Day 101, July 13, 2012

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 I woke up hearing whistling. I opened my heavy eyes and looked up. There was an old short Mexican man walking towards me in the grass. He said in very broken English "hello my friend, good morning". He walked up right next to me and kneeled down beside me. He set a coffee down next to my shoes, then handed me a pastry in a napkin, a bag of saltine crackers, and $4.
           I was so tired and still wrapped up in my sleeping bag. And in the morning without my hat, I look pretty scary. He stayed kneeled and said "you okay?". I said yes and thanked him. He then stood up and before walking away said "god bless you" in broken English again. That's was an awesome start to the day!
         I ate the pastry and then closed my eyes again. The sun had just come up as the man walked up. I was still tired so I relaxed a little longer. Then about 20 minutes later I got up and packed up.
         I headed back to the taco bell I was at the night before. It didn't open til 10 so I still had some time to kill. So I sat against the outside. My electronics were about dead so I used my solar charger in the sun and sat in the shade next to it. It charged my stuff right up. Man that thing is awesome.
         So at 10 I went in and sat down. I ordered a $2 meal and ate that while relaxing. I sat there and rested most of the day. My plan for the next two days were to walk 15 mile each day as it worked out better with the town layouts. So I just figured I would do an evening 15 miles stretch that night. The next town was small so even if I got there in the afternoon there was nowhere I could rest and use air conditioning. So I just figured I would stay here while I have it then walk to get to the next town at night, sleep, then leave right away the next morning for the next decent size town.
           So I just sat there all day and kind of goofed off. I was on the Internet and then people watching too. Man there are some characters who go into taco bell.
         After a long day of relaxing I packed up and got my things ready. I filled my waters jugs there using their machine with water. And the bag of ice I had bought the day before had a string top. So I even refilled the ice bag with ice out of the vending machine too. That worked out great and I had ice cold water for the entire walk.
         So I started walking and got back on the 287 shoulder headed north west. I was walking a good pace and right as the sun started to set it was really pretty. I noticed a truck making a u turn ahead of me where there really wasn't anything there. The truck had motorcycles in it and was hauling a big camping trailer. They pulled over and put their flashers on. It was a group of 3 guys and a mom. They got out and as they walked towards me they yelled "hobo nick!". I was exited and totally shocked!
        They had heard about me through a friend and they were on their way back from Colorado from a race. They didn't have twitter or anything and didn't even know where I was. But they spotted my and turned around! That was awesome! They hungout for a few minutes and took pictures, then they gave me a gallon of gatoraid and a platter of cookies! That was cool. They were just passing through and didn't know they would see me. That was wild!
          So after they left it was getting dark. I was getting tired too but kept walking. I got up another 4 miles or so when I noticed something that looked like a plane coming and flying very low. I stopped and looked at it. It starting weirding me out because it was moving so slow. I didn't know what kind of plane would fly so low and move slow like that. I got it on camera and after it passed it sped up and was gone really fast. It was bizarre.
        I walked another mile or so and I was getting real tired. So I found a spot down a slope off the highway where I rolled my cart off and went down about 50 feet off the road. I used my flashlight to scope the area. I couldn't see much but it looked like an ok spot. So I rolled out my sleeping bag and made a bed next to my cart. I was still a little weirded out about the air craft. So I laid there a while and the wind making the weeds sworm and make noises didn't help. I finally started thinking about something else and ended up passing out at around 12.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

is the second picture a ufo?