Sunday, 12/5/21 — Elizabethtown, IL — Catching up

almost 3 years ago

The problem with trying to keep track of life on a daily basis is that life doesn't stick around waiting for you, it just moves along and you either keep up with it or you get left in the dust wondering what in hell happened to your pants and why nothing on the television makes sense anymore.

Recently I've been doing a very bad job of keeping up with keeping track of my life. I am now a full week behind myself with whatever it is I'm doing here, and if I was a healthy and well-rounded human being willing to take responsibility for my failures then I would say that this situation is no one's fault but my own. Instead however I am just going to blame life for moving too damn fast and claim that had it been more considerate of my slower pace and my debilitating chronic laziness it would have adjusted its progress accordingly thereby preventing me from ever having to write this paragraph, and you from ever having to read it.

But such is life and so here we are now fairly well cursed with the burden of deciding whether we should try to endure it or just curl up and die, so better buckle up and hold onto something that's bolted down because I'm gonna have to shove this journal into overdrive and cross my fingers and hope to all the gods that I've got half a chance at knocking out all seven in one blog before we come to our senses and remember that we're supposed to be making a decision about something. No time for seven pictures; one will have to do. Besides it's against the rules of this community to post more than one at a time and I'm not the kind of person to ever break any rules. If you've read this far and are starting to feel a bit confused and/or bored then this is probably a good point to cash out and walk away while you're still ahead because neither the odds nor the entertainment value are going to get any better from here on out.

Sunday, 11/28/21

Osage Point Park, Missouri. The dogs let me sleep in till 3am before building up a full head of steam in their daily barking contest. I make coffee and drive out of the park calling down upon their mangy little faces every ancient curse my groggy brain can remember. The sun is just peeking up over the horizon as I approach Springfield where I stop at Walmart for reasons I've long since forgotten but probably involved beer and automatic transmission fluid. Then it's on to the Love's truck stop in Strafford where I pay 13 dollars for the luxury of taking my first shower in several days. By the time I pull into the gravel parking lot at the Little Lost Creek Conservation Area just south of Pendleton and pitch my tent it's noon thirty which gives me and my special friend about six hours to spend together before she has to continue her all-day push back to Colorado from Chicagoland. Nothing even remotely interesting happens in those six hours.

Monday, 11/29/21

The closest coffee shop I can find is a Starbucks in Wentzville so I hop on I-70 east just in time to join an exciting interstate social collective including a truck driver and a police officer in which the latter is tailgating the former, and I drive with them to Wentzville where I make my exit and they continue. After allowing me to purchase coffee and a bagel and get all nice and settled in for the day a Starbucks barista informs me that the shop will be closing in half an hour due to issues with staffing. Shortly thereafter the employees at the Starbucks in the Target next door tell me their seating area is closed due to issues with Covid, so I sigh inside and drive to the next closest Starbucks in Lake St. Louis where I'm finally able to get some much-needed writing not done. I'm pretty sure this is the first time in my life that I've visited three different Starbucks locations on the same day, and I can't say I'd ever like to repeat that feat.

Tuesday, 11/30/21

This happens, and not much else.

Wednesday, 12/1/21

After a lovely morning jog in the woods and a surprise visit from a pair of friendly untagged hunting hounds I leave Little Lost Creek and drive back to the Starbucks in Lake St. Louis to spend some time pretending to be a normal person with a normal job who just needs some time away from the office, and also to plot my next move. I end up settling on a promising spot—the Sulphur Springs boat ramp on Wappapello Lake just outside Greenville. It's not till I finally roll in well after dark that I realize the entire area is paved and there's no place to pitch a tent. I fall asleep in my car to the soothing thrum of my neighbors' generator.

Thursday, 12/2/21

Wake up before the rangers start making their rounds and avoid making eye contact with the neighbors and drive to Cape Girardeau. Another day, another Starbucks. This time I've got my eye on a place called Gullet Ridge in the Shawnee National Forest about 45 minutes away. I drive across the Ohio River and into Illinois and up to a tiny town called Eddyville and as I'm headed down Blacktop Road looking for my turnoff one of the local police force's finest materializes out of nowhere and comes flying up behind me and rides my ass for a couple miles. I feel extremely well served and protected, and am a little disappointed when he doesn't pull me over for the crime of having Colorado plates so I can shake his hand and thank him face to face for all the wonderful selfless things he does to keep helpless people like me safe.

Gullet Ridge turns out to be a big win. There are several options for pulling off the main path and camping more or less privately. No water to be found but cell service is solid so if I get thirsty I can just go online and stare at pictures of water till I die. I find a little side road that's baaaaaaaarely there and carefully drive it a few hundred feet into the woods and park. As I'm preparing to set up my tent two hunters suddenly appear in the fading daylight and upon hearing that I'm spending the night alone they promptly invite me to join them and their friends at their big ol' group campsite at the end of the main road, the one with the big ol' bonfire. I feign interest but of course there's no fuckin way I'm gonna meet a bunch of strangers with shotguns at night when I've gone and inserted myself this deep in the mother Trumplandia. In parting they mention they'll be passing right back through here around 5am the next morning so I thank them for their kind invitation and then I set my alarm for 4 and sleep in my car.

Friday, 12/3/21

I arrive at the Starbucks in Paducah, Kentucky around 5:30am and stay there for several hours. I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going next. My main accomplishment today is discovering a liquor store called Global Wine & Spirits that features a simply outstanding beer selection. I drive back to Gullet Ridge, park in a different part of the woods where I don't expect to see any hunters, and pass out about three-quarters of the way through my attempt to drink all six Dark Truth imperial stouts.

Saturday, 12/4/21

Good afternoon. I am at Tower Rock Campground just outside of Elizabethtown, Illinois. There were a couple other people already hunkered down in the main campground area so I found a site closer to the boat ramp where other people aren't. After a nice run and a bath in the Ohio I hike up to the overlook and watch the sun set.

A barge rumbles by in the night and I turn to look at it, forgetting that my headlamp is still switched on. The pilot sees me and immediately drenches me to the bone with his spotlight.