O q

Please forgive any typos in the text below - I have attempted to maintain the integrity of the piece as an artifact retrieved from the mists of reason.

My God Salutes Your God, Caesar's gone

• Live Prayerfully
  
• Practice Compassion
• show respect
• encourage growth
• give and forgive

I felt so redundant in my recovery
until I plugged into this community of comprehensible morality
now I can creatively practice my benign anarchy
*********************************************************************

Seattle to Maine and back -

I am on my way across the country and back on an epic quest to see the state of Maine and Go to the National Rainbow Gathering in Pennsylvania - with the intent of returning to Seattle before October.
Today ( right now ) I've made it as far as Tacoma. Not much of a grand journey, really. But yet still. Safe, dry, and ready to reach out across the country with this thumb, hook it around a tree in the Aleghenies, and pull myself to it.
I quit drinkin, using that program I'm not sposed to mention, so maybe I'll stop in in Akron, along the way, and see what there is to see there.
***********************
It is now the same time, on the next day after that writing. In the mean time, I have adventured some, slept, dreamt, rose and ghosted my way from thence hence.
When I wrote the above, yesterday, I was in the Tacoma public Library. This is a strange institution downtown, wherein there is only one bathroom stall for 3 floors of books and other media. It is closely guarded by a wobbly old man in a security uniform - armed with a rather heavy looking 2 way radio. I did not see him attempt to use it, but I did hear it chattering away as he denied me the use of the bathroom.
Perhaps I am rash, he did not deny me the use of the restroom - rather, he gave me the option of leaving my guitar and two purses outside the room with him. He teetered a bit as he said this. It did not seem likely that he could safely lift the guitarcase. In fact, it seemed more likely that he might fall down into it while bending over to inspect it.
So I declined their bathroom and used a bush outside for my bladder relief. You may consider this uncouth. I am happy for you if you do. I wish I were so civilized as to understand flushing gallons of potable water to wash away my own water. I always use some bit of wildlife for these little forays, avoiding cement and asphalt entirely. This I consider the measure of my couth-ness.
Walked from there to 'Lakewood', the Tacoma mall.
That took awhile, as i stopped off once for coffee at a fellowship hall of a spiritual community I am part of that helps me keep from hurting people. After that I walked through several neighborhoods, watching the clouds roll in like the ships in Otis Redding's dock of the bay, and I watched em roll away again. Dodged a rain drop here and there.
The Tacoma mall is a large, cookie cutter example of Neuvo Caca structure. I walked through it, had a meaningful discussion with a man trying to sell electronic cigarettes. He didn't try to pitch me at all. He was just bored. We talked about my guitar (which I have with me in a soft case with backpack straps) and his method of using a single minded devotion to playing his guitar to quit drinking.
Leaving the mall, I followed the signs to the freeway on-ramp for I-5 South. I had just walked several miles to get to this position and it looked like it would do okay in the morning. There was not a nice churchyard nearby, or any other convenient doorway, so I backtracked to the Macy's I'd seen across the freeway from the mall.

Then I wake up,
-get hot water for coffee
-walk to the ramp, wait, sign light post
-sing amazing Grace to the birds, Crow sings back, sing 'Uncle Johns Band' ( it's the same story the crow told me, its the only one he knows...)
-get bored, walk to the next ramp
-bored again soon, people gesturing like there's more ahead
-riff on mercenary ,military of today not giving rides, where draftees might've?
-walk to next ramp, find dollar
-pull out book, start reading while thumbing
-Uhaul pulls up, Crazy ride, we go three ramps, pull over, pick up rest of crew
-several of us in back of trailer, I play Elizabeth, they prepare rainbow flags
-Gay pride parade, watch Rocky Horror team do Muppet show theme
-walk east all afternoon, dodging raindrops, use dollar to catch bus ( forgiven the other 1.30 it should've cost)
- arrive at Troutdale - where I was once picked up by a ride that started as a pickup truck and became a plane.

I wake in Troutdale, having slept across the street from the on-ramp in the bushes along a closed restaurant.
First ride gets me to Hood Canal, then, being in Oregon, I walk. 10 miles I walk. on The way I look at the river, am carried forward by it's breeze, think of the plane ride. I watch the road side, pass construction on a bridge passing Mosier, thinking about mosier as a descriptive word of one who mosies, and one who follows moses. I see a bandana on the ground, pick it up, it is a semper fi, us marines bandan with a frayed corner. I put it in my pocket, thinking I can't go wearing it, i'm not a marine. Maybe I'll find a marine to give it to.
I go up to a truck stop and dumpster score some bbq chips, eat them despite the msg, i'm hungry.
a squirrel almost takes the chip from my finger while I read Gore Vidal's Burr, smoking snipes.
I get up and walk, the sign says 12 miles to the Dalles. I resign myself to the walk, sing Common Ground to lift my spirits.
a black subaru sports car picks me up - young buff college student. We drive along, He's a fox university grad, we talk about the bible, I show him the one in my wallet. He tells me he just went to a Quaker school, double major, one in Poly sci - he laughs at the irony that Quakers taught him about war.
i tell him about the rainbow gathering, explain that it's not gay thing. It's a peace prayer. I paraphrase mother thersa about not going to anti-war protests. We see an incredible rainbow to our right ( south ) and we look back to see the storm which is hitting the valey we just left. I would have been soaked.
I ask him about his future, he tells me he's going to work this summer while his stress fractures in his shins heal, then back to Marine Officer training school to become a pilot.
I pull out the bandana and tell him where I found it. He receives it gladly, and I say , "God's Funny."
He drops me in Nampa, Idaho at 11 pm. I sleep in front of the sports authority. It is a simple night, blessedly free of dreams. I wake at dawn and walk through town, get a shower and some new clotes at a rescue mission, with a sack lunch of 1 coconut, some probiotic milk beverages ( like liquid yogurt) and a thing of apple juice. I walk to the other side of town, on the way making a video of a junk sculpture mariachi band.
it's a little after noon, and I am about to put my thumb out and aim for Burley, where my musician friends (two sisters) are.
