Sunday, June 17, 2012

The World's going South

I began my day at the Kent Fire Station in a slight mist that fell most of the day. The sun peeked through occasionally just long enough to heat the World enough for me to have to let air from it. Too tight it will rip at the seams. Too soft and the inner-tube, or bladder, the core shifts and the fill-hole shifts out of reach where the laced hole of the outer surface align. Then, when the sun would fall away behind the clouds, off comes the backpack and out comes the portable air pump. A quick cool wind, a role along a cool ditch line or stopping under the shade of a tree and out comes pump. Sometimes one of the many patches give way to these expansions and contractions and off comes the backpack and out comes the glue and possibly another small patch of canvas. The World had good amount of attention before I began and I had a full afternoon at the KFD to inflate the World and repair loose patches and re-touch crumbled paint so at the end of the day after walking to Tacoma "proper" the World held up fine.
At the end of the day I was able to stay outside "Red's Valley Pub". I was walking past when "Red" called out for my story. I was tired from the day with new shoes and a steady wind in my face and asked for help. "Red" is a gracious host.
I had only one prospect for a ride. A woman who had stopped to talk for awhile who sometime later stopped to tack our picture for her daughter. I had sked for her help "just in case". It just takes one good person to keep the World rolling South and she was that person.

The preceding is what happens when I have no idea what to say when I wake up far too early and cannot fall back to sleep...

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