A Vagabond's Persistent Itch

As the sun rises and the fog lifts leaving a morning dew, all the streets begin to fill as motorists wait patiently for the lights to turn colors permitting action. Mothers drop off the young ones, acquire the daily food goods from the local, regional or national grocer and then retire back to the nest to do yoga in the living room. Men who have been tempered by years of sweat grab coffee and cigarettes from the convenience store as they get back into a company work truck to head off to a new and unfamiliar job site. It’s another morning and everything seems to be as usual.

Often we go about our days, lost in the petty happenings of our own lives, forgetting the immensity of the world around us.

What is all of this? We are on a rock floating through space. Were we meant to live, work, pay the bills and die? Is that all the significance our lives can have? Or is there something more?

A year ago, I embarked on the journey of a life time after losing my camper and a significant portion of my working capital in a fire. I’m a diesel mechanic by trade but an entrepreneur at heart. And it’s really hard to fix broken equipment without tools. Lots of tools.

My best friend broke his collar bone in a sketchy accident involving a car, a longboard and two young, reckless kids who may or may not have been on drugs. We had to send him home. I was left alone and without tools in a dead and dying oilfield. What else is one to do in such a situation?

I sold my truck for $300, after blowing a tire and barely getting it to the scrapyard. I gave away my tent to a homeless man after realizing I couldn’t carry it and all the other bullshit I decided to try lugging all the way to Mexico. A short time later, I find myself in the back of Elvis Presley’s Rolls Royce being interviewed for a documentary about what went wrong with America. It’s all too surreal.

So naturally, I get picked up next by someone who has ties from the motorcycle clubs all the way to the presidents office. I just did my best to maintain. I mean, it all sounded good. It was just a lot. She let me crash in her car and then shower at her house the next morning before feeding me and bringing me a few more hours down the road.

After a wait that seemed like eternity in a little town in eastern Wyoming called… ahh who am I kidding? I was in the middle of nowhere. I felt stranded and I wasn’t sure what to think. Although the wait wasn’t as long as I thought it was going to be, it was well worth it because I caught a ride all the way to Colorado from there. The couple that picked me up ended up being from my hometown. Crazy.

So I get to Colorado and start looking for some weed because pot’s legal man and I almost immediately meet another guy about my age who just “took to the streets”. (Lol. It sounds so hood.) “Billy goat” and I got to know each other rather quickly and spent a month meandering our way through Colorado.

The epitome was by far the day we popped what we thought were two hits of acid a piece and hiked 8 miles up Ten Mile Creek to Copper Mountain where we commandeered the elevator room of one of the condo’s for the night. The middle of July at 6:45 am is a great time to pee off the roof of a condo in a ski resort town.

The hike up the canyon was intense.

Eventually all journeys come to an end but it’s the legend that lives on. The memories might fade but the experiences are priceless. It’s easy to see why I’m so excited to leave for round two in the next few days! I just got my new hammock and this time I have a GoPro.

-Balls