Hitch Hiking

Thanks Dad for the New Camera!

For all of the pictures from this trip go here:

Drop Box

The trip was awesome. It was great to visit with everybody, but nobody probably wants to hear about the visit with the family.

On to THE ADVENTURE:

Jack and Holt dropped me off on an exit off I-68. I said my good byes to "The Cousins" (Nevada, Morgan, Erin and Riley) and walked to the on ramp.


I sat there for a while until I was picked up by a Father and son drywall team. I was in the back of the truck so I didn't get to know them that well.


More thumbing on an entrance ramp until I got bored.



Then walked a few miles on the interstate until I was stopped by the police.


We talked about many things on the long drive together. He is currently reading the Omnivores Dilemma and although he is in the Navy he doesn't blame me for not wanting anything to do with the military as they are the "puppets of the politicians" who we agreed are the puppets of the corporations. I was not expecting to meet such a cool police officer in MD. He dropped me off at the AT and gave me a granola bar. I had 2 Oranges, about 10 Apples (found a tree), a full belly and about 2 liters of gatorade/water mix. I knew that by the end of the walk I was going to be both hungry and thirsty.


The AT is Awesome!


Aaron is a teacher in Baltimore MD. He bought a bunch of survival stuff when 9/11 happened and a few years later he thought he might as well use it. He had never been camping before and when I met him he was sitting by the trail, tent half set up, boiling watter, looking confused. I helped him set up his tent and start a fire and he gave me some food. He was carrying 4 times (or more) the stuff I would have been carrying if I was planing a hike. He gave me 2 or 3 days worth of food and still had more then he needed. The food was strange stuff. ER Bars are like huge gram crackers packed with nutrition. Those with a few military rations thrown in and I am still eating the stuff.


In the morning I went to a hikers hostel and met a cool section hiker. He gave me some pizza leftovers and we hung out. I got to use the internet and after looking at maps decided to hitch hike out. I walked for hours before I crossed the trail again. I was deciding if I was going to go back on the trail or keep hitching when my hiker friend popped out of the woods. We talked for a bit and then he went on. I think I would have had a much nicer walk if I had gone along the AT but that is the gamble. A few more minutes of standing there and Erika pulled over. "I never pick up hitch hikers, but I like your pants" she said.

We hung out for an hour or two at the Coffee shop she works at. Met a girl studying art at a local collage and the local ear doctor (Fun guy) and then she dropped me off at a truck stop.





After an hour or so the manager of the truck stop told me I had to leave. So I went to the gas station and met this guy...

That car, Loud. Kind of fun though. Fast, low to the ground and it just whips around turns, but oh boy was it loud.

He took me to the next truck stop down the road. I walked around with a sign for an hour or so. I saw the first guy I talked to again. He bought me dinner after I turned him down twice and then offered me a ride after some conversation. He had a dog.


He offered for me to sleep in the truck, which I excepted becase that way he could radio other truckers in the morning to give me a ride... But we were parked next to the entrance and it was so loud with the trucks driving through that he couldn't sleep and so he drove the rest of his trip that night. I was ok with that because I was having a nightmare when he woke me up to tell me. It wasn't like the nightmares I used to have. It was sortof a tour through a hell realm where everyone is telling me what bad is going to happen and I feel a little constricted but generally relaxed. Anyway, I ended up sleeping out in a feild, as far from everything that I could get.



I woke up feeling pretty rough. I laid around for a long while after the sun came up trying to feel like I wanted to walk back to the loud truck stop and bury my pride and conjure up enough positivity to ask person after person if they were headed east. After a very short walk around the truck stop and one trucker calling out on his CB for me I gave up. Standing by the ramp seemed like a bad idea. Cars were not passing often and I was in the middle of nowhere. I was going to eat some breakfast and start walking. Then something strange happened. Someone stopped going the wrong direction. I thought they must be doing something else but they waved me over. I packed up my food and ran to the car. "Where you headed". "Where ever you are". I told them I was going to NYC and they said maybe not that far but they ended up taking me to Somerville NJ. It was quite a drive. They were both in seminary. John Mark Henry, the driver and I did most of the talking. He asked me about my faith and I told them about it in Christian lingo to avoid conflict. It was all very nice until the co-pilot started talking about what Buddhism is and I sharply cut him off with his misinterpretation. Then asked him how much he had studied Buddhism and told him that he didn't understand Buddhism and that he shouldn't be talking about it. The rest of the ride went well and we prayed together when we got to Sommerville NJ.


