Diary July 15^th 2003:

Today was one of the most relaxing days I’ve had since I’ve left. It was incredible. Wonderful. The best. Today, I just traveled. I’ve come to draw a distinction between traveling and adventuring. Traveling, it seems, is a more passive activity, it’s a watching process. This is contrasted with adventuring, which is completely active, and personal. By that I mean, you can be having an adventure while there are other people around who are not, but when you’re traveling, you’re just watching those other people, and the places, and the way lives unfold, and wonder at the immensity of it all.

Today I was traveling.

I saw beautiful mountains and rivers, and a road (PA 120… one of my favorites so far) that seemed to slip between the two silently and unobtrusively. I would look up at the mountains around me, and the mountains in front of me and wonder when I was going to have to start walking, but it just never came. The road just wandered with the river, leaning north then west as the hills stood side by side like puzzle pieces. I rode through a series of townships that didn’t have a single building on them. I saw people having adventures of their own, broken down on the side of the road (I tried to help out, but they seemed to want to get through it by themselves). I saw towns that wanted to be cities, with people who didn’t realize that it was still just a desire:

I was stopped for gas in a little town called Renova, it was a mid sized town, and there was a noticeably large population of young people there. More than I’d seen in quite a while. There was a kid, around seventeen or eighteen, riding down the wrong side of the street on a motorized trike he’d made, there were little groups of late highschoolers, congregating all over, gaggles of youths, each of which were certain they were at the center of the universe. There was an especially large group by the gas station I was filling at, and they yelled over and gave me the thumbs up. One was wearing a towel around his waist with no shirt, and sneekers, no socks. There was a couple, doing the coupling thing… holding hands rubbing backs, etc. there were singles, flirting and falling over, laughing too loud. That’s what you do when you’re at the center of the world. A little kid, probably 10, who was seriously over weight rode by on a little bike. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and so his fatness stood out like a peach in a plum basket. They yelled mocking jeers at him as he pedaled like mad down the street “Fuck You,” he yelled as he went by. They laughed.

It was a beautiful day. I realized that one of the odd sounds I’d been hearing the ped make was just a loose clamp on one of my baskets. Things I’d leaned so far along the way rolled through my head continuously. This took the form of ‘what I’d tell someone who was going to make a moped trip like mine’. “Never ride without any spare gas. If you need gas but there’s no gas station for a while, knock on a farmer’s door. Farmers have gas.” And “wear good shoes that won’t melt when they’re by the engine for 6 hours.” As well as, “Beef jerky is a good thing to have. It will satisfy your craving for food, and if you’re out of noshables, it’s better than nothing. Don’t mix it into your oatmeal though, even if you don’t have salt or sugar for the oatmeal. It will seeem like a good idea cause plain oatmeal is gross after a while, but it isn’t. ”

Looking at some of the pictures from today gives a good sense of how It’s been. Just seeing the sights, smelling the smells and taking it slow, moped style.

The one thing that happened thought that wasn’t just traveling, but had a touch of adventure, was meeting the site host of the camp site I’m staying at. Wonderful fellow.

I pulled in around 7:45, and come up to his trailer, to see what sites are available.

He comes out, a big guy with an orange shirt and chew tobacco in his shirt pocket. He’s got big huge boots. They’re the way kids draw them, or you see in cartoons. The Mario brothers probably wore these boots.

He tells me how to register my site, and that if I’d like I can come back over, he’s got two chairs by the fire.

I set up my tent and register and everything and then go take a seat by his little fire. The photos I took were espionage style, just firing away while we talked, with the camera idly sitting on my leg pointing at him…

We were chatting about the trip, the usual stuff, and I mentioned that I needed to get to Kalamazoo not on major highways. Well it turns out that he used to be a trucker, and he knows every single road in the United States. He not only knows the roads, but he knows if there are “grades” or just “bumps” and he knows the cities each road passes. He points to roads on my map without even looking at it, and then follows the road with his finger, noting all the cities and off roads. This isn’t a big deal to him but I’m just floored.

“You could take 120 west over to St. Marys and then down to Javitsburg, and then over again to Johanesville, there’s a bit of a grade there, but shouldn’t be a problem, or you could take 122 over to 998 and then across and up to route 6, there’s maybe one hill there that you’d have to push a bit on, but after that it’s flat all the way to ohio, and up through. You could also take 66 from Marshall and then get on 124, that goes through Kinkade, you’ll go through Levitt, Rockvill, Lowel, Winston, Buckston, Rawston, and Piner…” This went on and on. He knew every single road. At one point the map was on my lap and he was pointing to them without even looking, and I realized they weren’t the right roads. I had moved the map. I slid it back without saying anything and they lined up exactly with where he was pointing. It was incredible.

He spoke slowly, like an old badger would speak. Wise and with a distant eye.

Parked next to his trailer was Loyd’s trailer. Loyde was an interesting looking fellow, grey sweat pants that pulled high up on his ankles, and suspended from his protruding gut. It looked like he was hiding a huge watermelon under his t-shirt, going long way out. He tugged at his pants constantly, pulling them up and easing the waistband.

“Hey Loyde, there goes that eagle,” The host yelled over to Loyde’s RV

“Where?” Loyde called back,.

“Its done gone soon as I said it. Goin fishing for that Palomino.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Flew right up the crick. Oh there goes that old Palomino too. You see him?” I big bullfrog croaked from a few feet away, and the host smiled at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“Where?”

“Right over there where I’m pointing.”

“Where?”

“Right there can’t you see where I’m pointing ya?”

“Oh yeah I see him.”

“He’s a smart old fella. He knows when to show himself.”

“Oh yeah. He’s no fool.” The host turned to me, and smiled, “If the kids were here they’d all be running for their fishing poles try to catch him.”

“How big is he?” I ask.

“bout 18 inches long.”

“What’s a Palomino.” I ask, mildly ashamed that I don’t know such an obvious fact.

“It’s a fish, a trout. He’s white, which’s why you can see him. Loyde’s been looking for him since he got here 3 days ago.”

I look over at Loyde, and he’s frantically pointing out to the water with his arm around his wife’s shoulder, trying to show her the old Palomino.

“Fella up the crick caught a big Palomino the other day, bout 16 inches. Hung him up outside his RV and that night a big old black bear came and gobbled him up. I told him that old black bear picking on whitey;” he says. They both laugh.

I ate leftovers from the afternoon’s lunch, and curled up in my tent. The sound of the creek falling over the little dam massaged my aching muscles until the dawn cast fog all around the creek like a soft net that dispersed the morning light in a million directions.

I had a cup of coffee with my host, hopped on my moped, and headed west.