Day 1: Greyhounding About with a Little Dough.

It was quite a transition from rural white people to urban black people.

Three guys got on the bus in Borea, KY. One of them wanted to sit by me, which, of course, was fine with me. I was on the computer doing stuff and he asked if I was an artist. I don't know why he asked that and not was I a programmer or anything else. I said yes. He said graphic artist. And I said that I make graphic art. He went on to tell me how he told his son that he should be a graphic artist, and then in the next sentence he told me how his son was going into culinary something or the other. I said great.

 He saw that I was writing and said that he writes, too. It keeps him in the light, he said. Then he went on with some bible talk, about real and fake miracles in our lives. He was good enough not to mention Jesus once. I gave him a few more sentences before I told him that I don't care about the Bible, but thank you. His lip quivered a bit as he tried to believe that I had actually say those words. But he left me alone. What I really wanted to say was that his stale cigarette breath is really wrecking the Holy that he was talking because even though it was on the edge of crazy it was still interesting.

He moved and a Shaker dressed woman asked to sit next to me, and, of course I said yes. She slept. She had crusty eyelids, and it was all I could do not to clean them up for her. I didn't want to wake her.

We got to Columbus, and I had to get off to get some, er…food. I bought a bag of peanuts and some cookies from the vending machine, which seemed safer then the restaurant. When I got in line to get back on the bus a domocilely-challenged dude came up and asked if I was a cage fighter because I was, you know, stout. He sang my praises a bit more and then asked for money. I said nope. He asked how about some peanuts. I said nope. I then offered him half of my cookies, but he just wanted my peanuts. I said, nope. Then security ran him out.

I got on the bus and took my seat; I was so ready to dig into my nuts and cookies! Then two dudes towards the back of the bus almost got into a fight because one guy stole the others pretzels. I saw the victim of the theft in the terminal, and I thought that he was an angry fellow. The other guy may have stolen his pretzels, but that fight was about much more than twisted dough.

The ride was not bad at all. I got free WIFI and 120 volt power to the whole ride, which was good because I didn't want to sleep until I got to Cleveland, where I was going to be on a five hour layover. So I was working on this blog, to get it going again is such work. But I love to go back and reflect, and I hope that you like to follow me, too.


The food that I had eaten was wrecking my stomach--I didn't share that I had Burger King chicken sandwich earlier in the day. I had not had much of anything else since the night before. So I went to use the commode. There was a secret message on the mirror. I really just wanted to poo.

Did I tell you about when I was in China and my kung-fu teacher took me to his home town? We took that train car that had a hole cut in the floor as the commode. I pooed right on the train tracks. It was fun to watch the tracks whiz by, but it was tough to concentrate and get my business done. I spent too much time in there, but nobody gave me any grief.

We finally got to Buffalo, and I got some real style food.
I'll be paying for the diet that I've kept over the last two days. I'm going to walk to Dwain's tomorrow, and that is about 3.5 miles. So some of the poison will be gone, I hope.

About a half an hour out of Buffalo our bus broke down.

And then Dwain cursed us with his esoteric knowledge. because our bus broke down again. They finally found another bus to scoop us up. But I have to say that the weather was so nice out that I didn't mind just being outside by the highway. I had nowhere to go, so I just decided to enjoy the moment--which turned into over 60 moments. But still, I really did enjoy my time on the side of the road until the bus rescued us.

We finally got to Rochester, and I had to hike to my summer home. Now in the army they give you lots of stuff to carry and then encourage you highly to carry it for long distances, even though there is a vehicle picking people who cannot make it up. I cannot remember what the weight of the crap we put in our rucksacks plus the weight of the other crap we had to carry, but it was a lot. Today as I was loaded up with my gear to last me 30 days I didn't mind quite so much those forced road marches in the army because I just carried my own crap today. The walk was just over a mile, so I was certain I could make it. But by the end I was worn thin, for sure!

I got to see so much lovely stuff on my walk here. I'll try to post some of that later. Here was one of my favorite finds.

We used to go to Orlando, FL, a bunch, and we were always amazed by the number of churches and the many sects of Christianity. Then we moved to Maryville, TN, and discovered that there are a lot of churches there, too. Well I must have walked past a half dozed churches to get here. Some were spectacular and some where humble. But there sure were a lot of 'em.

So I hike for just over a mile and get to the place where I am staying. It is magical in so many ways. These pictures do not do this house that was built in 1890 justice. There is so much to tell you about because there are 10 legs in the house, not including mine. Perhaps tomorrow.