I met a few really nice people there. First the guy at the comic shop, the record store, then a gift/food store. I washed my pants, in the dunken donuts bathroom and went to the library to use the internet. In the library I met Mike. Reminds me allot of Ted from Big E's, conspiracy theories and everything. We talked for a bit and then I went to his place to take a shower and to wash my shirt. Mike lives in a 3 story house that was 'Abandoned' in the financial crisis. They haven't evicted him or turned off the utilities yet and the land lady left the state and stopped collecting rent...

Every Friday Somerville has a classic car show. The car show was fairly boring but in my mind I compared it to the flower festival in Thailand. I stopped back by the gift shop for some free popcorn and then hit the train to NYC!


When I got to NYC I was feeling pretty exhausted. I had planned on going to a party in Brooklyn and staying the night there but I only had partial directions and less then partial interest in being with people so I hoofed it to Talia's place and after hanging out with her mom until I could not think straight and then I passed out.

Wish You Were Here

I am sitting in a Hotel in Morgantown WV waiting for my mom to come pick me up for a week of visiting with family. I "woke up" this morning in PA, on the side of the road soaked to the bone. There is a saying with lightweight travelers "comfortable most of the time and safe all the time". It's the trade back, what I pay for my lifestyle. Only comfortable "most of the time". As I was singing Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" I was contemplating how I could feel so refreshed after the worst sleeping conditions of the past year.

I caught a ride out of NYC with a man named Mike Johnson. Mike helped start a 30ish y/o urban community on Staten Island. The trip was filled with great conversation and connection. Finally, late into the night I was dropped of at Rte 119 and I76. I was not well prepared to sleep outside and it looked like rain. I played it cool though, like it was going to be no thing. I had of course my old down bag and my therma rest. I left my tarp with Liam, shortsightedly forgetting how useful a tarp is after sleeping inside for a few days. A got a few hours of sleep before it started raining at witch point I changed my set up from comfy mode to 'safe mode'. I stayed awake for the rest of the night consentrating on a balance between staying warm and staying relaxed. I was huddled in the fetal position wrapped in my sleeping foam instead of laying on it, feet hanging out with my flattened sopping sleeping bag draped over me in a way that I touched it as little as possible but it could act as a wind block and rain deterant. When my right side would get cold I would flip until my left side got cold then I would do childs pose for a while...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdNnw99-Ic

3 months

As you can imagine blogging on a bike trip is difficult thing to do and, largely do to weight concerns I sent my computer to Merrin and stopped blogging.

That was about 3 months ago.
So many things have happened since then! I am in, in some ways, a slow point in my life. Although everyday CAN be filled to the brim I have taken time to call friends that I have not talked to in months or even years... Telling the same story over and over again is not something that I enjoy so this is a skeleton catchup of what happened so that when I talk to you we can skip to the details or skip to your life...



We were still in LA for the last blog. Since then "We" biked to Phoenix Arizona by way of Joshua tree and some of the most intense days of my life. Some pleasant, some awful. The 'whole thing' could be a book in itself complete with "fencing, fighting, true love, hate, revenge, giants, hungers, bad men, good men, beautiful women, snakes, spiders, and beasts of all natures and descriptions..." This is the abridged version.

While in Phoenix we stayed with friends of Jaz's family. Harry Mai is a sweet, powerhouse of the short Vietnamese variety. He was helping to start a Loving Hut Restaurant in Phoenix. The restaurant was opening the day after we arrived and we helped setup, mostly by eating great food and telling everyone how much we enjoyed it!

We left the bikes in Phoenix due to time constraints and Jaz's re injured ankle. After a full day of trying to get through the city we managed to get a ride to Sedona AZ with JP. JP was an awesome guy, this would be my second novel but I will cut it short to say that JP wanted to get the gypsy experience and camped with us overnight so that he could see a glimpse into our lives. It was really nice to share in that way.

