Walking across America

Pulling into the Oregon gas station, I saw a man walking through the parking lot carrying a couple of plastic shopping bags.  I assumed he was a local, and asked if he could recommend a restaurant "where real people cook real food and serve it on real plates." I love asking about food in this way but I'm dismayed by how many times the people I ask are short on answers. Even in the little towns, if there's a fast food joint, the real-food places suffer. 

I digress.

The fellow with the plastic bags came alongside my bike and said that he, too, was passing through. He had just picked up some supplies and was headed over to his motel for the night. As a fellow traveler, I always ask about the journey, and was shocked to learn that the man was walking all the way from his brother's wedding in Washington state back to his home in Massachussetts. "I wanted to see America before I go completely blind," he said. 

See it before you go blind

He told me that he had macular degeneration, an incurable eye disease that eventually causes blindness. He made his living as a fry cook in a seafood restaurant and quit his job for a few months so that he could fly to Washington for the wedding and walk back home.

Averaging 30 miles a day, he must have saved a nice nest egg for the odyssey. I asked him about his equipment, expecting to learn something about high-tech gear that might work for me on a future trip, and was surprised to learn that he was wearing it: collared shirt, chino pants, and $15 slip-on shoes he'd bought at Wal-Mart. Everything he needed fit in his soft backpack.

And that's when I realized I did learn something, but not about hi-tech gear. The lessons he taught me were that I should wring the joy out of the life I'm given (circumstances be damned) and that I can always travel (and live) with less.