*************
That day I make it to Burley, having caught two rides - one in a red pick up truck driven by a lady who does metal sculpture, and her male friend the airplane mechanic. They drive me from the middle of Nampa to the Far end (past the airport). Along the way, I let it drop that I am a person of faith, the despite all my best efforts, I am an unchurched follower of Jesus. THe guy is the same, and he speaks of his own judgemental attitude and guilty conscience. All along, she keeps giving him meaningful glances, but says very little. I think that he was speaking to her through me. Whether she wants him to go to church or is hard to talk to about church, whatever, it seemed like he had some built up thing he was letting go in his revelation to me - and she seemd to be getting some message.
I wasn't standing there too long when a lady going to Salt Lake City picked me up - I have her drop me in Burley. She was going to a wedding.
In Burley I find the Library, Email my friends, no responce for hours. So I just hang out there, using the internet, talking to some random guitar guy who happens to also know my friends.
I get hungry, so I walk to the Walmart by the onramp, next to which is a mcdonalds, so I sit outside McD's, using their wifi, and get in touch with my friends. We plan to meet the next day. As it gets later, I notice a couple of fancy, empty display model storage sheds down the road. I slip into one that has a lockable doornob, lock it from the inside, and bed down for the night.
Next day I wake, go to the Library ( our meeting place ) and set up my green table clothe that also serves me as bed sheet - with this book I had made recently in a creative writing/screen printing workshop resting out on it. my friends arrive, one with banjo, one with tamborine. We jam around, all three trading instruments through thte course of it all, and I get them to do recordings of one of the songs in my book I made. Then I tell Banjo Puppy, who is there, and is my best friend in the whole world, that the book is for her - but I cannot deliver it yet. First I have to take it back to Seattle for an art show - which was part of the cost of getting it for free, they have to display it. So I'm making videos of the several songs in it, and then taking it with me to the rainbow gathering.
Then I'll deliver it to my friend in San Luis Obispo, where she goes to school.
They go with me back to the walmart, hugs all around, and I go stick my thumb out. Again the crazy dynamic - one ride takes me to the next ramp - where there is a truck stop - the next one picks me up and takes me to Salt Lake City. An area of town called the Sugar House neighborhhod. It is the shopping district next to the university of utah. I crash on the front porch of an old pottery workshop/gallery that has gone out of business.
next morning I found a public library, and sat down, plugged in the computer ( which for the purposes of this story I have named aninvisiblepirate) and edited the songs and bits from video I had recorded the day before in Burley. This took several hours. I was eventually inspired to leave when a lady came in with a big husky, a chinchilla, a rainbow feathered maccaw and some reptiles. she was to be doing a sort of petting zoo. As i packed up to go, dozens of children entered with their respective gaurdians to get in on the touchy touchy animal time.
I walked to the ramp, and caught a ride to the park city utah. There I hestitated little, stuck my thumb back out, and caught a ride two miles, but to the edge of town where there was only a truck stop.
again with the quickness i depart, and catch a ride to the first town in Wyoming. It's still earl, but very hot, so I go ino mcdonalds and use their wifi to look up latest news on the gathering i am headed to, and read the news from all corners. After a couple hours of this, I go back out to the freeway onramp, and wait some several hours, but get nothing. I go back to mcdonalds and use the wifi to look up maps of my location, if there is a better ramp in walking distance. I determine not, and bed down with the sun.
the night is dominated by a dream of henrietta telling me how the plot is developping between the john, ellemenopy, q, ,maggie, and ishmael.
i wake up and use the mcwifi one more time, then head to the ramp, making a sign that reads ' you reap what you sow'. the ride is a man who lives and works in Riyad Saudi Arabia, training the Saudi National Gaurd to handle terrorism. he tells me i was hard to see, and i explain that that was intentional - i was in the shade of the road sign on a day likey to reach 98 degrees - it got down to 80 a night.I also prefer to be only noticeable to the discerning, and clearly not a danger to traffic - so as to avoid any imperial entanglements. He is a Catholic, and gives me several details of their illigal Church proceedings in that country.
He also tells me about being a hunter, that his anger manaement therapist counsels that he use his free time to go kill shit, so he won't be so angry on his job.
We drive all the way through nebraska, and i sleep in Iowa beneath the 1-29 bridge. i sleep fitfully in the heat,i wake and catch 3 rides, bringing me to iowa city, 45 miles from the mississippiriver in davenport. the first of these, a bronco style pick-up truck, is driven by a guy who is ext messaging to his wife while he drives. He's also smoking pot from a glass pipe. I think of the cocktail of aches and pains that are currently attending the places where my bones have broken in the past, and the parts of my shoulders that carry my gear. The broken bones give me clearance in the stat of California to use medical marijuana. I look into my mind for the voic of God, hear nothing, look into my heart, and feel my body asking for relief. So I accept his herb.Its alright stuff, dirt, seedy scwag, but we pack a couple of bowls and it does the job. I find myself becoming incredibly aware of all of the sensations of my flesh, which is at first almost nausiating. Then the cool relief of acceptance washes over me, and I relax. That's what the herb does for me - clarifies all of the signals, turning them nto data to which my muscles no longer need to respond reflexively. Ergo, I relax.
He drops me off in the middle of nowhere, at a BP. Incidentally, BP is the current culprit in the big gulf oil disaster.
I get out Elizabeth, my guitar, and play through several songs in my oeuvre. This is done in the 80 degree shade as the temp climbs to 100 in the sunlight. I take a little nap and rise feeling alright, alright in deed. I pick up my stuff and start walking towards the ramp, and am stopped halfway there by a lady in a station wagon. She and er daughter are going to council bluffs - which does me fine - being right on the I-80 that I need to return to.