During the week stay in the mountains of Sedona I got terribly ill in the bathroom of the Circle K that we filled our water at. Damn, the police were called to check on me, the whole thing sucked. As soon as I could walk again I hiked the mile to our campsite and after getting lost in the dark I passed out. The nest day was spent half dead. I didn't move more then five feet to go pee all day. Trying to figure out the cause, Not dumpster diving for over a week ath this point and having eaten hardly anything but restaurant food and prepackaged items that were bought for us I blamed it on MSG which I had eaten more of recently then ever in my life. Most likely, I think, It was contaminated water? I got better of course and life returned to normal after a few days. Normal for us was meeting someone on the side of the road, hanging out in there illegal housing and enjoying good company, and eventualy making our way to Porenge's house. A friend that we met at the wintercount festival. Many many good times on trampolines and hiking and etc... meeting a man who was a catholic priest of 8 years AFTER he had lost his faith only to find a new life and a spirituality he could live after being introduced to Psycedelics, now in his late 80's and living a beautiful life...

There were many lives between Sedona AZ and West Yellowstone MT... Many beautiful people and places.
But, the BFC (Buffalo Field Campaign) stands out as outstanding.
My job was essentially to hike around for 8ish hours a day and track buffalo. It was beautiful, everyday profound for both Jaz and I. The story of stories was the day when I saw 150-200 buffalo stampeding past 30ft from where I was standing. It was terrifying and exhilarating! Our job at that point was to alert the rest of the staff and follow them along a bluff for hours. Wild buffalo are not the docile Beefalos you sometimes see in fields, behind fences, on the side of the road. A few cow genes dose a lot to mellow out a wild animal, and when they are on the move they can move in a hurry! Noah and I kept a good pace for hours through the snow and only caught up to the head of the group just before they got to the road. Our job then was to alert the road crew to where they would be crossing to aide in the safety of both cars and the buffalo.
While I was there 8 buffalo where killed in car accidents at night. I imagine the wounded pride of the buffalo spirit that used to roam these lands freely. Now confined by roads and laws and irreverent people in helicopters trying to drive the noble beasts into death traps for the sake of money and grazing rights.

I was joking about taking up a life of crime, stealing and scamming millions from whatever corporate enterprise, maybe banks, whatever. A defense of all the innocents that would be hurt was cut off by a sharp. "No one is innocent". I love you all, but you have to know that I am thoroughly disgusted with our culture, the way we live, everyday. I HATE the immoderate human influences on both the human world and the natural environment. Though it saddens and angers me to see splattered buffalo guts, dear, turtles, squirrels, or people on stretchers on the side of the road... And knowing how millions lives human and other are not just ended but also made miserable by our daily decisions... C'est la vie.

On with the story!
From West Yellowstone we made our way to Boulder, UT to visit Dave Holiday. A wonderful man who lives in a little cabin on a magical piece of property tucked away in a canyon with a stream paralleling an impossible driveway. In northern Utah, on the side of the road, Jaz and I were wondering how long it would take to hitch through the seldom traveled 100 or so miles to Boulder!?! Only a handful of cars had passed all day when a guy pulled over. "Where you headed"? He was an old school punk, a lost boy. He drove us the whole way, out of his way, and we talked and listened and I was very happy both to have a ride and to have a friend in the middle of nowhere.
We stayed with Dave and Jill for about a week, camping, hiking, and sharing in one of the most wonderful lifestyles I have witnessed.
The Jaz and Daniel Drama was ever present and finally at this point "we" no longer became "we". The details are unimportant and difficult to think upon. We were going to try to be "just friends".
We stayed in Kanab UT with some new friends and caught a ride through Zion National park on our way to Denver at which point hitchhiking was too much of a drain to continue... We were defeated by the city. We took a plane to NYC from Denver with the help of James Burgdorf who, in the middle of the night arranged our flights by telephone while he should have been working. Thanks Jimmy! The flight was awful, NYC was Awful, everything was Awful... For Jaz. We left the city as soon as we arrived. I was, at this point, very broken. Nothing I said or did or didn't say or do could do anything to positively effect her. This breaking for me was perfect. Ask Rumi, Hafiz or Kahlil Gibran for an explanation. I gave up for a moment. I rested in Love.
Everything was greatly improved after our few days of bumming around Danbury, CT. and we got back to camping. Even while in Danbury things became functional again. I met Lincon, one of Jaz's friends who came to interview her for his book.
Finally we started our Job at Great Hollow Wilderness School!

