4/14: Amarillo- OKC

Chris and I stayed awake quite awhile chatting about his post Monday night, and I was struck by the sense of familiarity I felt about his need to feel like he should entertain his rides. I had dealt with similar notions last summer, particularly with Cesar and Ken... long rides with single individuals... where I felt that I had to earn my keep with witty banter. It's funny how that has just been assimilated into the experience, and that I hadn't really considered it again. The early stages of this trip is going to be an exercise in escaping comfort zones, and redefining acceptable parameters of travel. I had been a bit self absorbed in the sense that while this is familiar to me, it is a new mindset for Chris. Don't worry... the tables will turn; my time to adjust is coming!
I was surprised at how comfortable the bunk was considering it is essentially plywood covered with a down sleeping pad. I awoke a few times due to the unfamiliar sounds and odd dreams that seem to be the norm now, but other than that, slept like a brick.

Devin and Leif were up early Tuesday maintaining the bus while Chris and I slept until noon. The main task for the day was scouring Amarillo for fuel. Collecting veggie oil is a rather tedious, dirty, and apparently sometimes dangerous task. We zeroed in on a strip of restaurants on what I believe was old Route 66. Devin gave us the talking points and soon we were off in teams of two asking about used fryer grease. Ahh, the looks! Everyone we chatted with was receptive however, and after 20 minutes or so, we had a target.

Initially, the manager had told us that we were welcome to the oil, but that the company that picks it up had already done so that very morning. As we were leaving the lot empty handed however, Devin decided to look inside the barrel anyhow and behold! 30- 40 gallons of rather pristine used oil. Leif suggested that we set up shop on a section of dirt behind the parking lot, but Devin decided against that. In the parking lot it was.

It was a sunny, warm, windy north Texas day as we went thru the process of pumping, filtering, and loading the oil into the bus. Most of the work is manual, especially the process of filtering. After it's gathered, they pour the oil into 5- gallon buckets with ordinary cotton tee shirts bungeed across the top to filter the large impurities. The wind made this process particularly messy, with veggie oil collecting on the pavement. Several times I had wondered about that, but figured Devin knew what he was doing and let it go.

The process took a couple hours, and just as we were wrapping up, two stocky cowboy hat wearing men came out of the steak house to ask "just what the fuck we thought we were doing!" He didn't care about Devin using the oil, he was pissed that we were making a mess of his parking lot. And I mean pissed! He threatened to call the sheriff and have the bus "towed the hell right outta here 'cuz this is bullshit! Ya don't do a man's property that way!" I had to admit, he had a point. I tried with some success to reassure him that we would tidy up, while the others quickly gathered our things for what was now the Great Amarillo Escape... in a slow, huge, white 1970's bus...

We took a secondary road thru the rest of Amarillo to stay off the interstate, slowly concluding that the cops had better things to do than chase us down! Once out of Amarillo, we had a good laugh and proceeded to Oklahoma, with Chris and I wondering, still, what the draw was. There was talk of stopping in Norman for the night, but as we approached Oklahoma City we learned that we were instead stopping for the night at a "punk/ collective" house on the north end of the city...

4/2-9: Santa Fe Staging

Chris had a grand time getting from what turned out to be Security, CO thru Pueblo and about half- way to Walsenburg. Rather than rehash all the details, I figure you can check out The Friary and get his accounts first hand. I spent my time, as he put it, jealously geeking out on his progress.

As Saturday the 4th arrived, I received a message from a Couchsurfer who was in Santa Fe and looking for either a couch, or possibly a ride toward Denver. I agreed to meet Josiah at a Starbucks to see if he may be interested in riding toward Pueblo where I could drop him off, and also pick Chris up to ensure that he was here for his Tuesday appointment, and so that we could start laying the foundation for our joint- departure. Impatience... ahhh.

Josiah is a short, skinny, early 20-ish looking hipster type from California, who is in fact nearing 30, and is paranoid about “chemtrails”. His plan was to get to Denver, then Salt Lake City, Portland, then a return to Cali. He was one of the cleanest vagabonds I have seen, which led me to believe that, despite the fact that he claimed the term "nomad", he was in fact a trust- fund kid who slept more often in hotels than in fields- as he had the night before in Albuquerque. For whatever reason, he was also traveling with a bike, and a brand new Mac laptop... which he could not keep his attention from while I was there.

My primary concern was that Josiah would be the stereotypical hippie- douche and fortunately, he was not, though he did talk with that annoying upward inflection at the end of every sentence! “The chemtrails are THERE to make the population docILE!” Between the bike and his concern about being dropped in an unfamiliar area made taking him with me unrealistic.

Shalain and I left Santa Fe for Colorado City, CO at about 6:45, figuring it would take about 4- hours to get there, grab Chris, and then another 4- hours back. I ran into a 66- year old bike tourist while gassing up who is “riding for our troops” and said that he was stopping to "avoid a coming snowstorm" that I had heard nothing about. It was a beautiful, albeit cold evening so I figured he was mistaken. By Raton, I discovered that he was far from it; it began to snow like crazy! Thankfully, Raton Pass was fine, but the next 70- miles to Colorado City was rather hairy with near whiteout conditions almost the rest of the way to Chris’s exit.

I found Chris at the Diamond station as planned, and saw him editing his hand- out cards as we walked in. He looked windblown and loaded down, with his snowshoes hanging off the now- his Kelty. He looked like quite the adventurer! We coffeed/ gassed up, then drove off toward New Mexico. The weather thankfully had lightened and he and I chatted while Shalain sacked out in the back. Over the next few days, we wrapped up our dental obligations, made several trips to REI, chatted, watched movies, had two gluttonous “last meals”, and welcomed Shalain’s parents in from Michigan for her birthday.

As the week progressed to Thursday, we had set a tentative (always-tentative!) plan to leave on Saturday via train or bus toward Tucumcari, Amarillo, or possibly even La Junta/ Lamar, CO. There was no clear vision of which way to go, but traveling old Route 66 seemed like a neat beginning, and Oklahoma has an ODD draw for both of us. Thursday thru Sunday, however, would prove to be yet another lesson in the folly of planning!