Nov.6 Not What I Had In Mind

Tues. Nov 6^th

Morning at the Wescotts is an exciting affair with their three children. I enjoy a hot shower and Katrina makes me peanut butter cookies and peanut butter rice crispy squares. I love peanut butter! By 10am Alvin drops me off on Rt.1 were he picked me up and the trek continues. A couple hours in my Uncle Mark passes me in his Con-way truck and greets me with the horn. I stop in Harrington for a coffee. By the time I reach Stuben evening is coming on and the temperature is dropping sharply. I stop at one place that looks like a good camping spot, but the ground is soggy, uneven, and full of sharp sticks. Just in the time it takes to stop and look at that spot I loose heat rapidly and can hardly move my fingers. I have to power walk hard for 15 minutes before I’m warm again. Darkness falls quickly this time of year. A Subaru pulls over onto the shoulder ahead of me and a middle-aged man steps out.

“Hey, sorry to bother you, I don’t want to slow down your progress, but I saw you in Milbridge earlier today and then again now. I’ve been wondering what your story is and figured I’d never know if I didn’t stop.” I tell him about leaving Canada several days ago and about my plans to go as far south as possible. He takes a scrap of paper with my blog address. I press on.

As the temperature continues falling I notice in the headlights of passing cars that my cart has glazed over with frost. I’ve got a problem. I have been walking all day and I’m tired, but my sleeping bag isn’t rated for temps this low. As much as I want to go to sleep it would be dangerous at this point. It looks like I’m going to have to keep moving through the night unless I can somehow find warm shelter. The late evening traffic is sparse and I can see people in their warm houses watching the election results come in. My knees begin hurting, so I lay the pack across my cart to get the weight off. The extra weight on the cart actually helps me generate more heat. I need all the heat I can get at this point.

A pair of headlights pull up to a stop behind me and a horn chirps. It’s a state trooper. Not again. I got pulled over by a cop last night too. Apparently people see my cart and think it looks like a baby carriage, so they call the police and report a man walking down the road at night with a baby. Last night’s cop was fascinated and very enthusiastic when I told him what I was doing. This one is a little more incredulous when I tell him I’m walking to Argentina. He eyes me like he’s trying to figure out if I’m just mocking him or actually trying to spin a plausible lie. He takes my license and runs it. I tore a tag off a mattress once, but he doesn’t say anything so apparently that didn’t come up on my record. As he comes back and hands me my ID he says,

“So I gotta ask, why Argentina? Are you planning to stay there and live or something?”

“Oh no, probably not, it’s just that’s as far south as I can go before it turns into water. At that point I may continue walking up the west coast, or I may fly back here, or I may go back to some other place that struck my fancy along the way.” As I answer more questions about my preparation and planning he finally seems to believe that I’m serious and legit. He says the cops in Hancock County will be aware of me now but warns that I’ll likely have more people trying to call me in all along the way. I guess people spend so much time watching Man vs. Wild on their televisions that they don’t realize you can walk outside in real life too. To some people nature is a movie set, not a real place, and anyone crazy enough to be walking down the road with camping gear must have criminal intent.

As the night drags on it gets harder and harder to stay warm. My legs are crying for rest and I get hungry every couple hours, but I can’t stop for more than two minutes before the cold becomes debilitating and forces me to keep moving. I keep checking the GPS on my phone willing it to place me as far along as possible. My pace has slowed dramatically as my feet begin to chafe and blister adding a new element of pain. I’m walking at the minimum pace to stay warm but conserve energy hoping that I can keep putting one foot in front of the other till morning light and warmth. It’s a long shot at this pace, but I begin considering that I may be able to make it all the way to Ellsworth. Maybe, maybe not, but at this point all I can do is keep one boot ahead of the other.

Gouldsboro creeps by in the night and Sullivan reaches me in the wee morning hours. Houses are dark now; no one is watching TV anymore and traffic is rare. Night truckers mostly. I’ve been listening to teaching through Psalms this whole time and it helps keep my mind off the fatigue and pain. David wrote many of his Psalms while on the run and struggling for survival. Early in his life, the hardship was because of Saul’s murderous insanity, but later in his life the flight from Absalom was the consequence of his sin. The penitential Psalms have meant a lot to me through dark times of my life. It’s good to serve a God who seeks reconciliation rather than penance and oppression.

Hancock feels like a major milestone. I’m familiar with this area and I happen to know it’s mostly downhill slopes the rest of the way into Ellsworth. I’m pacing myself by familiar landmarks, but I wonder what it will be like after Saturday when I don’t know there’s a gas station around the bend or a downhill stretch ahead.

My breath is freezing in chunks to my beard and I have to keep my fingers moving. These gloves have never let me down, but they’re just not cutting it tonight. If I had any other option at this point I’d take it, but my focus narrows down to a single goal. I’m not hiking anymore, I’m not seeing the world, I’m not on a spiritual journey; I’m just doing what I must to be still alive when the sun rises. I’m having serious second thoughts about the whole walkabout. Winter is only just starting and I’ll have many more nights this cold. If I’m going to do this, I need some better cold-weather gear and a sleeping bag that can stand up to these temps. I’ve got too much to live for to be fighting for survival like this.

I get a swell of exhilaration when I see the glow of Ellsworth city lights in the distance. It’s still quite a few miles off, but I’m going to make it and I have a bed waiting for me at my grandmother’s house. I find myself imagining that soft mattress and thick quilt and fluffy pillows. I picture myself horizontal and stretching out my cramped legs. The city lights inch a little closer with each step. At this point I’m in a significant amount of pain. My feet are chafed raw, my muscles are convulsing, and my entire skeleton is throbbing. By 4am I’m passing through the quiet city. I can walk down the four lanes of High St. without a car anywhere. I finally come to a 24hr gas station. Just walking into the heat feels amazing. I lock myself in the bathroom and just sit on the floor. A shiver of relief washes over me as I slump down with my back against the wall. It’s probably gross, but I haven’t been able to sit down without freezing for over 18 hours and I don’t care about anything else at this point. Eventually someone else will need the bathroom, so I force myself to my feet and limp out into the store. A bag of mini doughnuts calls my name. I answer with $1.49. About twenty of them disappear while I just stand in the store soaking up warmth. I need sleep though and I’m almost there. My grandmother’s house is in a little neighborhood just on the other side of Ellsworth. Just 3.5 more miles according to the GPS.

There’s a steep decline down to the river and an even steeper climb up the other side. I’m going very slowly at this point, but I’m almost there. I estimate the miles in my head, “Just three miles left, less than three miles left, two mile left, one mile, half a mile, quarter mile, just the driveway…” I find the key and let myself in. HEEEET! I sneak in quietly to not wake anyone, but that quilt can’t come fast enough. I lay down for the first time in 21 hours. It’s 5am. I’ve been hauling the heavy cart and pack with nothing but short breaks for 19 hours straight. I’ve covered 47.3 miles in a single stretch. A warm bed never felt so amazing or so well-earned.