This is a good breaking point.

3-10
Yesterday went well. We biked only 8 miles the day before. After the accident we decided not to bike further and slept in the city, behind a dentist office. Jaz was not comfortable with the location at first but I told her it was one of the nicest urban camp spots I have ever slept in and she relaxed a bit. Urban camping is never wonderful though. We soon discovered the loudest air-conditioning unit I have ever heard and of course the road was not to far away.

We woke up on the wrong side of the sleeping bag. People were starting to move about and I wanted to get to a more legal place quickly. Jaz does not do anything quickly. I left so that I wouldn't get grumpy but ended up getting grumpy later anyway. I threw a hissy fit behind a bike shop and then made breakfast. We were both pretty grumpy when a guy pulled up in a truck. This just in “I'm turning into Dandelion (Jazes nick name for me). Pretty soon I am going to stop farting and start meditating.”
The guy with the truck owned the building and asked us if we were camping there. I started explaining what happened in our defence. It was not needed though. He started talking about when he biked across the country in '85. He helped us with our bikes and when the owner of the bike shop came in he gave us some stuff and let us use his tools. I had already met a really nice guy while preparing breakfast but didn't yet realize that it was “nice people day”.
In the course of the day every interaction we had was more then pleasant. We were even prayed for in front of a subway and stopped by a police officer “just to chat”. When Jaz saw the cop she “freaked out” and he had to turn on his lights and siren for her to stop. Jaz had just J-biked while I biked around and my thought was “Oh, Shit. Here's the end of a nice day.” It wasn't. We met many more super friendly people before the day was over.

3-11
When we woke in the morning we were low on water and in the desert. We tried to finnish our oversized portions of lentil soup I cooked the night before. We got some free lentils and so we are carrying them all. I want to dump them because they weigh so much but, hey, it's food. Also the Vitamins we are carrying, I am happy because with our somewhat spotty diet at least we know we have all of the vitamins and minarals we need. The spotty diets not so bad really. So far we find plenty of food, usually one thing at a time though. A few days ago we got 6 loafs of bread, and yesterday it was citrus for example. I have now almost doubled my original weight with citrus fruit. I have over doubled my original weight because Jaz's ankle was slightly re-injured in the accident and I am carrying a lot of her weight. The weight's not so bad until I'm biking uphill. Like yesterday, we were uphill all day. At night we discovered that we could have taken an easier route and got directions from where we were. The rest of the night was all down hill, through Yukipa. Yukipa sucked,excepting the bike shop there. We went to the library to use the internet and they had no wifi. I was shocked. Then I looked around and saw that everybody looked white trashy. I asked at reference where we could find wifi and they said there was only one place in town, far away. So we left and went to the “health food store”. I don't want to talk about it. On the way there we tried to talk to a few locals, most of whom stared at us but would not acknowledge us. We even biked up to and stopped next to a group of young adults sitting at starbucks. I said hello and they ignored us. Pretended like we weren't even there. I couldn't believe it! Then I saw a girl working at a grocery store and talked with her, she was the first person who didn't look away when I looked at them since we left the bike shop. We asked if she knew of a place we could shower and she said her friends were “not very open”. After getting kicked out of a gym trying to use their showers we took a sink bath. It felt so good. We slept in a field last night and were covered with frost in the morning. We are relaxing and taking it easy until Jaz's foot heals. Minimal biking each day.


Look at Jaz's blog for pictures. Jazart.blogspot.com

Ill fated bike trip.

So far nothing has gone according to plan.

We have given up our bikes and are traveling the country by grocery cart!