I stand there about an hour, with two interactions with an old man who is sitting on the other end of the ramp, sweat pouring off his face, with a guitar in a case. He walks ovr from where he is working hs spange ( spare changing the drivers ) and asks if I'd like to let him buy me a beer. I tell him I don't drink at all, and we hav a little discussion about how he only drinks beer - no whisky, cause he becomes dangerously antisocial. It is so hot I can barely pay atention to him, but he keeps talking. eventually he returns to his post, carrying all of his gear. Half an hour later, he comes back over and asks me if I have a high E string he can have for his guitar. I resist the temptation to tell him to spend his beer money on it - he's kindly enough and claims to have been doing this homeless thing for 40 years.
The he leaves, and minivan pulls over. A nice couple going to Waverly, who drive 120 mile out of their way to take me to Iowa city on their way home from the omaha zoo. Her favorite was the otters.
I spend the night in the doorway of a consignment store, dreaming of Ellemenopy lamenting the wreckage of the gulf in this next disaster - and am woken at dan by an approaching thunderstorm. I hustle over to the 24 hour diner nearby, and get coffee till noon - working all the while on sorting out my song book, recopying by hand many of the imprtant songs that have been neglected in the hard copy from the moment they wre first scrawled.
I am on the west side of iowa City, a suburb called Corallville. An aisan fellow with yellow ladybug car seat covers picks me up and drives me one ramp further east. From there I get a ride with a guy raised mormon, who now live most of his life in Brazil, working out and being attractive. He is in the states to make some money for three months to take back with him. He drives me to Warrenville, on the dge of Chicago - getting me about 20 miles away from i-80. I start walking bavck on highway 59, thumb out on the sidewalk, and am picked up by a guy in a pick up truck who drives me those 20 miles instead. this morning, he was in california, and flew back to chi town. he's more than happy to give me ride somewhere he wasn't planning to go. we get all kinds of turned around because all of the infrascructure is being fixed in the obamanation.
a cop tells me i'm not allowed to hitch the interstates around here (joliet) so as the sun goes down, i'm trying to figure out what smaller road to take. That's Illinois for you.
The reason one cannot hitch nerar joliet is the legend of Joliet Jake, that's how Elwood's brother got the nickname - big prison right there. So i figured out I want to hitch us route 30 to pittsburg, and set out at about 11 pm to cross joliet in the cool night air on foot. Right in front of the prison, a jaguar pulls up, and the long haired guy driving says' a guy carrying a guitar can't be all bad, get in'
so he drives me to the other side of town on I-80, and then some. We talk about Martian colonies, sacred Geometry, and angels and aliens. Drops me somesmall place in south chicago. On awakenng, I walk to the other side of 80, and start heading south on foot with my thumb out, looking for 30.
A Liquor store owner from Jordan named Moussa ( MOSES) picks me up and drives me to Chicago Heights on 30, leaves me there. I walk, take a nap in Lynwood under a tree in front of the Mayor's office. I walk abit more, and get a ride into Indiana from a guy who plays guitar and Piano. We talk, he drops me off in front of a Guitar Store at the junction of 30 and I-65. I go in and buy a new set of Strings and a new Tuner.
I've been getting money handed to me the last few rides, 40 from the guy from Riyad, 20 from the guy in the pick up who just got back from cali, and 20 this morning from Moussa. This money has been carefully invested in two new sets of strings, a new electric tuner, dolars to pay rent at Mcd's while using their WIFI, and some cigarettes.
from there i walk a couple hundred yards and am picked up by a guy who drives me halfway through the state to indaina hwy 35 - he drops me there, and I go into Mcd's for ice tea and wifi. I get more order placd in my song book and make a few more handwritten thankyou notes for my drivers. they have email and a web page with text that varies occasionally, but essentially says
"Mahalo, Gracias, merci beaucoup - thank you for the help. I pay it forward online at http://livingcrystalship.blogspot.com/ . Word badfolkorchestra@gmail.com"
I leave mcdonalds, hit the road and am picked up by two young men going to a truck stop, where they are going to hook up with their boss to try to borrow money. They tell me they will try to get him to hook me up with some work. I trell them I would love it if possible, but need to try to move on. So I put my thumb back on the road and get nothing for a half hour - at which point it is so dark I need to go in and get some coffee. This I do, at the counter in the truck stop diner. There I make an effort and copy out by hand the words and chords to the Add Diction cycle - which I had stored on my laptop. In the woods I'll have no electricity and no wifi - so I need to be prepared. I also made out a few more thank you cards.
At about 11 pm I head out down the freeway, looking for someplace to squat - eventually there is a roadside church, and I bed down in their backyard by the rear door - I can see the organists area through it, so I guess this is the musicians entrance. Beautiful moony night - the moon is rising white and just past full - there was a partial eclpse with the attendant red harvest moon action the last two nights.
I wake in the morning to a beautiful sky, get my gear together and start walking. A guy picks me up and drives me to Plymouth - and drops me at Walmart. There's a fellow standing there with a confusing sign about him needing 2000 dollars to hire a lawyer and get his wolf dog out of impound before it is put to sleep. Apparently it was taken from him when he got a public intoxication ticket. I try to sonsole him with positive thoughts, find he is an athiest and fast talker. I disengage as gracefully as I can and go into walmart to buy a new led flashlight and a salad.
I eat these and head back out on the road.
I get picked up by a martial arts instructor Italian guy from chicago, owns restaurants, drops a bunch of names of celebs he's worked out with, and gives me 20 as he drops me off.
I'm wearing my last pair of clean socks, so the next priority is find a laudromat, I tell him, he says he has no clue about this town ( Warsaw) and drops me at a gas station. I walk in to ask where to find a laundromat - and see that this gas station has a laundromat in it's back room!
after doing the laundry, walked out towards the end of town, got three blocks, sat down to eat some homemade date bars Moussa gave me, and a pick up pulled up and drove me 20 miles east out of his way.
there i got a ride from a van with an old man driving and his two sons in it, the boys are both tattoo artists. they got me to fort wayne indiana. On the far west side of town.
I went ito mcd's and got a dollar pop and used the wifi - figured out i could take the city buses across town, if i switched up downtown - had to buy an all day pass. This got me to New Haven, Indiana. I stopped immediatly in the library where the bus stopped, and looked at a road atlas. The beautiful young library helped me confirm on google that the toll road portion of I-80 ends at Youngstown Ohio. So my new route will be Rt 30 to I-71, to I 76, to I 80, and then the gathering site is north from there in the Allegheny National Forrest.
