Bastrop II: The Legend of Zkipo

MIles since last blog: 5.5 (more like 10, but who's counting)
Miles Total: 2279.3

Route

Earlier my mind was busting at the seems with thought, now, two beers later, it has mostly abandoned me. But damn if it didn't feel like it was all very important at the time.

Anyhoo, the day started slow, not out of the house until noon slow. I had 38.4 miles to my CS host's in Austin and two days to get there which maybe felt like not enough of a challenge for a walker of my caliber, not to be conceded, but seriously, it's walking, how cocky can you seem about that?

I wouldn't call it faith, but I am starting to believe in something. Things, the way they happen, it's just too much to be completely random. Most of me, when I stop and think, still believes that there are rational, logical explanations for this, but the soft travel and wanderlust side wants it to be something more like fate, a beautiful feminine spirit which guides us all and moves us towards our lives purposes. In actuality, if it is something ethereal, it's probably an ethereal being that wears coke-bottle-glasses, stays up all night watching sci-fi marathons of Battlestar Galactica and programs hyped up on cola until the wee hours of the morning.

Lately, life, which I enjoy, has started feeling life a video game, which I don't really care for either way. I haven't been dodging fireballs or fighting dragons to get over bridges or anything; I haven't been saving any princesses or anything either (unfortunately, but I guess that usually comes at the end of the game right?). No, my life is more like one of those old (it has to be old because I remember it and I haven't played video games in decades) role play games where you're an elf that has to walk a huge frustrating world to look for some trinket that you need to proceed further into the game. Have I mentioned this elf character is exceedingly slow? Remind you of anyone? Except normally I don't need to meet anyone or do anything or find anything to move on.

Today however, I constantly felt drag. I set out and quickly lost Kodiak who hitched a ride into Austin and had his own adventures. I stopped at a gas station, an apartment complex, and four hotels, I couldn't pick up any traction as I moved only 7.5 miles during the time before 4 pm. Something was keeping me, for some reason I just didn't feel like I was ready to make the trek or leave Bastrop. After being turned down by every hotel in town I went and sat down in a McDonald's to stall again.

My phone rang. It was the reception woman at the last hotel I went to, she had been looking over my website and called to have me stay with her and her boyfriend. I had stopped at the McD's on the corner of where my path would have diverged from the route to her apartment, my dorky spirit guide had struck again. I've been spending the evening with some great people, drinking, laughing, listening to music both recorded and live, I can't say what it was here that was special or necessary, but I needed it whatever it was. I had to walk East for two miles to get to her flat, it was my first time heading East on the walk, and the first time walking had felt right all day.

Kodiak fared well too. He originally joined me because he wanted to travel and be out adventuring but was too nervous to head out on his own. After a day and two nights he's already on his own living it up in a new city. I think this bird is ready to fly already, I hope he sticks around for a little while at least, probably not right next to me in the way that we originally thought, but somewhere in my vicinity and route.

The good thing in all of this is that I feel like i am helping people. Even if it isn't in the way I originally intended. I didn't really do anything at all for Kodiak, just existed and did my thing, I was just a springboard, training wheels to be quickly set aside. For the people I'm staying with, it would be presumptuous for me to guess what I give them, but I feel like I help them in some way, like I give them something.

So . . . do I get to go to the next level or do I need to find a magic stick or something?