Enjoy this one!
Well, I made it back to the west coast! Back in Portland Oregon to be exact. Today is Saturday, October sixteenth in the year Two Thousand Ten; seven weeks to the day from when I left this city. I'm sitting in the Peet's (of course) on Hawthorne Blvd. watching all the interesting people walk, ride, roll and drive by. This place has a lot of character and it makes for a very beautiful moving montage.
I left you, hopefully, suspended in New York. The rain was washing the streets away, the cold was sinking to our bones and the cops were hunting us down. There's room for slight embellishment in writing, right? I think so.
Kevin and I had been jolted into an adrenaline filled escape with very few places to go. When I stopped writing last, Kevin and I were all but strapped to the backside of an abandoned auto body shop while the Sheriff's Mag-light was illuminating the bush in search for any sign of two delinquent transients. We weren't breathing. Survival mode kicked in. My heart felt like it was doubling in size with every beat, but outside that, the ability to move had leaked out of me.
In that moment and that moment only, I was glad for the rain. I think it discouraged the Sheriff to conduct a thorough search and less than 30 seconds later, his flashlight turned off, we heard the door close back up and his headlights streak across the bushes suggesting he had pulled away.
Oxogen found its way back to my brain and Kevin went to light up. I stopped him. I was so freaked out I asked him not to. I was genuinely afraid someone would smell the smoke and we would be found. He refrained. We stayed put for at least another 5 minutes just to erase any possibility the Sheriff was still there. Kevin crept around the corner to see if the coast was clear. It was and we continued north on route 5 in the dark, in the rain; fugitives. (Fugitives may be a strong word, but it sure felt like we were!)
Kevin had been traveling quite differently than I. He was less on an adventure and more on a trek to his girl. He was traveling any way he could. Thumbing it, walking, a bus here and there. He had lost his cell phone and ID when he was in Seattle so even when he had money he couldn't get a bus ticket without an ID. He was a true transient, he stayed in shelters when he had to and when it was possible to camp, he would figure out some way to create shelter with his 10x12 brown tarp. His first choice, though, would be a bridge.
With my trusty iPhone I located a bridge about 6 miles up the road near the next town. That was our goal for the night. My pack most of the time weighed around 70 pounds depending how much water I was currently carrying and I knew six miles was going to be tough, but maybe doable. The rain had let up a wee bit, but everything was still wet. We took brakes about every half hour trying to pace ourselves. Around mile 3 I was done. I didn't need a bridge, I was equipped to camp just about anywhere, at any time. I also knew that we would be able to figure something out to keep Kevin sheltered. There was a pause in the rain and some woods across the road. I talked Kevin into at least checking it out.
It was pretty thick wood, much brush; wet brush; waist-high wet weeds. Finding a open enough spot to pitch was a challenge considering the darkness, but with my head lamp or gofer-light as some call it, I was able find a workable location. We had to clear some fallen branches and relocate some hanging vines, but within 20 minutes I was setting up my tent.
When we were back in that motel, I had taken some time to set some things out to dry. This included my rope that I've had since I don't know when. I had draped it over the old TV in the lobby multiple times hoping it would dry out by morning. I bet it's dry, but I'll never know for 
sure; it's still there. Unless that grumpy old man took it, he probably did and now I can charge him with thievery! HaHA! I'll deal with that later, the point is, that rope would have been really handy to have while we were setting up camp that night, but Kevin came through. He dug through his pack and pulled out a shoe lace and a couple twist ties. We tied up one side of his tarp to two trees behind my tent and then stretched it over my tent and staked down the other two corners where the two front corners of my tent were. Make sense? The picture here was taken half way through tare down the next morning.
Sleep set in shortly after I laid down and I don't think I awoke until the sun did.
Breaking a wet camp is never fun, but sometimes it's gotta be done. We were is an exceptionally poor location to put out our thumbs so we finished the last three miles to the next town. This is wine country. Concord grapes to be exact. Large, plump, and juicy concord grapes lined the road ways. We couldn't resist but to snatch a couple handfuls for breakfast as we made our way to the next town. They were the perfect pick-me-up. Bear Grylls will tell you the toughest part of survival is keeping the mind and emotions healthy. The succulent natural sweetness of those little globes of goodness were so uplifting. They got my mind off the fact that I was only about 5 miles inside New York and had been for what was turning into day three.
We didn't quite make it to the next town, but made our way from route 5, over interstate 90 (where hundreds of people were making their way towards Buffalo without us) and back on to US 20. We were resting/hitching/trying to figure out what to do when a blue utility van stopped at a stop sign across the intersection. I hopelessly threw up my thumb and surprisingly watched his window roll down.
Harley wasn't the most pleasant fellow. Dirty, scruffy, high and the van seemed to be made in his image. The only seats in the van were the driver's and the passenger's and I settled on the tool box with a towel on it. I was sitting next to an ATV that Harley has just cut apart. I was initially fairly nervous, but as I overheard the conversation, I realized that Harley, despite being broke, was very generous. He gave Kevin a big red poncho, he gave us a rope(!) and offered his tarp. We took the rope, but left the tarp. Harley took us about 15 miles up US 20 to Brocton and dropped us at the far side of town at a gas station.
He had gotten us out of the rain, but only for the moment. We took some time to get a little bite to eat and by the time we got back outside, it was pouring. The rain restricted us to the sidewalk just in front of the gas station and not thinking it would work, I wrote “Fredonia” on the sign. It was only the next town up, but Harley said that people around here aren't going very far and would be more likely to pick us up if we tried to go town by town. It was a busy gas station and I thought maybe we would get a ride up the road by someone coming in to get their snacks.
I was so out of it I failed to get their names, but eventually two oversized men in an oversized truck pulled up. One of them went in to get his doughnuts and milk while the other was forced to look at two sopping wet and weary travelers. I caught his eye and with his left index finger, he motioned for me to come to the window. He doubled checked our destination and said we could throw our stuff in the back. They were on their way to work to do whatever it is they do, but they got us closer to where we were going.
They dropped us off in front of a run down auto shop and for now, that's all you get. :) I have to go be a date at a wedding reception for people I don't know!
There is much more to come in regards to this crazy adventure and please keep checking back frequently to see if there's any new stories!
The succulent natural sweetness of those little globes of goodness were so uplifting.
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You make me smile!