house.

While I’ve come to enjoy some of the domestic comforts of our little place in Denver, there is a good deal of crime in the area, and our house is situated in gang territory. From what we’ve gathered, it was a drive-by shooting (probably gang-related) and for whatever reason someone fired six bullets into a neighbor’s car.

We locked the doors, Josh called the police, and I retrieved my canister of bear spray. It didn’t occur to me until hours later that my poor van could have been collateral damage, parked as it was in front of the house.

You can see in the picture below just how close my van was to the car. If there is any meaning to draw from this story, it’s that recently, it seems, I’ve been able to escape bad luck, which is a theme I hope will continue for the rest of my journey.

The bad luck began last week when I broke my pinkie toe when stumbling down the basement steps. I’ve given the toe a solid week to heal, and it has recuperated admirably. As you can see, there’s only a small bruise below the nail. Before, it was sore to walk on, but now I’m able to go on short walks in my hiking shoes without much discomfort. It’ll still be a week before my actual hike starts, so I’m hoping it’ll be ready for action by then.

To heal it, I drank a gallon a milk and farted around in bed for a week, rarely leaving my room except to play a little Madden with Josh and do a little housekeeping (which isn’t too different from my normal routine, but I did make sure to cut out my daily jog).

I had another almost-disaster when I was walking around in the backyard this afternoon. For some reason Josh and Amelia have tiny, half-inch screws projecting out of their backyard patio. I accidently kicked my left foot (the same as the broken pinkie) against one, and I instantly worried that I might have cut the sole of my foot open, perhaps worsening the condition of my feet, which are body parts as necessary as any other for a successful hike. Fortunately, there was no cut, only a nasty welt, which is sore, but will, I assume, heal very quickly.

I’ve made a few last-minute gear decisions. For one, I’m taking my small point and shoot camera (12 oz with accessories) instead of my massive, but really nice, single lens reflex camera (3 pounds 10 oz). This will save me lots of pack space, as well as three pounds.

While I’m not bringing much for hygiene purposes–in fact I’m bringing nothing for hygiene purposes–I have decide to pack some floss, toothpaste, and a toothbrush (which I’ve cut in half).

I also bought a new pair of rain pants. I’d originally decided to go without, but because I’ve postponed this trip over and over again, I’m leaving much later than I’d first hoped. The consequence of this is that I might have to hike through some cold, inhospitable weather. About the worst sort of weather I could hike through is rain/sleet when it’s in the 30s or 40s, so a pair of rain pants will help me avoid hypothermia.

While everything seemed to be falling apart a week ago, everything, now, appears to be coming together. I have all my gear, my toe has healed nicely, my van didn’t get drive-by-ed, and I just learned that the food drops I’d mailed to Canada have passed through customs and are en route to the post offices where I’ll pick them up.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a bus up to Fort Collins, Colorado, and travel the rest of the way to Northern Alberta by any means necessary.

Here’s my goodbye feast, made by my two dear friends, Amelia and Josh, who’ve been so good to me these past few months. Chicken, sweet potatoes fries, salad, imported beer, and peach pie for desert.