But really...
After spending twice as long in LA as was originally planned we started up the coast towards San Fransisco. After about 15 miles Jaz says "How much do you want to go to San Fran?" "Whatever." Is my usual reply.
We ended up spending the night in a cave in Malibu creek state park. It was beautiful.
The next night found us back in Glendale, LA. Since we had gone west along the coast we are passing through LA again.
I strapped my back pack onto my bike so I don't have to hike to camping spots with full hands anymore. The backpack is sticking out an extra 6 inches on each side. When I was pulling by Jaz the pack caught on her bike and knocked her over. She was not badly hurt but her tire got warped and she hit a thorn that flattened it at the same time. Pain in the ass. We are consistently behind schedule and regularly biking into the night.



The West Coast!


Me at the Yogananda temple in Santa Monica.


By Jimmy's Apt in Venice Beach.

Venice Beach!

Hare Krishna Hare Rama

After a "nice" long talk with Jai I spent then night at the Hare Krishna ashram. They like the word nice there it seems. Nice, it's a nice word I guess. :D

Jai was great, I have never had an open minded conversation with a Hare Krishna before and Jai was well educated and sincere so it made for great conversation. Prasada was delicious, chanting was fun and humorous, what more could I ask for.

I woke up at 4am this morning to practice with the Hare Krishna's.

In the afternoon I took my bike to the shop. The bottom bracket was squeeking so I wanted to check it out. It turns out there were no ball berings in it! You should have seen the face of the guy who was helping me!

Then I biked around LA. That part of the day sucked. And I still have not found a place to camp yet.

I had to get back on to add this! I thought that it would be a good idea to bike by the Santa Monica Mountain National Rec Area to see if I could camp in there. Bad Idea! I biked up a few hundred feet as cars screeched around the corners. The climb was the scary part but the decent was probably more dangerous. I flew down! At first I was thinking about my horrible trip though N Thailand on a motor scooter. "Kill me" speeds in the dark on somewhat shoty roads. When I realized that Ganesha Sharanam had been going though my head in the back ground I relaxed a little. Instead tightening up when I made a corner I shouted Hare Bo! It was fun! But... I don't recommend it and I don't plan on doing it again!

LA

We took the trip to CA in stuffed minivan with a topper and tee pee poles on the roof! My bike and our bags were all strapped to the tee pee.

Jaz's house. Wow. The supreme master is everywhere!


Craig in Glendale. Jaz's Friend.
I spent the first day in LA in a room trying to turn my sleeping pad into a back pack. I failed.
Craig and I walked around the Americana. For hours one night, in and out of stores. They have a 3 story Barns and Nobles there!

Biking LA! I met Josh who also just arrived in LA. He showed me how to use the public transit. Then after 6 hours of biking and many stuff stowing issues arrived at Jimmy's.


I used to live with Jimmy in his New Collage dorm room with Selena, Val, and Jag. I knew Jimmy the least. This was the first time we had one on one time. He is one of Mike Jones' best friends and now I know why. We had the best "intellectual" conversations I have had in a long time!
Jimmy is getting married to Sarah soon. She is smart, pretty and I was stoned when I met her so I don't remember more then the fact that I liked her. :D

The second night, when Sarah arrived slept in the bushes in Santa Monica.

Because Jimmy's apartment is hardly larger then a rich persons closet I left around 1am to find a place to crash for the night. I rode to the next town east and spent the day and night in the mountains there.

Today I have been biking the rich parts of LA. It seems like all people do here is shop. Pretty boring. Everything is pretty here though. Even the dumpsters.


I am going to go to the Hare Krishna temple for kirtan and dinner.



This was from the hitch to AZ. I had to laugh, I had to take pictures!
We stopped in Leisure World to visit Hakim's favorite aunt. Then we got lost, at night, for an hour, after he went an hour out of his way to take me to Wintercount. Thanks Hakim!
Since I didn't get pictures of the minivan you can immage a minivan version of this car! With a bike and a hoola hoop attached! For both rides the insides were so stuffed that we had to throw the packs on the roof to be able to fit inside!

Wintercount and CA

Wintercount was Awesome!