I walked out of town and got a ride as soon as I got passed I469 from a guy going two roads down. He dropped me, and another guy picked me up. We had a great talk, he was quitting his temp job ( ten bucks an hour, 7 nights a week, running dangerous hot equipment, no benefits ) so he could go to the movies with his girlfriend and her kids. He owns his own house, a truck, and the 4door cruiser he picked me up in - paid cash for them all, has raised a 22 year old girl of his own and doesn't want to die like his dad and ex father in law - with hundreds of thousands of unspent dollars in the bank - having given his life to the grind that only gives profits to the top. He got me into Ohio, where I now sit in yet another McDonalds.
I am very excited that soon Starbucks will have free wifi, nationwide. this whole Mcdonalds theme has been driving me goofy.
I don't like to support their system of addiction, but they've got the convenience.
Slept beside an out of business hotel, close enough to hear the freeway.
Got a first ride today got me to Ada, he was going to complete a house that need finnishing before Tomorow ( the first of July ) that he's been remodelling for the guy who bought him his truck ( who wants to move in tomorow )
He dropped me on the ramp there, and I began to walk, went a couple miles, tired in the hot sun I sit on my pants bag for a while, thumb out, almost passing out - the area and atmosphere is soporific.
I walk on to keep awake - and a state trooper pulls me over.
She has a real kind, concerned look on her fac when she asks for my ID, my destination, and if I usually walk where I'm going. She goes back to the squad and runs my numbers - and comes back and offers me a ride up the road aways.
I get in back, and as we drive we talk about her job, my life goals, Seattle and such. She tells me there is a facility nearby that has frequent escapees - folks a little strange in the head, shall we say.
I tell her about my goals , and give her a thank you card with the web address on it and everything.
Her name was Stephanie. On her Radio, she refrred to me as 'signal 6' - which I laughed at and asked about. With some prying, she revealed that what you want to be is a low number. If its a higher number, it doesn't have as happy of an ending. I pried no further.
She dropped me at a McDonalds in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. I Googled my Route, I've got 245 miles to go.
After while sitting there, I began the long walk - the freeway here was a mixture of rt23 south and rt30 east. I wanted rt 30 east, and so walked on the roadside some 3 miles until they seperated and gave me clearance. After a bit, there was a gaurd rail, upon which I sat, leaning my guitar on the rail and my legh ( so that passing trucks wouldn't blow her over with their coriolis effect ) and stuck my arm out, thumb extended, big smile, as cars periodically passed. Across the road and behind me were beautiful green fields of what looked to be middle aged corn - barns, silos and strange, farmish processing buildings set amidst them. at every horizon were trees. This part of Ohio is the bread basket of the world. Corn Bread.
A car pulls up, and a sprightly grey haired fellow picks me up. He had just placed forth in an intrnational amateur disc golf tournament. He drives me to A town with a russian sounding name I can't remember - fifteen or so miles away. As he drops me off, he pours me a mixture of lemonade and cranberry juice in my travel cup. I drink and am merry. I walk to the ramp to the freeway, noting that now there are signs that say pedestrians prohibited. This is good - it means population density s rising. A jeep pulls up immediately, with feathers and bones hanging from the rear view mirror. The driver had been on his way to his girl friend's house, when he realized that he had forgotten something. So he was doing a quick round trip, one exit up. He take me along, and it is a much nicer ramp - lots of traffic. I stand for about ten minutes, and a lady pulls up in a pick up truck, going to Mansfield - Ontario actually, just west of mansfield. She is on her way to the Ohio State University for an anatomy lesson, followed by a lab. She wants to specialize in occupational therapy. As a former Prison Gaurd, she found that she had trouble keeping her old job because she was too empathetic. She drops me by the mall in Ontario, and I hoof it back to the ramp of 30. a nice couple pick me up on their twentyfirst wedding anniversary, and they drive me 34 miles north, all out of their way, to I71, then on I 71 to I 76. This puts me in great position for Pennsylvania. Where they leave me, I get picked up by a Christian fellow just leaving a bible study where they'd been studying Hebrews, the parts about Melchizadok. I talk about the mission of the Mother Farm, and my efforts through prayer and meditation to discern what Type or Order I am in, as Christ is a High Priest by the Order of Melchizidek.
He takes me to Walmart, I spend some stamps for my dinner, and then he drives me ten miles further to a ramp where the sign says Akron, 8 miles.
Last night my dreams escaped memory, except for a last bit at the end - of a dread locked person sitting at a counter in a restaurant, looked like a mcdonalds, with a bunch of interesting gear. I think that this one was just a natural.
Went to the ramp, and didn't wait too long before I was picked up by a gutter repair man in his work truck. we talked about jails and such - at first I mentioned that I felt our current system of incarcerating nonviolent offenders for pursuing happiness with recreational drugs was a failure. He agreed, with an 'Amen Brother'. Then he went on to relate that his son got his GED in Jail, and was going on to college now. Then He told me how he'd met his own first boss in jail, when he was just 18. He went and stayed at this guy's house when he got out, and met his current wife and mother of his two children that week, she lived three doors down. While we talked, he intended to do me a favor - and so drove me to I80. He dropped me there, and I didn't have the heart to tell him that at that point 80 was a toll road, and I'd have to find another road. I walked up Boston Miills road to Stow - on the way the neighborhood was all mansions and such. One of those real nice Christian type neighborhods where they call the police if they see a poor person. A lady cop pulled up and informed me it was illigal to hitch hike in Ohio. I told her that a State Trooper had given me a ride. She wished me well, but did not offer a ride.
I caught a city bus in Stow to downtown Akron, getting an all day pass. I used the pass to go to Dr. Bob's house, the founder of Alcoholis Anonymous - the very house where it all began. While there, I made a little music video using the Guiding Principles of Seattle's Recovery Cafe.
