Nachos Beware

We woke up at around five this morning, and Dad was out on the road for an early start. The temperatures were down in the high fifties, and there was the faintest hint of a fall like crispness in the air. It’s the kind of morning that makes me glad that I’m a morning person and a whole lot different then when I made my way through this area about five weeks ago on my own.

Dad pounded out another sixteen miles today, and he had things wrapped up by just before three pm. He’s holding up amazingly well, and if things come off as planned, he should be crossing the Mississippi River tomorrow on the bridge between Fulton, Illinois and Clinton, Iowa.

I should probably let him speak for himself, but by all appearances, he’s getting back into the groove of putting away miles and actually finding enjoyment in the experience. His foot has healed, and it doesn’t seem to be giving him more than the ordinary trouble associated with pounding away on it day after day. He also appears to be settling into the mental mindset that makes the long distance amble not only endurable but enjoyable. 

I’m also enjoying the opportunity to revisit old miles. Driving the water wagon makes it a different experience for sure, but the last time I was in this area, I was operating under the assumption that I would not see the land and the scenery again anytime soon. It’s good to see some of the same people and catch up on what’s happened in the last several weeks. I enjoy seeing a convenience store and knowing that they are one of the few in this area that carry grapefruit Bubly. Crossing a bridge over the railroad and remembering that I watched a train rumble through heading west in the early morning before the sun got too hot brings a flood of memories back to the surface of all that we’ve been allowed to see and experience along the path.

It’s also good to have the opportunity to experience new things in largely the same environment. Today, we ate dinner at an outstanding barbeque restaurant named Smoked on 3rd in Sterling, IL. I believe it’s one of the best meals we’ve had in the hundreds of places we’ve visited. 

Nachos Beware - Sterling, IL

I guess Dad thought so too because he tackled a big plate of pulled pork nachos in a way that was both awe inspiring and a little bit frightening. Hey….he’s gotta fuel up for tomorrow because if things go to plan he’ll be crossing the Mississippi River and heading into Iowa.

A Short Train and a Parade

Today was a long(ish) day after a series of long days, but it was a good one as well. 

Orchard Days Parade - Orchard, Nebraska

We managed to get caught up in a parade during Orchard Days in Orchard, Nebraska. It looked like the whole town was participating. Flags were marched, the school band played, tractors and the Shriner cars cavorted around, and candy was thrown to the kids along the path. It was pretty fun, and I was tired so taking a break to watch a parade was a welcome rest.

Short Train - Royal, Nebraska

We also saw the shortest train we've seen to date. Two locomotives to pull a tank car and a grain car. Wonder what's going on there?

Hope you all had a great Sunday. I going to get some sleep.

Crossing the Mississippi

Seven states down. Five to go. Today, on my last official day in the Navy and the ninety-first day on the road, I crossed the Mississippi River, leaving Illinois in my wake, and entering Clinton, Iowa.

I’d been looking forward to this geographic milestone, and I was ready to spend some quality time on the bridge over the main channel of the river relishing the moment and taking some well framed pictures for posterity.

One of the things you think about when planning a cross country walk is how you are going to cross large bodies of water. If you plug Newport, RI and Newport, OR into Google Maps and ask for walking directions, the first leg of the recommended course leaves Newport, Rhode Island on a ferry headed headed to Fall River, Massachusetts. This is because Google doesn’t recognize the relatively newly opened mixed use pedestrian and bicycle lane along the Sakonnet River bridge at the north end of Aquidneck Island.

The route will also take you into Canada and back down into Michigan with another ferry ride from Muskegon, MI to Milwaukee, WI.

Anyway, not wanting to lose any steps along the way, I had to figure out a route that got around or across these bodies of water.  Around is pretty easy. It just means a lot more steps. Across can be a bit of a challenge, but I was pretty sure I’d figured that out.

As I was planning, it occurred to me that I was probably going to cross some major rivers, and I might want to check out those arrangements as well. My first thought was the Mississippi, so I looked at the route and went down to the Google Street level view to check things out.

It looked great.  A bridge with a shoulder. No problem.

These assessments were made from the comfort of my desk with either a sufficient amount of heat or A/C to make the temperature just right. I was probably pretty well rested, and I had access to a ham sandwich and a nice cold beverage of choice in the refrigerator right down the hall. Once I was satisfied with my Mississippi river crossing, I never went back and looked at it again.

As I approached the bridge this afternoon, I thought, “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Sure there was a shoulder. It was about two feet wide, and the only thing separating that narrow ribbon of asphalt from the eastbound lane of traffic was a poorly painted white line.  

