The Fool reached Indiana!!! That means he has crossed three entire states, and is working on number four. And he is almost in his third time zone!!! This week was not hugely eventful, but the Journal this week will fill you in on some of the mundane details of his life on the road.
Well, contrary to what was posted last week, the Fool did not stay for several days in Bowling Green to let his poison ivy heal. He gave it one night, and then the high motel rates drove him out of town. Sunday night (May 20th) he had planned to camp in BG, but the patch of woods behind the Burger King was just a bit too sparse to give him good cover. So he headed to a Best Western, and was shocked by the "college-town" rates. To add insult to (financial) injury, the jerky kid behind the counter was the first motel clerk on the entire trip who didn't offer him a discount, on hearing about his trip. He's gotten at least 10 bucks off at every other motel, but this kid was a cranky clone of the lead singer of Green Day, wearing his one white dress shirt, and he could only offer up, "If you had Triple A you could get a discount." He didn't seem to quite get the "walking across America" part of his story.
So anyway, on Monday the WF did a short hike to get six miles outisde of Bowling Green, and then rested the rest of the day. He stopped for a meal in a KFC, where he accidentally left behind his pepper spray - his only defense against the wily racoons and possums of the midwest. Luckily he realized this while checking out a nearby mall, and when he ran back, they had it behind the counter.
Just after dusk, on some farm road outside of Bowling Green, an older man pulled over in his car when he saw the Walking Fool and got pretty excited when he heard his story. He was disappointed that he wouldn't have the chance to tell the local papers before the WF would be gone. One odd note: there was an unseen passenger (from the Fool's viewpoint) in the car when this guy pulled over, and all he heard or saw of him was an occasional "Oh, yeeeaaah?" throughout the Fool's telling of his trip across the US.
The next day the Fool was walking past some guy mowing his lawn... again on some farm road in the middle of nowhere, OH. The guy stopped his mowing and called the Fool over, smiling and waving, acting like he knew him. It turned out this was the mysterious unseen passenger from the night before. The Fool enjoyed a glass of water on his porch, met his wife, and then was again on his way.
On Tuesday the WF's feet felt healed enough to do 26 miles. (A slightly above average day). Part of what allowed him to do this was the drive to "get the hell out of Ohio." The feeling that he had been in Ohio for his entire life started to override the need to let his feet heal. He also spent part of Tuesday in a Wendy's, doing some editing of video footage. (He has 2 cameras with him and can dub/edit from one to the other, in a somewhat painstaking fashion.) He is desperately readying the first batch of footage to send home for broadcast. The only problem was that people wouldn't stop asking him questions, even when he had headphones on and was peering into a camera.
Wednesday was another big mileage day, at about 28 miles. Again, the "Get the hell out of Ohio!" drive was pushing him onward. Unfortunately, Wednesday was also marked by a severe lack of food and water. He ran out of both food and water in the late afternoon, and when he finally reached a mini-mart near WIlliams Center at 9:15 pm, the fact that it had closed at 6 caused him to scream curses that had never before been heard in Ohio. To add to the fun of Wednesday, he accidentally got off track and had to backtrack one mile, and then it started to rain just as he was setting up his tent.
The rain kept up until late morning on Thursday, so he didn't head out until about 1 pm. (Just FYI, it usually takes him about 45 minutes to an hour to pack everything up and get his tent taken down before heading out.) It was about 7-8 miles to Edgarton, and by mile 6 the lack of water had him feeling a bit woozy. Shortly after that, a nice guy named Matt pulled over and offered him some water. (No, Matt was not a hallucination. He shows up later.) The Fool was then rejuvented enough to make it to the Subway on the other side of Edgarton, where who did he see again but Matt. Matt was too late to pay for his meal, but he bought him some more water and trail mix, and then actually drove home and brought back a map and a pair of socks to give to him. Thursday was only aobut an 11 eleven mile day, due to the rain and dehydration.
Friday marked the day the WF crossed into Indiana! It also marked the day that he had heard all the tapes in his meager collection of cassettes too many times, and he called his old pal Woodsy in desperation Friday night. They worked out a plan to send some tapes by Express Mail, c/o General Delivery to Kendalville, IN. It was a long shot, since the post office there closes at noon, and Express Mail couldn't guarantee delivery before then, but it was a desperate situation. He spent the night sleeping near a creek, where frogs serenaded him all night long. He also heard some sort of large animal (cow? horse?) making big slurpy drinking noises in the middle of the night, and he's pretty sure that some deer brushed against his tent in the morning and then freaked out and ran away.
Saturday morning found the Fool at the Post Office, where his package had arrived! But, in typical Fool fashion, he bought a really cheap walkman, and it now plays most tapes at widely varying rates of speed, giving them a nausea-inducing warble effect. Next chance he gets he will be investing in a decent walkman. He also picked up some rubber boot covers (aka "galoshes") in Kendallville.
It continued to rain on and off on Saturday, and by evening it was still raining and there were no woods in site. The Fool tried to wait it out under a very tiny awning of some sort of industrial/warehouse building in the middle of nowhere, near Wawaka, IN, and eventually the rain diminished. Then the wind picked up! The WF camped out behind this warehouse (due to the lack of woods or other cover) and really didn't get any sleep until about 5 am, because the wind was flipping his tent and fly so loudly. This was definitely one of the most miserable nights of the entire journey.
He slept until noon on Sunday, due to lack of sleep the night before, and then rewarded himself with a combo platter at a KFC/Taco Bell along the way. He then spent a solid hour in the bathroom, ignoring the banging of the other customer's on the door while he dried his sock and shoes with the hand dryer. He was also able to charge his cell phone with a plug near the gumball machines! He actually left the phone behind when he left and had to run back and get it - luckily it was still there. He managed to still do about 18 miles on Sunday, ending up not far from Napanee, camped out in a field full of weeds. He's looking forward to pushing through Indiana and making it to Chicago by the end of this week.
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