October 5-7

These last few days have been a blur. The heat continues and takes its toll on Klondike and me.

People are still being so supportive! I have turned down at least six offers for rides. There may come a time when I accept one or two, but for now, if we don’t push through the heat and the pain, we will never make it to Alaska. That is one of the reasons I began this journey; to push myself to my physical and mental limits.  And I know this is only the beginning -- I am sure there will be times when things are worse, somewhere down the road.

Sometimes I can’t believe the things I am seeing or experiencing. Countless people drive by shooting video or taking pictures of us from their windows. When I feel I am about to break someone will wave and shout, “GOOD LUCK!” and I will be good for another mile.

While crossing a long bridge, one man slowed and handed me a bottle of Aquafina through his window -- I hasten to add here that it was COLD! I took a couple of swallows and when we got to the other side, Klondike was never so grateful for cold water. THANK YOU, whoever you are and wherever you went!

At the end of a shorter bridge, right when the sun was its hottest, another man pulled off on the far side shoulder and rolled with us, trying to talk to me. I told him I was going to take a break in the shade up ahead and we could talk there. “SHADE?” he exclaimed. “SHADE? There’s no shade for another mile at least! Let me give you a ride up to the next C-store.”

We accepted, as I wasn’t up to walking another mile before taking a break. As it turned out, the C-store was the next shade, and more than a mile.

It is a strange feeling, taking the pack off and climbing in a car. When you are walking in such conditions, heat, humidity, muscle and blister pain, with nothing but a solid white line ahead of you and cars and trucks blowing by, you develop what I might call “road buzz.” Your thoughts and emotions and pains sort of melt into our surroundings, and life is reduced simply to keeping one foot moving ahead of the next. And sometimes the steps are so tiny.

His name was Terrence, and he insisted on buying me lunch at the store. He was a traveling marine equipment salesman who had always dreamed of hiking the Appalachian Trail. He thought what I was doing would be so much harder than hiking the AT. “I can’t imagine walking that far,” he said.

I was quick to add, “I can’t imagine doing the AT. That trail is designed to maim and bruise -- I hear it is like climbing the Washington Monument 400 times.” It was funny how we both had different notions about what it would be like to do the same thing.

“It would be a goal that I would set, one that I couldn’t break,” he told me. “I mean, I’ve already canceled three appointments today, and I really don’t know why.” Then he looked away and admitted, half to himself, “I have only set one goal in my life an not broken it.”

Since I started this journey I have come to note how some people seem to share their most private hopes and dreams with me -- and they don’t even know me. It’s as if I were a priest taking confessions, only what I hear are not confessions, but rather glimmers of hopes and dreams of people that are just like me. Some of the things I have heard I couldn’t mention here, as I feel in those cases, I have become the custodian of dreams not yet ready to be put in motion.

After Terrence shook my hand and we wished each other well in pursuing our dreams, Klondike and I sat in the shade for a few more minutes. Now as you may have read elsewhere on this site, Klondike is a “chick magnet.” 

Allow me to explain:

As I write this I have been on the road for over three weeks, and Klondike has become the star of the show -- and sometimes she acts like she knows it! Wherever we go men will walk up to me, shake hands and then look down at Klondike and say in a manly man voice, “You gotta mighty fine lookin’ dog there.”

And the girls/women will just squeal and run up to her, grab her face and dribble on and on with something like: “OH!  Look at you! Aren’t you BEAUTIFUL! OH! Look! You’ve got one blue eye and one brown eye! OH! Aren’t you just beautiful!” Meanwhile, I stand there, hot, sweaty, hair in a jumble swaying around with an 80 or so pound pack on my back and try to introduce myself. That goes something like this:

ME: Hi, I am Robert, but everyone calls me “Chewie.”

SQUEALING GIRL/WOMAN: Hi . . . (back to Klondike) Oh, yes, aren’t you so beautiful!

KLONDIKE: Pant, pant --  slobber, slobber

ME: That’s my dog.

SG/W: Yeah . . . . (back to Klondike) Don’t you have such beautiful eyes! Oh, look at you!