Then I caught the bus to the far end of town, where Canton St. hits the freeway. I saw a Train yard, and some units were moving around. At first I thought a train was about to head out east, and got down to the track side - but then he backed up and I realized he was just coupling the cars, and wouldn't be headed out immediatly. If he'd of been rolling right pout, I'd of hopped out, even though I didn't really know where that track went.
I went back up to the streets, found the ramp, and thumbed a ride in a pick up truck headed to Kent. He drove me a couple of ramps further, and dropped me at a McDonalds. So, I edited the video and updated my travelougue.
went back to the ramp and gotr a ride from a wonderful lady named Dee, 7 kids, 20 grandkids, and she was going home to see them about three ramps from where she picked me up. She drove me about 15 ramps - all the way into Pennsylvania on I-80. I should be in the woods tomorow - unless today has an unexpected magical ending. Today is the first of July, and I had been hoping to get to the Gathering today, and here them say 'Welcome Home' - but instead I only made it this far. The beauty is, at Dr. Bob's house they said Welcome Home as soon as I got there. So God did for me what I could not do for myself.
slept under a tree near the mcdonalds parking lot, woke up and got some coffee, checked the directions into the site making a hand written copy for my pocket book.
A guy strikes up a conversation about guitars, and asks where I'm going. I tell him. He drives me to Titusville, playing my guitar for him in the backseat.
I go to the library to charge my computer and make a new copy o the directions, having given mine to the ride, as he wants to come out this weekend. After a bit, I start walking towards the Allegheny National Forrst - which my mathe tells me is cose. I am 33 miles from Welcome Home, the spot where the trail head begins.
A fella pulls up as I walk, in a pick upo truck withe the covered back. It looks like a painter's or a carpenter's truck. It has Wisconsin Plates, which I consider auspicious. He askes where I am headed, and I tell him ' camping in the alleghenies'. He says, ' going to the Rainbow Gathering,' to which I reply, " That'd be the one," 'so am I' and I hop in and he drives us the next 31.5 miles
We roll through country roads, then onto dirt roads, following signs for ' Hearts Content' - a region of the forrest. There are occasionally stacks of rocks on the less well maintained turns that we follow. These small cairns are our map.
All this while we climbed steadly, the roads ever leading up.
We roll into a part of the woods where there are now cars parked all along both sides of the road. There are dozens, each one displaying increasing layers of dust and dirt - probably displaying how long it has been since their drivers arrived. Here and there among them there are individuals, men, women, children, dogs, moving calmly, serenly about - brushing teeth as they walk, smoking cigarettes and such. We come to a man standing in the road, wearing a tie dyed shirt and using a cane.
He wants to know if we've been here before, where we were gonna park, if we know that this is the back gate - and I know that I am where I belong.
I hop out of the truck cab and grab my gear. The trail behind the man leads down and in to the site, he says. I'm stoked.
I spend 4 days - the first walking into the site, experiencing death camp and talking to the couple they camped near. Then into kiddie village, where I ask about Jason. Then on into the site, see main circle, walk towards the opposite side, following a whim, and entering the trees I see that I am at Montana Mudd. I take off my gear beneath a tree and relax. Useless is there, but Jimbo is not. I get out Elizabeth, and it's on.
I play seveal songs,
Next step is easy - one of the ladies running the Zuzu kitchen asks for help rehanging their tarp.
I pop up, delighted. Now I'll be tasked! Tasked, even, wiyth one of the most powerful parts of kitchen Feng Shui - the final adjustments to the tarp befor e the big day. A tarp is to a rainbow kitchen like the sail on the seas - etc.
And, while I'm at this, I guess I should give a description of this thing - this' Rainbow Gathering Zuzu Kitchen' , which is in need of an adjustment to it's rigging. blah blah blah the color sculpture. and then my old friends Jay, Rachel and Bananakins show up. They play my guitar, and ask me where I'm headed after the gathering. I tell them Maine. They say they are going the same way. So now I have a ride out and north on the 6th or 7th. I'm stoked.
Waking peacefully the first morning, I have had no dreams, and consider the chance that the schism in my head will be bridged by my presence here. Ma'amocracy, spins me like a dradle across the table. I'm a child's top used to replace a pawn in a chess game, and my pawn has advanced all the way and now become the queen within. So here I am, with all these hippies, in these woods. I'm begining to get sick of the Montana Mudd scene, It continuously is one of solicitation - and I can only take so much of that. But I do hang out there through the fourth - I am silent in the morning with every one - or at lezst as Silent as possible - and boil water for the dishstation and coffee. There is much hullabaloo nearby, as the younguns from Death Camp are breaking every tradition they can ( this is their Schtich ) and I am not far from that. There is also an aspect of the area where Montana Mudd is called Dirty Kid Corner - where the crusties and gutter punks and anarchists who can't quite bring themselves to the hippy dippy shit of Rainbow land. Of course, they show up and are treated as family - its about healing. Anyways, so there s much dissention, and when time comes for the big fourth of july ohm in main meadow, I go and lay down beneath the tree the tarps ang off of - close my eyes and feel the vibe through the earth of thosands of people standing in a circle together, ohming. I ohm along, but in solidarity with the dissenters who block consensus. I'm a bit of a weirdo. Travelled 2300 miles to stand in a circle, and then I don't even do it.
So I spend one more evening, playing and singing, and then endeavor to move on and find my way to the Serenity Ridge - where they do the 12 step meetings in the woods.
I stumble about, confused, from trail to trail trying to figure my way. I think I've found my path, and then I see my friend Bob, who does the Magic Bowl - from his little stove he feeds dozens and hundreds everyday - just always making something. I sit with him, and pull out Elizabeth. As I do, one of the others at the fireside wants to hear Ripple - the Robert Hunter Song made famous by the Geatful Dead. I happen to have lyrics and chords to that one written down, in case it is requested, and get right into it. The man, older, I guess, from the grey in his black beard, scoots over to my side and sings along until he breaks up in tears. I plow on, giving it the full treatment, and he comes back a little for the last verse when its all la da da da's.
