Thursday, August 29, 2013

Catch up

From Pleasant Ridge we walked to the business district of Montgomery. Dave, after seeing us, while riding his bike, gave us a ride back to the restaurant parking lot. I had tied the world to a tree in his yard. I parked the van in a public parking area a few blocks from Dave's in Montgomery, then walked back to retrieve the world.
Out of Montgomery we walked a few miles (4) when I stopped for a latte at a row of businesses that had been a foundation of a construction site six years earlier when I came thru. As I finished my beverage dark clouds and thunder rolled over and it began to rain. Then the brother of Jim " the rock splitter" called. He wanted to have lunch and chat awhile. He had walked the Appalachian Trail. We had a good time exchanging stories. As the rain began to let up he gave me a lift back for the van. When I returned there happened to be an area policeman sitting close by so I explained about staying in the van. He said he would inform the night shift and as long as one of the businesses gave permission I would be fine. The Manager at Buffalo Wild Wings gave me the "okay".
( All of the people I have mentioned here agree that walking and activity are a key to staying healthy )
The next day brings us to the bridge episode of the previous post. There I called a girl who had stopped to talk when I was parked outside BWW the night before, she had offered her help beforehand .. She works two jobs, I was glad she was not Bizy. (A play on words, that's her name... Okay, enough name-dropping)
The next morning it was litely raining and we left late. That was the day we took eight hours to walk less than five miles.. We walked to Morrow.
There we had a reunion. Six years ago, a man and wife took me in after I had run the valley and was soaked through. They gave me a warm bed to sleep in, washed my clothes and dried my shoes with an electric fan. The couple had heard we were passing thru and had come to find us. I had just found a place to stay (at the wolf market/gas). They were happy to give is a ride. Back at the corner of 48&22/3 we had "supper" at the Mexican restaurant and caught up on the last six years while taking in the sunset. Their help that day and their hospitality meant a lot to me back then. Being able to look back on those times with them is priceless.
The next day thru Roachville and into miles of farmland and large homes. Six miles out of Morrow we were invited in for lunch at someone's home. They were so nice that they offered a shower, to wash my clothes and a place to stay over. That led to a early afternoon ride and a maintenance day for the world. Since miles per day don't matter so much this trip, there were some areas that were dangerously close to having tear-out problems. The glue that holds the patches hold for a long time, even years. The constant expansion and contraction, the rain and dew, the heat and cold, inflating and deflating, eventually separate the best of patches from the fabric of the world.
I spent most of the afternoon patching and painting the world. I slept the night by the boathouse next to the shaded pond.
I left before daylight , passed Sligo before noon and got to the west side of Wilmington. I was walking down Main Street and thought to myself for the first time all day where I might find a place to stay for the night. Just as I had the thought a car with a man, woman and young son pulled in the drive in front of me. (As they often do) This carload lived there and within a few minutes the husband offered his yard and then gave me a ride back to the land outside of Morrow. (I'm finished with morrow now)
The next morning we left at nine and took about for hours to walk a few miles to the east side of Wilmington.
This is dry and not very interesting but gets me close to today...




















No comments: