Eleven miles later, the Fool hit the small town of Ute (population: 307), where he went to the library. He had a little trouble finding it at first, as it was located inside city hall. In fact, the lady at the city hall desk had to open the library up for him, which turned out to be a windowless, former storage room.
After finishing off the last of the Cruisin' chicken he got at Westside, our hiking vagabond set foot on 210th street — a hilly, rocky, unpleasant backroad. The fool cursed himself for taking this "short cut" until finally reaching the paved highway E34. He took the road to Castana, got some sodas, and headed south on 175 around 10 pm.
While walking in the dark, a car zoomed by the Walking Fool then turned around and started to head back towards him. Not sure if this was some crazed lunatic, the Fool decided to hide in some weeds until the U-turned car went by again. Turns out, this was a bad move. The WF concluded that the driver was most likely an off-duty cop, because once the driver couldn't find our backpacking friend, he stopped the car, pulled out a heavy duty spotlight and started searching the field next to the road, slowly making his way back towards the hiding Fool. Not knowing what to do, Mark did the logical thing: he ran away. About a half mile later, he ducked onto a small dirt road, just as an official cop car zoomed by, lights flashing. Panicking, Mark hustled down the dirt road and hid under an old wooden bridge, hoping the hounds wouldn't find him.
He knew he was not going to get any sleep that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment