North Platte, Nebraska
August 1, 2024
I'm sitting in a McDonald's going on 8pm. I spent the last few days backpacking an average of nearly 30 miles a day through conditions that would have most people locked in front of their AC scrolling through Amazon for a second AC while simultaneously Door Dashing Dairy Queen! This recent stretch of Nebraska has pushed me, spotting spigots from a quarter mile out, pumping and filtering irrigation well water, drenched daily, the kind of drenched that has you breaking out from fungus and filth. I've hiked dizzy and blind, my eyes stinging as I squint to see. I've felt hypothermic as sprinkler water hit my sizzling skin, sprinkler water I first had to check for chemical tanks near the supply line. People have told me, "you shouldn't drink that water!" Which water? It all comes out of or runs through the same soil corporations have been polluting for decades. At least I'm filtering first!
I've endured plenty for sure, but please let me be clear. I am exactly where I have chosen to be. I have that privilege. I have accrued such resource that I always get to choose.
Tonight I am juggling multiple dilemmas simultaneously. I need to charge my batteries, I need to eat and drink in excess, I need to resupply for another day, I still need to find a place to sleep, which means adding to 27 miles already walked, and the list goes on. Every decision I make pulls resource from another. There is no perfect answer. I'm living in a world of deficiency and excess, but never harmony.
I want to emphasize "I'm living!"
I would never wish for a "better tomorrow;" I'm already living my dream, here and now each day. My struggle continues-Thank God!-for in it I forge my freedom and determine my own destiny!!
And Colorado sits just a few short days away! I got here on foot! I feel like I'm screaming with all this expressive punctuation, but for fuck's sake...
I got here on foot!!
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