As we sit, Bob has made some rice with mushrooms in it - its like a sort of spanish rice. The grains are slightly sticky - just a little bit more water and they'd have been perfect. So we play up the quality question and I sing a long, improvised number about Vegan Crunchy Rice. We give it all away to people passing on the trail in the night.
I sleep where I sat, and in the morning get up and decide to continue trying to find my way to the Serenity Ridge. Instead, I wind up near CALM - where my old friend Jesta has set up a coffe house called ' I Don't Know ' where they serve sarcasm with a coffee chaser. I love it here, especially because I've known Jesta forever, and know his tendancies and desires. He wants there to be laughter and music while people passionately expound on anything. Oh my, everything and anything at all.
I approach the coffee house from the side which doesn't face main trail, putting me on the volunteer side of the bliss rail. i get volunteer coffee, whip out my guitar and begin to strum a little bit. Jesta hangs out a bit, lets me know his current catch phrases and goes off to the shitter - leaving me in 'control'. II hang out making music and telliong people where to get their beverages, and that it will be 47 until the coffee is ready.
After a bit Jesta comes back, and I switch over to a positio on the ground on the bliss side of the rail - where there is also a drum. So begins several hours of lazing about on the ground while drumming to guitar and other drummers, or playing guitar myself - eventually even playing both the small djimbe and Elizabeth at the same time.
A Bob Dylan marathon commences during this time - I did 4, he did three. He really nailed his to the wall, I had a bit less mojo - and have trouble carying even the simplest of tunes sometimes - but all went well. After a bit we crossed the little path around CALM to go to the Woodstock Camp, where the Bob Dylan player was to cook dinner - a big veggie stirfry. I played Elizabeth throughout, coming up with all kinds of adlibs and bits of other songs I like. There was at one point a young woman clothed only in a violin, and I went and lay on the grond near her playing. This tactic worked well , she began to get in on my jam, but soon another guitar player came and stood right over me and tried to dictate chords. I wasn't feeling it, and the violinista abandonded the jam ( skittish, those naked fiddlers ) and I went back over by the kitchen fire to play more. When the sun went down, we all sat in a circle and played on the drums, I have a lot of experience in this and got to really get loose - even sang a couple of Jules Graves songs - Grandmother's back and In the womb I feel the heartbeat. Good times.
I finally passed out near the edge of their camp, half leaning on a tree.
Next morning I return to Montana Mudd and find that my friends going to Maine want to leave that night- except for Rachel who is staying at this at this gathering asnd then going on to maine for the regional there. So we hike out and get in their uninsured car for which they have'n't got the paperwork yet, and drive off. Neither has a liscence and both just recently learned to drive stick. To compound it all, they have a dog - to which I am horribly allergic.
We drive off, stopping first in Ithaca, NY for a night. In the morning we go to a grocery co-op - my food stamps kick in on the sevenths of the month - and get a little sumthin. Then we cross the street on foot to take showers at a local homeless shelter. When we return to the car, animal Control is there - even though the car is still in the shade, the NY state law is that it is illigal to leave a dog in a car.
The ladfy starts asking questions, I hand her my liscence - I am the only one with a liscence and I'm not driving the car! It takes me a moment or two to get a feel for her, as she begins questioning the two younger men I am with. One is clamming up, the other ( the dog's owner ) is getting upset and begining down a path of self righteous indignation. I can see the end result of that tack, he loses his car and his dog AND goes to jail.
So I start talking. I use concilliatory phrases and apologetic constructions about our ignorance of local laws while on the road to Maine, and I demonstrate the good health and quality care the animal receives. She softens when I use words like legislature in conjunction with phrases about how we won't be here long at all.
She folds up the ticket she was writing and encourages us to leave. We do.
We drive on all day, not stopping until wre arrive in Burlington, Vt. In the parking lot of a co-op we park, I go in and we get fixings for dinner - and then I declare that I will no longer be riding in the car, the allergies are getting to me. And they were. It took nearly three days to recover normal breahting. In that time I discovered that a regional gathering will be happenng in Maine, holding camp directions to be announced tomorow! AND that next year's national Rainbow Gathering will be in Washington State.

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SO today...
...I am in Burlingtonton, Vermont, and have been here for a couple of days. The first day after I arrived (arrouind 10:30 pm ) was the last day of a heat wave. temps in the nineties, bakin sun. Slept on the top steps of a shady church doorway - distrubances. first thing in the morning I went to the coop, and happened by chnce to run into a lady, Darby, whom I had met at the rainbow gathering. she sat with me and we smoked cigarettes before going to her job helping disableds. we got in trouble for smoking on the coop property, twice we were spoken to - and we laughed about being the bad kids.
I wandered somewhat aimlessly through town in the heat of the morning, asking about for the Radio Bean coffee shop - as this was where darby said she could frequently be found. I asked several people and got negative responces until I found a big park, and asked a girl with tattoos and colorful hair. SHE knew. SO I got directions from her, and looked at the lawn, saw a nice looking cople of travellers, one who seemed very familiar.
Turns out he and I were at several gatherings together through the years- he;s the same kind of guru daddy busting fool as I - takin the piss out of anyone who seems to have an attitude that has room for egotistic confrontation. Fast talker.
He asked me if I had any pot, and on this strange morning I did, having been given a little in the coop parking lot the night before by a guy who started out trying to sell us an eigth, figured out we were broke, and then smoked us out and kicked some down.
so we smoked what i had and I got out elizabeth and played through several songs, having fun in the shade of the tree, and so not really noticing the coming clouds which muted the sun. By this token we lost track of time in music and joy, and then suddenly the clouds parted and what had been a shade tree spot became a sunny middle of an open lawn spot.
