Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo

So, returning back to places that I know has proved much more busy than projected.

I am back in the Bay Area right now with my parents. It's good to be back here and to see them. I also put my clothes in a dresser for the first time since I left for Northern Ireland back in late July! Been living out of a bag ever since. Sorry that there has been so much space in between blogs. Not only has these last couple weeks been full of activity, but it takes quite a bit of effort to sit down and write these stories. They're almost intimidating for me. However, I do need to get all these down. As time goes on, so go the details of events and happenings so without further ado, let's pick up where we left off... (Oh, by the way, I have adopted the habit of listening to my "Explosions in the Sky" Pandora Radio station while I write. Thanks Jeremy Stringer.)

The sun went down on my writing when we were falling asleep in Blasdell, NY. Kevin and I had found a place to camp sheltered from the near by houses and interstate by trees and shrubs. The plan for the next morning was to walk a mile to a laundromat. (I find it funny that "laundromat" is actually the correct spelling. Really Webster? "Laundromat"?)

The knee high grass was soaked in morning dew and after breakfast we trudged through it to the open road. I knew that doing our laundry would take a while, but I was looking forward to being able to sit inside for a good length of time. With any luck there would be power outlets and even a bathroom!

We walked through the door at about 9:30 and was greeted by the friendly attendant. She was a younger women with shorter dark hair and good smile. I asked for some advice as to what machine to use for the amount of laundry that we had. We started loading up the 45 pound capacity machine and the attendant came over and gave us some detergent, stain remover, softener and some dryer sheets. She could tell we had been on the road for a while and could use the help. It was a welcomed blessing. I pressed start and waited for the troubles of the last few days to be washed away.

I plugged my phone in and began to journal. I had to record these stories. After a fair amount of time, I utilized the bathroom. Trimmed up my now undesirably visible beard and brushed my teeth over running water! I also took the opportunity to wash my hair. I felt a little odd doing this, but I suppressed the notion that I was better than that, humbled myself and got cleaned up a bit. At another point I took the opportunity to wash my dishes.

We were at the laundromat for close to 3 hours. The attendant eventually went home, but before she did, she took time to tell us about and show us where some shelters were in the area and where we could find food banks. She gave us at least two boxes worth of Chewy granola bars and offered us some baby food that she had found in her car. I took a jar, but never had to eat it. She was very helpful and didn't mind at all that we had more or less posted up in her work place.

We switched the clothes to the dryer and started another dryer for our sleeping bags and shoes, which were soaked. So far that day it had been nice, but I could see on the news on the TV that more rain was coming our way. It took almost another hour for our stuff to be completely dried, but we eventually got on our way. Our goal for where to hitch from was an on ramp about two and half miles from where we were currently. Almost an hour's walk.

On our walks like this I would get to know Kevin a bit more. Without disrespecting his privacy I'll just tell you that I had begun to trust him much more and we had a few good laughs together. It was nice to have someone along for this part of the trek. He kept me going. This stretch of New York was depressing. I literally felt at times that like I was being pressed down to the earth. I would "joke" about flying home from Buffalo, but he would encourage me to keep going. We had only done about 50 miles since reaching New York and that was four days ago! UGH! It was good to have someone to help me keep my sanity, but I started to wonder if trying to hitch with two people had effected progress so dramatically. Either way, we had to keep walking, I couldn't just walk away from him, we were going the same direction! Plus, he was good to have around.

We reached our intersection of 90 and Ridge Rd., which is more or less in between towns and set up shop. I wrote "East!" on my sign and an hour went by. I had developed a rule that if an hour passed I would change my sign. So, I wrote, "Buffalo". Another hour. Out of frustration and debate with Kevin I wrote "AIRPORT". Not 15 minutes passed before Bill picked us up. He was driving a new black and red Dodge Charger. We crammed our stuff in back and were on our way. He was going to the airport and due to lack of understanding and communication he dropped us off where the 33 comes out of 90. It would have been perfect for him to have driven us right up next to the airport, but I was thankful for the ride anyway. It was a short ride, maybe 10 miles and then Kevin and I had to walk up the off ramp that Bill took to get to the airport and a half hour later found ourselves walking on the sidewalk across the street from Buffalo Airport.

We kept on walking and I was able to locate a potential campsite. We had walked almost as much as we had gotten a ride for that day, but eventually found a place about a mile east of the airport to set up camp. It was about 5 o'clock at this point so just enough time to set up, cook dinner and get some writing in. It was a small patch of woods that had yet to be developed where Kevin found some low horizontal branches to drape his tarp over. I found a good spot for my tent about 50 yards away. I tried to light a fire, but everything was still too wet from the storm that had just blown through. We could still hear the humming traffic.