In the desert of Arizona four hundred something people gathered for a week to learn and play. Everyday it seems like there were 20 classes offered. everything from bow making to brain tanning to fire building. I was only there for 2 days of classes and only went to one class. I learned how to make a Dakota stove, basicly a cook fire that is under ground. The best parts were the community and the individuals. I was uncomforable when I arrived because it is a new scene for me. You can throw me into any city with nothing and I can live comfortably and enjoy myself, and I love the wilds, but if you put me in the woods with nothing... I will die. For all the time I have spent hiking and camping I have no skills to survive without modern tools. Nobody seemed to care if you live compleately off the land or if you are a weekend warrior. Two of my faviorate people where Doug and Matt. Both can walk off into the woods with nothing and live comfortably. I was blessed enough to offer both of them massages. Both, for their ages, had very healthy muscle structure and wonderful energy. Both of them offered to trade massage for the oppertunity to live with them and learn from them! We will see.

As for the next few months? I will be leaving LA next wendsay to bike up the CA coast and then to cut accross the conuntry to CT! I am so excited! I will be working at Great Hollow in CT! I have never been excited about a job before!

Things are going really well! Jaz and I are getting along splendidly. I have found the most valueable skill to avoid conflict is not to say things that instigate or feed into it. It's amazing how effective thinking before you speak is! I am staying with one of her friends because her family wont let me stay over. Acctualy they don't want to meet me at all :( I even shaved because I thought they would like me more without a beard :(

Sedona

I woke up last night with the feeling of soft rain on my face. I think my first thoughts were “Oh, Shit!” I hitch hiked from Gallup NM to Sedona AZ in about 5 hours. I have 2 bags, one for my sleeping bag, clothing, toiletries, computer, and sleeping pad. The other is for food and miscellaneous essentials. I didn't bring a tent. When the sun was falling I saw clouds in the sky and asked Rob “You sure it's not going to snow tonight.” “Yeah, I don't think so”. As I lay awake in my sleeping bag I thought about being present and “using all experience as fuel for practice”. Seconds later I was in my mind, hiding from the intense wind and rain. It wasn't to cold, or rainy for that matter. It was the wind. The wind that was whipping my sleeping bag into a frenzy and sucking the heat from my soggy down and blowing cold air into my breathing hole at what seemed like hurricane speeds.

My first ride was from an ex military Navajo man. He was born and raised in Gallup and worked on Apache helicopters all over the world. He was only driving a few miles and he dropped me off at an Indian tourist trap at the base of some beautiful red rocks. I waited for my next ride for over an hour. After finally deciding that I could walk to Phoenix faster then hitching and threw on my packs and took off. Within 5 minutes I was picked up by a young man running from his probation in CO headed towards San Fran to live out of his car and party. After cautioning him to the consequences we celebrated his new freedom. I have his phone number and I think I will call him in a year or so to see where he is. He was also ex-military. He dropped me off on the road to Sedona and within minutes a car stopped. Rob had lived in St. Pete FL for years and knew a hand full of my friends including Gene Cooke and Miguel who are good friends of mine. He brought me to the house of Hunter and Ayshea. I spent hours talking with Hunter as Ayshea gave Rob a massage.

Now I am sitting in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Last night I slept next to Chimney rock and now I am going to explore Sedona!

Flashback; From FL to CO. Part 1

I was cleaning up my computer when I found this; a rough draft of trip from FL to CO. I am not going to clean it up much as I had originally planned. I was going to turn it into a coherent story... Nah :D

Gville arrive Mo
"Tubing" with Mike and Trevor. We were actually swimming the whole 3 hours until I turned blue and some nice people offered me a tube. Dumpstering. Bat Box! Thousands of bats! Buddha; Great graphic novel! Trout; cool guy who has an herb shop.

Bus Trip
Day 1 Fri 5th
Bob pick us up in Gville. Droped off motorcycle at Holt's. Arrive in Ginnie Springs.

Sat
Springs were awesome! Drove to Tallahassee.

Sun
Slept at Walmart. Anna Purna; Nepalese? restaurant for show. Snuck into the FSU theater building and explored for hours.

Mo
Karla; Jaz'es best friends sister. Truck stop; the bus was having problems.

Tu
Albany to Macon, to Cordelia. Somewhere in here we went to a really cool house to visit Don Wan. Bob's friend. It was really the land that was spectacular, nice lake with swing chairs hanging over it. I started my Loan process as Bob worked on the Bus. There were a lot of problems with the bus at this time.