We moved, and I moved on, it now being much later in the day, to the coop - got some provisions ( a seven layer BAR!! ) and set about finding the radio bean after the sun had given up much of its fight. I fund the radio bean, got hot water for coffee, and sat outside in their seating area - using their wfi to locate the library and some aa meetings, and to look up better contact info for the SMERF ( Southern MainE Rainbow Family ) about their up comin gathering. I also look up the local weather, and the heat wave should break soon with a series of thunderstorms. I see this and head down to the coop after bit, thinking to find a safge squat soon. I try another door on the same church, and get an hour of sleep before it really begins, thoroughly compromising my spot - and it is a big eastern thunderstorm, rainfalling in marble dime, nickle and quarter sized drops blown by an angry wind. I rush to a church across the street that has a huge covered porch. The wind blows the rain in like a fun park ride. I'm freakin out - hard to breathe still after the dog in the catr adventure, and scamper about the exterior of this church till i find a doorway that provides some protection. I use a couple emergency rain ponchos to protect elizabeth and my pants bag and my shoulder sack full of paperwork, and settle down to get some sleep in the bits of wind and rain that still make it onto this porch.
I wake to the dry morning, and go to an aa meeting in a catholic church basement. goodtimes, we read from the books. I announce that it has been 898 days since I last had a drink, and make em all laugh with my story.
Then on I march about, the coop - find the library, hang out there - and it is raining lots, in that crazy eas coast way of one squall, thirty minutes of intermitent sun, then another heavy burst.
After some time I determine it would be a good Idea to position myself to ditch town, so I walk over the hill that is the U of Vermont and get to the Interstate. The sign not only specificall y prohibits hitchhikers with pedestrians, animals, and nonmotorized vehicles - it also prohibits picking up hitchhikers. I am frustrated and dirty and didn't sleep well and a thousand other things - but I grin and bear it.
I go to the nearby mall, hang out at the barnes and noble using their wifi till closing at ten. Then It starts to rain again. SO I go to this big, nice bus stop shelter, two benches in an 8 foot by 8 foot square with a two foot high brick wall on three sides. It even has a ten foot by ten foot square pyramidal roof with shingles. I bed down as the torents come, and seem to not annopy the bus drivers.
In the morning all is fine, except for the rain, and I hang out at the bus stop. A young punk comes up and bums a smoke. He gives me a dollar to ride the bus, and I do so - back into town to realign my perspectives. I go to the coop and the library, then walk to that same park, find those same hippies - except now its also a saturday farmers market. Big crowds - we make a buncj of music - my voice is still hoarse from the gathering and allergies, so I'm doing mainly reggae inspired sour versions of things, with some outlaw country thrown in. No complex vocals today.
In the course of the day I run into my old drady friends Dylan and Caitlin ( dylan is fro hawaii, Caitlin plays a mandolin ) they have dreads that come gloriously down to the middle of their backs. So the song fest continues as he gets out his guitar and we work through a bunch of stuff. Then some drunk guy breaks his e string. I trade Dylan the service of restringing Elizabeth with my extra set of strings ( he gets to keep the old ones ) , and then he does a great job and I tip him my extra tuner - its chromatic - which makes it much better for them - they have several different instruments.
After hours and hours I have now met a bout ten or maybe even twelve people in this town who were at the gathering, and told several others about them.
The two young travellers - one of whom it turns out I camped with in the Shawnee National Forrest in 98 - and several other times as well - ae waiting for their friend who drove them here from the gathering to show up and take them to a party called Baccus - apparently a wild mushroom and wine naked dance party on an island in the river. I hang out, and it turns out ot be darby. They tell me to meet them at the radio bean at dusk if I want to go. So I do. But they aren't there - so I go back to the coop and get provisions to walk to a good hitchin point on non controlled access freeways. small roads tend to be better anyways.
I end up walkinging about a mile into the college area, 4/5 of the way up the hill, and then sleep behinnd a building that claims it won't be open till tuesday. So Saturday night seems safe.
And it was, I sleep till sunup, no storms, safe and sound. I walk on over the hill, get to the same Barnes and Noble and sit for a spell, drink instant coffee, eat cookies from last night. All is good. I hang out a couple of hours getting a good charge and googling routes and other interesting data about the journey ahead. I tun over no new leads, but decide to walk on.
I get all the way down rt 2 to williston, and there is a grocery store - I get a salad and some vanilla soy chai tea with superfood and two bags of granola - one with hemp, one with chocolate.
on the way out of the store i see a rack with free books, and find one about the Pilgrims called Saints and Strangers.
I eat, read the first two chapters, decide to keep it, hit the bathroom, refill the water bottle with fresh water, and then head out to the onramp. I post up on the grass at the start of the ramp - well away from the road or the sign that says 'prohibited' about so many things. About twenty minutes go by, and two guys with big high tension Bowsin the back seat pick me up. They are drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, telling me about how the driver's girlfriend dumped him cause the passenger said some true but unflattering things about the girls mom tyo the girl.
They drop me in morrissville at a gas station. As I get out, a guy calls out to me that he's sorry he didn't pick me up in williston, his truck was loaded down.
I find the library and get on line as the sun goes down - best route is to take rt 15 back to rt 2 and follow that into new hampshire.
I bed down for the night in front of the Puffer Methodist Church. I awake in the middle of the night to the sound of someone doing something to the sign concealing the walkway I am in. I fall back asleep. In the morning i discover they have rearranged trhe letters from 'puffer Joint congregational worship ' to read ' puff a joint'.
it just so happens that there is a bit of keef left in the baggie i was given the first night in burlington - so I scrape it, fill it into the end of a Benson and Hedges Menthol 100 snipe, tear the filter out, and light it up. Excellent result. Clears up a bit of sinus headache I've had from the the body malfunction of riding with that dog last week. I feel great, excited to hit the road headed east for portland. Contrary to my normal procedures of just thumbin, I've made a sign out of cardboard and put it on the guitar case/backpack. It says 'Portland Maine'
I've found a wonderful online page called 'Digihitch' - and as soon as I get finnished cleaning up the editing and filling in some blanks on the first leg of this journey, I'm going to member up and start postig there.
I'm also going to start posting on Welcomehere.org. Between the two, I hope to be able to better refine my multimedia presentation skillset. This may or may not attract interested readers - i dunno. It will be valuable for me as a bum who is 'passionate about documentation'.
Most likely, that cycle of events will have to wait for Portland, Maine.
