Day 151

i have focus. right now. that's good, cause i haven't the past few days when i've gotten on here. it gets hard to write something interesting every day, but like it.

i have some cool news to share. and will.
but first, a raconteur. sort of.

the rain has stopped. finally. i went outside into the cool, crisp autumn air today to do some landscaping work and was sent back by the familiar scent of sweaty, leather work gloves.

days in australia, last summer, started with the same feel of this clear afternoon. cool. the outback air was always on the verge of direct sunlight at five thirty a.m. and, as i rolled out of my tent and into the hazy chill, i most often continued without a hoodie. minutes into a mostly silent walk down the airstrip, the edgy mist was warmed by a rising orange haze. the horizon glowed, then grew- endless and quiet and wild. hours later, around five p.m., we would be finished working and would be trudging back in the dusty glow of a shrinking sun. the gloves, damp and dusty, would come off. the baby kangaroo, quantas, who'd spent his day sleeping in a suspended canvas bag, hopped around the kitchen and came to lick the salt from the palms of these hands, sweaty and stained by the smell of leather work gloves.

it's a good association.

today, as i began to plan re-entrance into canada, there's been an exciting and relieving occurrence to be able to join the very date, weekend, and overall schedule of this trek with the arrival and intercepting of friends from back home, illinois, who happen to be in this area of the country on the very weekend i pass through the area. remember, this already happened once when eric drove up and was able to meet me with supplies and extra gear.

seriously. these things cannot be planned for and, in a way, are little encouragements that i'm doing the right thing. i'm blown away.

Day 139

friday, september 26, 2008

i missed the post by an hour, but i'm in portland right now staying with people through couchsurfing.com. i didn't want to put that out there until it was a done deal, and now it is and they're cool people. there's a group of people living at an apartment complex that looks like a renovated motel in the south east part of the town.

in conversations and introductions we met chuck, twenty years old and moved here from minnesota. there are about five or six other people in the group, also mostly from minnesota, who are all in their early twenties and who joked about taking over the apartment complex, which they are well on their way on accomplishing.

out of nowhere, one guy started playing a third day song on the guitar and, although they gave no previous spiritual hints, he said he likes the song. this lead to further discussions and we've invited them all to church with us on sunday when we will attend imago dei. a couple are already have said yes and we discussed spirituality vs christianity in the later hours of the night. they have a strong community and, out of human kindness mostly, share everything they have with each other- including strangers like me and parker.

not a bad start for a 'random' couchsurfing encounter. we plan to stay two nights here with these people and they are very kind, generous, and interesting.

Day 98: an awesome day

another week ends. the whole week was smooth and the kids were well behaved. today was really hot..

now for a vagabonded raconteur:

our crew left camp for the precious end-of-the-week time off. we headed down the highway to the sweetest swimming hole i've ever seen or heard of. clear waters glided forty feet below a solid cliff face. another forty feet above that, the roadway buzzed overhead across a steel truss bridge. the darkness of the deep heart mellowed on the opposite bank where smooth rocks melted into the flow. prime. after several jumps and videos and pictures of the area and our antics, we moved on to

montanas, canada's version of lone star and typical midscale man-food chain restaurant, faced mountains and the highway. eight of us sat at the porch and enjoyed the warm breeze. the sun was bright and we sheltered our faces with the menus but were soon distracted with the arrivals. we had our fill of steak, ribs, roast, corn bread, and the such while bob dylan played in the background and the olympics buzzed on the tvs inside. one surprise birthday party later, we were on our way

to the ocean. richard thought he knew where it was, so only our car went looking and the other guys headed back. after a short drive and a walk through blackberry bushes and gravel paths, we found the ocean. the distant mountains. the sunset. the coast. together. during magic hour. second to the outback's, this was the most ultimate sunset i've seen. i hadn't brought my camera bag because when the trip started, we had originally headed off to go longboarding and the following events hadn't really been planned. the others had theirs and i'll have some of those before too long. as the mountains took burning yellow and red across the marching waves in front of us, the opposite side of the rocky island we had waded to platformed a red and rising moon. after a quick swim in the warm water and summer night, the day was complete.