We 10th
The Police woke us up. A guy who owned a BBQ joint across the street (Dooley's BBQ) from where we were parked gave us Breakfast and lunch and we talked for a while. Police stopped us because Jaz and I were on top of the bus. Bob and I dropped Jaz off in downtown Asheville. Went to Merrin's in Black Mountain. Met Abby and Ari at a coffee shop. Interesting, awkward. I liked them both.

Th
Coffee shop; spent a lot of time trying to get loans for school. Bus Painting; Abby came to paint my bunk.

Fri
Went hiking at Warren Wilson. The down town Asheville drum circle was great! Dancing! I met a religious studies professor from Warren Wilson and had a nice but short conversation.

Sat
Bob, Merrin and I went to Wild Roots, a small wilderness community. I was going to stay there with Jaz but decided that the best thing was to go with Bob back to the bus. Jaz almost stayed but ended up coming with us.

sun
Church decisions; I have no Idea what that means? Maybe talking about decision to leave the bus after a few more problems.

Mon 15th
Bob dropped Jaz and I off at a Starbucks in Knoxville. A man picked us up for a very short ride to a less desirable place to hitch from, it was slightly annoying but he meant well. Our next ride was awesome! Jack, an ex-infantry solider brought us most of the distance through TN. Along the way we stopped to walk around an abandoned mansion that had been burnt down. Right before he dropped us off we had lunch together and talked about his experiences in combat and seeing his friends die. He said his grandfather, who he was always close to, just died and he didn't feel anything. He is numb to death. Our next ride was an off duty policeman who was getting back from hunting. He and Jaz talked about tanning leather and things like that. It was getting late so we went to a homeless shelter for the night. Jaz and I were not allowed to stay together because we were not married so I slept in the mens dorm and Jaz got her own room. The only person in Jaz'es building was a grumpy old woman who's sole purpose in life was keeping me away. We were told that we had to meet across the street and she was trying to tell us we couldn't and watched us the whole time we were hanging out, even after her boss came and told her we were not breaking any rules. When curfew came I went back to the dorm. I was exhausted so I kept the conversation polite and went to bed. Breakfast had less then great food, but the conversation was lively and friendly. It was the most social shelter I have visited yet. I stuffed my pockets with food and we took off.

Se la vi.

Today was a awesome!
It's Jaz's birthday so as a present, God sent us two awesome friends to laugh and play with!
Mike and Jeremy drove from Oklahoma City to Boulder to deliver a car to Mike's sister. We met as we were hitching up to Boulder Falls. When we arrived they hopped out of the car and with exuberance declared that they would love to see the falls. After a short hike we found ourselves driving up to Eldora with them for some hot chocolate. "My treat" Mike said. I did not want to except to much but he insisted. While we were in Ned we had to stop by the gem and crystal shop! It is one of the most exquisite shops I have ever been to. A few of the pieces reminded me of an incredible wood shop I had been to in Laos. Carvings out of stone that were so perfect they must have been present in the stone before it was cut. We played and joked for hours up in Ned before coming back down for lunch. We picked up Mike's sister Michelle who is a freshman at CU and headed off to Aztec Sol. Oh my god. Great food, and we took home enough for 3 more meals. Next, we stopped by my favorite tea shop. Ku Cha. We drank tea with timelessness and humor. Have you ever had milk oolong? It is now my faviorate tea. Incredible! We tasted a large handful of other fantastic teas before calling it a night.
Unfortunately, Jaz is a little sick so although she could appreciate the day she could not be as active as she might have liked and as the day wore on she wore out.
Se la vi.

Feelings

Have I mentioned that I am feeling allot?

Have I mentioned that my relationship with Jaz is troubled?

The problem with problems is that nobody wants to look at them. I have been chided many times for writing things that were to honest, I don't want to hurt anybody. One of the main purposes of this blog was to express myself unabashedly. Maybe if I write what I want to write, about how Jaz has hurt me and I have hurt her, it is still a form of running from fully expressing myself?

The positive side of the story is that I am communicating with my family, particularly Mom more then ever before.

How do I break the cycle? It started before I was born.