I walk out of town to hwy 15, and stop there at the junction, leaning on a farm fence post with thumb out. I am turning my guitar case to hide the 'portland maine' sign so that it will not discourage short rides. I'm in this thing for the people, not so much the distance.
First ride is a bluiesh silver sedan, the old man at the wheel has a hypoallergenic breed of lapdog in his lap.
He's an 80 year old entertainer, song and danc eman.. Was an orphan during the depression who found work running numbers and carrying money for the Gambinos. They paid for him to live in a hotel and ttend the actors studio in NYC when it first opened.
he personally met and spent a little time with FDR, Truman, Hoover, Eisenhower, AND Haile Selassie. SO I've shaken hands with a man who shook hands with all of them. I told him about th Rainbow Gatherings I attend, and he was sympathetic and skeptical - saying that we were doing what he wished everyone in the world would do - but he didn't have any hope for it to happen in his lifetime. He drove me to Walden, Vt.
I stood there where he dropped me in a cafe parkinglot on the roadside, and about 20 minutes later a dark blue station wagon pulled up. He had a long white beard and had just traded an old chainsaw for a new chain.
He drives me 4 miles to South Walden, and drops me. I say " everymile is a miracle' one of my stock phrases, to which he replies 'I need a miracle everyday' - a greatful dead lyric.
I got coffee at the Croner Stop Inn and Shop - some nice old lady's converted barn house that seves as the local store.
I walk back out to the road and thumb out- waiting while leaning on another fence. I've started working on a new song inspired by the book I'm reading, and a lady pulls up in a big black pickup. she drives me to Danville. She is a 41 year old mother of 9! including triplettes! All but the triplettes were homebirth with midwives. She digs the motherfarm idea.
She was tall, healthy stunningly dark and huskily eautiful. I thought she was 25.
Walking through Danville I am stopped by a lady in a red car, Theresa- she saw the Portland Maine sign on my back - and is planning on going there that day or the next. She decides to tell me to meet her at 2 pm, and we'll go together. That's 43 hours away, so I relax in a church yard, record the 'Troublechurch Brown' song I've just written - it comes out okay.
I walk to the meeting spot, and she isn't there. I decide to wait until 3. at quarter till, she pulls up and apologizes, not going till tomrow. I tell her its all good, she hugs me and gives me her daughter's phone number in Portland, tells meto call her when I get there.
I walk to the road, now hwy 2, and wait about 25 minutes before a van pulls up. Its two hipy parents and their respecrive children - they are not married or even together, just good friends sharing a journey. The Lady has a boy - and both have long dark dreadlocks. The driver guy has a daughter, and they bothe wear their hair simple. I help unload a move to the roof rack a large wheely cart and several implements of construction - they'd been at the National Rainbow Gathing inPennsylvania too - at the Katua camp - having just come from the Katua Gathering which I guess happens in Tennessee or North Carolina. As we drive we listen to the muppets, I do my spot on Kermit during the Rainbow Connection - even confusing the young fgirl during a skipping moment, the cd turned off but she could still hear the song.
Turns out I also camped with the driver several times in the 90s and perhaps since - but I'm a tough one to pin down - anarchist that I am - but we recognize each other, and he begins to recall me more and more as we roll. I was a drunk then, and don't recall much.
We roll through New Hampshire, and they drop me in the first town in Maine - Fryeburg. I use the library wifi and then head up the road. It's getting dark. I see a guy skateboarding, ask him fo directions. He asks me what I'm up too - I tell him. We meet up with his brother and they drink a couple of beers, I play a couple of bob marley songs, then he drives me to Auburn.
I sleep in from of a methodist church, wary f storms - but they don't come. I wake refreshed and get up and walk around town bit. I go across the river to Lewsiton, get coffee at the labor ready without any fuss, find the library ,use the wifi and figure out i don't want to be going that way.
So I recross the river and strike out south on 135, along the river toward Freeport. The gathering I'm trying to attend won't start for 23 more days - seed camp only a week or so earlier, so I've got two weeks of Coastal Maine. I walk a few miles, and find a gas station/market that takes food stamps. I get an ice cream cookie sandwhich, power my laptop on their outlet, some green tea in a snapple bottle, some potato chips and king sized reecy cups. Sitting on their picnic table in the shade, I eat and read about the Pilgrimsvoyage to New England. Just they are reaching land, a dude walks up with a huge slice of pizza - he's a guitar maker on his lunch. We talk and he gives me a ride 8 miles to the next gas station. I give him contact info, and suspect he might come to the Regional in August.
He gave me 2 dollars, and I use that to buy some zigzags to smoke the remainder of the Organic American Spirit the Katuah Rainbow kods kicked me. I drink the rest of the green tea and smoke one while sitting in the shade here, then start out again on 136 south. I walk through a small town, and after the third intersection find a nice spot where I can stand in the shade of a telephone pole - the junction box in the noonday sun mimicking my shape perfectly.
After fifteen minutes or so, a blue hatchback pulls up. He's got a labrador mix in the backseat, so my guitar goes in the hatch. The car is clean and neat, a pleasant reminder to me of people with different lives making their livestock ownership either a hindrance or a delight to me. I wish I could see pets as something else, but, really, come on.
He is on his way to catch a flight to Orlando from portland. On the way he tells me he is a union rigger, has worked with a number of big names in the music business, but got his start as a social worker - then got burned out.
I tell him about the Mother Farm, and he is interested and asks several very inciteful questions. As always, I give the same relatively simple answers - none of them too short - but all keeping in mind that Brevity is the soul of wit as discretion is the soul of valour. I always find the process of telling someone about it is a pouring out of all my essence to a degree, into the strange geometry it always follows - and when it finnishes I am always vaguely discomfitted by the reality of patience.
He drops me on the waterfront in Portland. Huge croud of summer tourists on red brick streets. I walk downtown to the public library, where I sit now, finnishing the rough draft of this first leg of the trip - mission accomplished - I am in Portland Maine. In two weeks there will be a rainbow Gathering 75 miles from here in the white mountains. In that Time I hope to edit this Travelouge and then post it in several places online where I think people might enjoy it.

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