KLONDIKE: Slobber, slobber -- pant, pant (lick on face)

ME: Um, the dog’s with me.

SG/W: Sure . . . . (back to Klondike) God! I love your face!  You are SO CUTE!

KLONDIKE: (shake and wag tail)  Pant, pant  (husky grin)

ME: Were walking to Alaska . . . .

SG/W: That’s nice . . . . (back to Klondike) You’re walking to Alaska, huh? How’s your little footsies doin'? How’s your little footsies doing, huh?

ME: (sigh)

KLONDIKE: Pant, pant, pant  -- slobber (BIG husky grin)

Anyway, The Star and I were sitting outside the store when this girl pulled up to the gas pump and then went inside. She was dressed in casual office attire, but there was something about her that made my head spin. Maybe it was the way she walked, or her light, airy smile. Either way, I turned back to my can of mustard sardines and told myself not to stare when she came back out.

“Hi,” came a soft angelic voice from over my shoulder. “Are you the one who is walking to Alaska?”

At that moment a piece of mustard sardine decided to go down the wrong passage in my throat. I felt like I was 200 feet underwater with a broken regulator.

Clearing my throat, I squeaked, “Yes . . . .”

“The girls at my bank said they saw you walk by earlier,”  she continued. “I work in the back. My name is Tiffany.” 

Tiff . . . you have got to be kidding me! I thought.  “I’m Robert,” was all I could manage, still trying to clear my throat. “Ahem, and (wheeze) this is Klondike.”

She patted Klondike on the head. “I just wanted to tell you I think what you are doing is really neat.”

“Um, thank you. It has certainly been interesting so far.  You live around here?” I said, hoping she might offer a place to pitch my tent for the night.  It was early, but I would make an exception for her.

“Yep, right around the corner.” I sat there letting the silence settle, waiting for her to make an offer.  God!  She was an angel!  “Well, I have to run. Nice meeting you.” 

Then she squatted and grabbed Klondike’s face, “You have a beautiful dog.”

And she glided out of our lives . . . .

****

In planning this adventure I spent considerable amounts of time and money doing research. I won’t bore you with the details, but I can say this, in retrospect (one of my ex-wives calls it "Ass Vision"), the few books I could find on advanced back packing conveniently omitted several key details in regards to undertaking a long distance hike.  I am not sure why they did this. Perhaps they wanted to leave certain elements of surprise for the unsuspecting adventure.

NOTE to editor of one said book: FIRE ANTS GET INTO ANYTHING! RE: Dog food. Keep it sealed and OFF the ground -- less you will be sharing your Mac and Cheese with your canine pal until you can restock on Purina One.

However, all the books did state numerous times: TEST YOUR EQUIPMENT BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR ADVENTURE! I can only imagine that this doesn’t mean setting your tent up part way in the living room and going, “Yep, it works, I can figure the rest out later.”

I digress. When I started this trip I was a “few” pounds over my ideal weight. And I chose my pack hip belt accordingly. 

Two days into the trip, my hips looked and felt like -- well, I can’t repeat it here. So Granite Gear Fedexed a smaller belt down promptly. THANKS GUYS!

Late Thursday afternoon I was expecting to see my parents, who were bringing the new belt down to me from their bait and tackle business in Key Largo (The Yellow Bait House). I was approaching Long Key bridge, but had decided to hold up crossing it since it was over four miles long and Klondike and I were only making two miles between much needed breaks.

I was a few hundred yards from the bridge when they pulled up. As I dropped my pack in the back of my Mom’s SUV, a man in a white Ford pulled up and walked up to me.  “I wish I had the (testicular fortitude) to do what you are doing,” he said, and jammed his card in my hands. “I run the KOA up the road, if you need a place to stay for the night, it’s on me.” And he turned and got back in his truck.

I decided to take him up on his offer, and had my parents drive me up. That’s when the “fun” began with my tent. While my Dad looked on, and politely offered to help, several times, their adventurer son, me, tried to look like he knew what he was doing.

