miles

Day sixty, Wallingford.

No hitch into town. always a bummer. at least it was all down hill. wallingford seems like a cool town. well manicured and completely left behind by change. Unjo and mommy marshall both sent us food. full packs for free and rain clouds moving in the other direction to put a smile on our faces. we also all have arguile socks now. we wear them at the same time to make us look extra queer. as if brad and i wearing skirts isnt enough. 

On our way out of town we hitched a school bus. i havent been on a bus in seven years. i think we are in first place for the coolest hitch so far.  ”I aint supposed to do this, but no body’s on board they wont know. where you heading?” i have no idea what he looked like. i saw a friendly smile and an empty bus, i went into flashback mode. thinking about, i dont know, nothing. somebody else told him where we were heading. “oh i think i know where that is. up there next to the state park?” people always ask us things like that. i guess if we look like we live in the woods we know where every road to civilization is. upon some emory map reading the driver says, “oh thats the park im headed to.” we read signs back to home. “trail head <-”. “oh hey! there are my kids, id of driven right passed them. well, have a good hike.” we piled off the vacant bus and headed into the bush right in front of two teachers and 12 or so ten year olds. i wonder if the driver ever got in trouble?

At camp we stayed with a few nobo’s. one flip flopper HiLife – the champaign of hikers- might meet us when he flips at harper’s ferry. should be fun times. the school bus story went around and caused a laugh and some disbelief and sent me into thinking. time and its crazy refraction. it had been seven years since i have last been in a school bus. a lot changes in seven years. but not school busses. buses are horrible. rattling, rumbling yellow cylinders of death in the worst circumstances. obnoxiously slow, painfully hot yellow tubes of depression for most of the time. but every now and then a pearl is formed from all that sensory chafeage. 

The bus i rode my freshman year of high school carried me 67 miles one way and most of the time was a monumental pain in the ass. but i do remember laying on my back across the isle listening to ocean man by ween and staring out of the newly removed emergency exit sun roof. just singing along watching the puffy simpson clouds roll by. the surf had been up for a week and the clouds told me it would still be so when i got home.  a girl i liked kissed me at lunch. and the emergency sun roof made it to loud and windy for anyone to take my mind off of everything. i laid their hitting the repeat button smiling all over. i still smile when i think about that day. i also think about how much i hated vinyl seats.

still do.