I glanced over at the other side.  Same thing, but I wouldn’t be facing traffic. I thought back to my planning. I’d checked this out, right? Am I in the right spot? I consulted my phone.  Yep, right spot.

Apparently, due to lack of experience evaluating Google street level views in the early stages of the planning process, I’d greatly overestimated the width of the shoulder. I checked to see if there was another way across, and of course that option looked just as bad and would add another five or six miles to my planned daily total.

I glanced up the bridge again.  “Only one thing for it. Move forward.” I asked the Universe for a safe passage and stepped onto the rise of the bridge.

Needless to say, I didn’t dawdle a whole lot savoring the moment and snapping a great many pictures.  I did get enough of a break in the eastbound traffic to catch a few shots of, you guessed it, a train leaving Illinois and heading into Clinton, Iowa just to the south of me.

Train Crossing the Mississippi on a Swing Trestle - Clinton, Iowa

Having done what I could, I pressed on and scarcely over a mile and what seemed like an hour and a half later stepped back onto a land level sidewalk. There was a grocery store on the corner and I ducked in and sat on a bench next to the carts. I soaked up the air conditioning and let my pulse settle back into a more steady rhythm.

It was not the crossing I’d imagined, but it was a good one. Tomorrow the attempt to cross the first of the big five states begins, but right now the weather warning sirens are going off.  Google tells me that’s a severe thunderstorm warning with pretty high winds. I hope they judge weather better than walking routes. I think I’ll go check it out for myself.

Birthdays and Trains

First, I’d like to thank everyone who passed on birthday wishes today.  You really challenged my policy of attempting to respond, at least in some small way to every comment.

I got into this philosophy after stumbling upon punk cabaret singer Amanda Palmer. She seems to love everyone, and she really made her whole career of taking down the velvet rope and mixing it up with her fans.  If you haven’t ever heard of Amanda, I recommend her song “Ukulele Anthem” as a starting point. Here’s the link:

https://youtu.be/Ni6qaNUcd9E

You’ll either love it or hate it, but I think it’s pretty creative.

I thought about writing all the lessons I’ve learned during my forty six spins around the sun, but then I remembered that would be a pretty short post.  Instead, I’ll talk a little about trains.

I’d like to say I picked trains for some deep and meaningful reason like the way they serve as ships of the land empowering the efficient transportation of goods from around the world in our global and increasingly interconnected economy. How they are a perfect piece of physical evidence that we are really truly in this together.

The truth is, the gnats were back, and I was trying to get through today’s fifteen mile planned distance as quickly and with as few stops as possible. The only picture I took today even marginally worth sharing was of a train passing under me as I crossed an overpass. Of course, at my snails pace, I didn’t get to the top of the overpass to capture the locomotives of this behemoth of international commerce. You’ll get trains, and you’ll get the back end of them. Sorry.

Missed Opportunity - Near Morrison, IL

Trains, like traffic, asphalt, and recently gnats have been a constant companion during the walk.  Those of you who have followed for a while already have heard about the auditory challenges associated with stealth camping in the immediate vicinity of a previously unidentified active train track, so there’s no reason to rehash that fiasco. Even when they’re not disturbing our sleep at night, trains are never far off.

There have been oil trains, cargo trains, and grain trains.  I’ve seen fully loaded coal trains headed in both an easterly and westerly direction in the same day.  Think about that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would you be shipping eastern coal westward and western coal eastward on generally the same track on the same day. My suspicion is that there’s some sort of arbitrage play with that sort of apparent inefficiency for those of you with MBA’s out there in internet land.

The other day, I even saw a construction train that was creeping along the track doing maintenance on the ballast. Two great paddle wheel like bucket scoops were shovelling the ballast up from the side of the rails and depositing the gravel into a hopper where it was mixed with some tar-like substance. The tarred gravel travelled up a conveyor belt, and once at the top, a giant hopper was shaking like a pair of maracas at a salsa festival redepositing the tarred gravel right back alongside the track where it had originated. The noise was like a truck full of percussion equipment involved in a nasty accident, but louder and more enduring.

Today’s train was stacked with twenty, forty, and fifty-three foot shipping containers. Some were labeled ONE with their distinct pink paint scheme. Others were labeled China Shipping, and the ones labeled Matson will eventually visit my friends half-way across the Pacific in Hawaii.

As the double stacked fifty-three foot containers passed about eight feet under the soles of my shoes,  I briefly considered making the jump to catch a ride. I had no doubt that the train would be passing near the town I’l planned to stop at the end of the day, and the train was moving at least thirty miles per hour instead of my sloth-like two point five.

