Days 59 & 60 – Florence & Cañon City
As the Kansas wheatfields faded further into the distance, and then even the melons of Rocky Ford yielded ground, the Coloradan countryside finally started to shift. Wild onions lined the highway shoulder, while trucks loaded with their domesticized peers ripped past. Ranches expanded, with cows and hogs gaining prominence, and even the occasional llama. Some […]
Day 58 – Fowler to Pueblo, CO
“You need to take your pack off before you come in here!” I freeze in the entrance to the minimart, halted abruptly in my determined pursuit of coffee, and turn to the lady at the register. It’s hardly an illegitimate rule; even if one weren’t worried about theft, it’s easy to imagine unwieldy packs knocking […]
Day 57 – La Junta to Fowler, CO
Today’s walk was reminiscent of the last section of Kansas, in that Highway 50 cut through the countryside at an angle, while the ADT zigzagged along dirt roads adjacent to it, before swinging far to the north to eventually join a smaller highway. I opted out of that approach, instead sticking with tracks south of […]
Days 55 & 56 – Las Animas & La Junta
The past two days have brought me from near the Kansas border almost due west, deeper into Colorado. I keep interrogating the horizon, seeking out my first glimpse of the Rockies–locals swear it’s possible to see Pike’s Peak from here in the right conditions–but the prevailing flatness remains implacable. Actually, that’s a little unfair; the […]
Day 54 – Holly to Lamar, CO
My rampant enthusiasm for snow days has become a running joke at school; few things–if any, really–fire me up more than a couple inches of snow blanketing town. There’s an aesthetic aspect of this, as crunching through the flakes in the deadened muffle of a snowy night is unlike anything else. There’s the joy of […]
Day 53 – Syracuse, KS to Holly, CO
On my last day in Kansas, I spent a lot of time thinking about water. I hadn’t seen much of it for a while. Aside from the occasional lake, and the gradually filling Arkansas River, the view was dominated by pale yellow and brown. By all accounts, this has been an unusually wet year for […]
Day 52 – Lakin to Syracuse, KS
I left Garden City early in the morning on Wednesday. This far west in the central time zone (the end of my time there, as I crossed into the mountain zone today), it’s dark until 7:30am, so my 5:45 start meant a couple hours of darkness. Part of the benefit of an early start, usually, […]
Day 51 – Garden City to Lakin, KS
Rick doesn’t waste any time. “I sure as hell hope you’re not a Democrat.” Portland’s reputation precedes it. “I love Trump,” he says, “and I know you probably think less of me for that.” I insist that my goal in being here is to talk with people who see things differently than I do, to […]
Days 49 & 50 – Ingalls & Garden City
“Despina,” Italo Calvino writes in his masterpiece (well, one of them anyway) Invisible Cities, “can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.” The camel driver sees “a ship; he knows it is […]
Days 47 & 48 – Fort Larned & Dodge City
For all of the signs announcing the historical trajectory of the Santa Fe Trail along my last two weeks of walking, outside of Council Grove the extant remnants of that past have often been quite minimal. I’m sure part of the responsibility for that is on me; I’m not going to make a multi-mile detour […]