I had set up part of the tent in the living room over 2000 miles away in Colorado Springs, so I had the basics down. But what I didn’t count on was getting it to stand -- still -- in one place, without tent stakes or guy lines. This is about as easy as getting a Hershey bar out of a block of cement as the Keys are made up of a VERY old coral reef -- hence, no dirt, just sharp rock.

You see, in an attempt to keep my gear costs down, I had purchased said tent from a reputable on-line dealer. According to their product description, it was an “all season, two-man tent -- easy to set up.”

This is where the needle-scratching-across-record sound effect should come in.  

It seems the on-line dealer was going on the manufacturer’s description -- and it seems that I haven’t learned yet that there is ALWAYS a reason why a product is still in stock when it is marked down from $369 to $149.

Couple the uncooperative tent with inevitable late night rain showers and Klondike digging up a nest of fire ants, and, well, I won’t go there. I felt like I was trying to camp in my back yard and my Mom was standing in the doorway with a blanket saying, “When you want to come in, your NICE WARM AND DRY BED will be waiting for you -- dear!”

And I have at least another 394 days of this left ahead of me . . . .

****

Sometime, within the last few years, I became aware of how we sometimes label people when we are talking on the phone about them to someone else. We’ll say something like, “ . . . and I’m gonna introduce you to Jim, he’s East Indian (or black, or whatever).” I mean, why do we need to qualify a person’s race.

In the big picture, what difference does it make. I keep wondering if I will ever see the day when we can talk about each other and it won’t matter what “whatever” we are. When I watch kids interact at grade school, I actually think I might see this in my lifetime. 

Now, I said that, so I can say this: because you cannot be with me in person, meeting the people I am meeting, as I writer I am obligated to describe the people I am meeting so that you may form a clearer image of the diversity “the road” is showing me.

Three scenes that stick out in my mind from the last few days:

Down the road, 100 yards or so ahead of me, a Monroe County deputy pulled off the road and adjusted what appeared to be a radar detector on his dash. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as countless deputies and FHP troopers had passed me without so much as a wave. (In the Keys, people walking along the side of the road looking like they are lost are met with caution -- and to those who hadn’t read the news coverage, I was no different.)

As I approached, the deputy rolled down his window and I asked if my speed was okay. (I know, it’s a stupid joke)  He grinned and got out of his car.

“So how’s the trip going so far?” he asked nicely. 

“Not bad, but the heat is killing us!” 

“I bet, you’ve got a nice dog there. How’s he doin’?”

“She is having a tough time, too.”

"Excuse me, ‘she’. Hey, could I get you to sign this for me?”  And he handed me a copy of the Key West Citizen. I obliged and felt a hundred times better.

We made small talk for a minute and then he shook my hand and said, “Maybe someday, when you make it, this will be worth some money.”

As we were passing through a small community, a elderly man pulled off the road in a “keys cruiser” (old cars that look like they were born out of wedlock halfway between the junk yard and the second hand store are labeled such in the Keys). 

He rolled up and in very old Cuban English he said, “Howschore feet?” 

I smiled. “Sore.” 

“Hows-d dog?”

“Tired . . . .”

He smiled through sun-weathered skin down at Klondike and back to me.

“Woochoo like a present?” his smile still warm and inviting, with a glint of mischief.

I was caught speechless by his offer. I didn’t know what to expect. It didn’t take much to see that this old man probably lived in one of the shacks that dotted the area.

“I would be delighted, thank you.”

He brought an old weathered hand up and, still smiling, placed a five dollar bill in my hand. “Forchoo andydog.” And he patted my hand and drove off.

As I sat in the parking lot of a C-store I over heard a woman talking to her son about her truck’s transmission that I guess was going bad.

He was trying to describe what might be wrong with it, and she wasn’t giving what he was saying much attention. The last I heard of the conversation was her climbing back into the car saying, “Oh yeah, Mr. Know-it all, I’m sure you know what’s wrong with it.”

Actually, the kid sounded like he had an idea of what was going on inside her tranny. It made me think back to the times my parents had talked to me in a similar way. And I wondered, When will we reach a time when we won’t feel the need to put our children down, when all they are trying to do is grow and feel useful?

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