It was at that moment I remembered a similar experiment when I jumped out of a boat moving at about thirty-five miles per hour to see what would happen. I skipped three or four times, the water knocked the air out of my lungs, and then I realized I was hurting all over.

The opportunity passed, and I turned to the right and trudged onward. At least I’d learned something in those forty six circuits around the sun.

Big Sky and One Meter Around Me

The rain from yesterday cleared out in the afternoon, and we were able to find what we thought was a primo “Stealth Camping” site at an undisclosed location in Walkerton, Indiana. We checked the surroundings for security lights.  That’s a mistake from the Duanesburg, NY airport that we didn’t want to repeat.

No lights.  No clear line of sight from any roads or parking lots.  Access to a convenience store and power outlets. Well drained grassy spot that would accommodate our tent. Check, check, check, check, and check. We set up the tent, and were just crawling in for a good night's sleep.

Dad in our train infested camping site - Walkerton, IN

Pro tip.  Always check your surroundings for an active railroad track that might be about twenty yards away from your campsite and hidden by a thick stand of trees.  Fortunately, not more than fifteen, but definitely not less than twelve trains passed through announcing their presence with a piercing shriek of their whistle followed by five or six minutes of metallic rumbling as they lumbered through the area.

The morning dawned bright and clear, and we headed west.  Today was almost all county roads. The traffic consisted of a couple of garbage trucks, an odd tractor or three, and a small handful of rural mail delivery cars.  The postwoman drove from the passenger seat, and I’ll tell you that I haven’t quite gotten used to seeing a minivan or a jeep headed my direction with apparently no one at the wheel.

Other than that, it was quiet.  The sun warmed our skin, and the breeze carried away our perspiration leaving a glorious cool sensation. The sky stretched overhead in a light blue dome from horizon to horizon.

Westbound county road - Indiana

The only distraction was the crunch of our feet in the gravel, the twitter of birds, the occasional irrigation pump, and the wind rustling the leaves of the trees. That last one always sounded to me like a driverless minivan delivering the post, so I spent a little time looking over my shoulder which is surprisingly difficult while walking with a pack.

Long story short, it the silence prevailed. The road arrowed westward, the blue sky arched overhead, and I was left with my thoughts.

These quiet times are when I realize the extent of my own internal chatter.  What were we thinking? What’s our destination going to be like? Will I run out of water three miles out and have to endure cotton mouth at the end of the day.  Then I catch myself and look at the sky and the road fading into the distance.

All is well right now.  In this moment, I’m good and safe and secure in this one square meter around me. Take the next step, and the rest will work itself out in the time that it’s needed. That’s the rhythm of the road and the message of the blue dome floored in greens and browns, broken by the occasional farmhouse or barn all around me.

Fourteen Miles in the Rain

Today, I woke up at about fifteen minutes till six to the staccato cadence of pelting rain on the fly of our tent.  I took a video to capture the sound, looked around to make sure everything inside the tent was nice and dry, and started to get things packed up for our planned fourteen mile march into Hadley, Massachusetts.

Honestly, it was a pretty good walk.  On the advice of people who had done this sort of thing before, we had lined our packs with Hefty trash compactor bags and we added a rain cover over the outside of the packs.  Even though it rained for eleven of the fourteen miles, all of the gear that I needed to keep dry was dry at the end of the day.

My rain jacket and pants kept me warm enough, and the hills flattened out a little so we made very good time.

We even got to stop and wait for a train to pass.  Pretty loud, and I don’t believed I’ve ever been this close to a train in a car.  Pretty cool experience.

Waiting on a train in Belchertown, MA

We’re eight days into the trek, and we’ve covered a little over one hundred twenty miles.  We’r averaging about fifteen miles a day which is slower than we’d hoped, but we’re going to take a zero day tomorrow to give ourselves a chance to recharge.  Both Dad and I are pretty tired, and we decided that we’d take some time to rest instead of heading back out into the rain.

As more than one friend has told me, “You’ve got to listen to your body.  I’m also going to take the opportunity to lighten my pack a little. An UA fleece, a pair of Prana Zion long pants, and a second set of gloves have served their purpose well, but it’s time to lighten the load.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s probably close to a couple of pounds, and I guarantee that I’ll be able to tell the difference.

It’s too early for real gear reviews, but the Enlightened Equipment down quilt and the Big Agnes Fly Creek tent are performing remarkably well.  We'll let the facts play out a little longer, but my initial impression is that these were both very solid gear selections.