on my way back from bend to eugene for a doctors appointment i meet john carcia through this website for travelers. travelers on the anarchist / punk spectrum of things. he had recently signed up and had been looking to get into the freight scene. i open the page after a few weeks absence and find a message inviting me over to eugene and i tell him im there tomorra anyways whatsup. lucky timing, as it turned out — huge ice storm hits the same week. guy houses me up at the place hes staying with a handful of youngsters.. im pleasantly surprised to find a band of of them essentially squatting an old two story in the middle of the suburbs.
I spend two-three months here and john and i and one josh sometimes jamming in the garage. we almost feel like a potential band, the three of us, for just a little while there. and john and i start making excursions into town together every week or so with our instruments, to see if we could make any money (himself being every bit as broke as i was).
when the ice storm hits we have 3-4 days straight of freezing rain and theres a few inches of solid ice left over everything. theres trees everywhere toppling over from the sheer weight of it all, and i even see a man ice skating through the street, just cruising along.
meanwhile im making trips from foodbank to foodbank and carrying loads of beer cans out across the river from cal anderson to fred meyer or walmart for 10 - 20 dollarsworth of deposit. drinking profusely and boosting most of it from every grocer in town — except for walmart and winco.. those didnt look so easy.
i go for a few job interviews without any luck, except for the one i land and then drunkenly piss the employer off via text before i ever even start.. but labor ready got me a few days work, at the last minute, unloading drywall. probably the most physically demanding job ive had in years.. basically just lifting all day every day, which isnt all bad if you look at it differently.. like maybe this means you dont need a gym membership. all in perspective.
john and i had been talking freight a lot but not nearly enough to leave me with the impression he was going to get off the fence about whatever direction, in his mind, he was ultimately going to be taking with the approaching spring. so was surprised when he said finally that he was ready to leave the house and make the leap to freight. mainly, i figured the house — his living situation in general — was beginning to wear on him and he just needed a break. little fresh air.
so let the wind lead the way. after taxes come in i put together a little money to throw at matt in ways of rent / compensation.. buy a new jacket and new pack.. and with beer money enough remaining to get me at least a week on. so.. we head out to the train yard after my last day with the drywall place, at times of our own convenience respectively, meeting up at maxwell to wait on a southbound.
for whatever reason the z that comes that night has zero rides. or at least any of the normal fare.. the only wells available are these fucked up little beveled ones where half the floor dips down. uncomfortable as hell. mother fucker.. and that was poor old johns first and only ride.
Kfalls doesnt have a whole lot going on downtown.. gotta hit it on a saturday early.. so we never really pull out the instruments there. just sort of wander over to fred meyers and circle back again, to the outlet at the sbd spot, next day.
not surprisingly johns back on the fence about it that morning, saying maybe rain (his def cattle dog) isnt freight riding material afterall.. and that hed head on over to the coast instead. he really seemed to be fond of yachats for whatever reason. i only recognized the name of the town bc i had gone to job corps there way back in 2013. anyway, he peaces out to the amtrak station — i later learn that he had gone hitching it instead, and a damn time of it too. (not a fun stretch of interstate).
so he leaves, then i leave to the store to grab a fresh case of beer.. and just as soon as im walking back my imds pulls in and i start running. five minutes later im hauling ass out of town with my first cold beer and im watching the bastard sun climb up out of the morning mist. im certain that if that train had been just 20 minutes earlier john wouldve been on that train with me and he wouldve found a better way.
jumped off in old roseville for 24hrs to fly a sign up at the bel air. made a 100 and split on the next eastbound. i stay with this train clear to wyoming, but we did work in salt lake for some hours.. another block is added and we leave off again. making almost 48 hours altogether up to the overland and eastward by green river. most of the gms seem to stop over here in rock springs, the town over, way the hell on the other side of an impassable marsh land; so was glad to be stepping off in green river proper this time, at the old riverbridge. took the most satisfying shit ever in my life i did take. dead quiet and the headlights of the interstate against the canyon on the far side.
never much to be done here unless youve dirty laundery ig.. but to soak up the peace and quiet, relax and re-discover all the power outlets around bc you always forget just where they're hiding here. two other riders are at the mavericks there and we chill for awhile, share stories. one mutual acquaintance. and the stars come freckling out over the fading light.
left a few hours later and was in cheyenne early next morning.
in cheyenne i find a little bit of yardwork after flying at either walmarts, and spend a few weeks just sort of wandering around town there, drinking. a wild windstorm appears, clocking just a touch under 100 mph.. some category l hurricane shit. i about blow right over the side of the overpass. three blocks was a real endeavor that day, and they had canceled most of the city busses.. so for a day or so im sat in a corner against the wall.. just like usual except this time its for cover from flying shrapnel and debris..
when i decide to head out ive decided to hitch it to casper first, bc the north/south traffic goes right by the military base there and wasnt entirely clear on where to spot it nor willing to spend another week doing so i head toward the onramp up near the shopping centers. i meet a couple of scruffy rubber tramps headed the same way that were flying at the walmart there. dont remember their names but we made bank at the centers in casper once we made it in. about 300 in a couple hours.. split it up and they skidaddled north again. on the way up from cheyenne it looked almost like kansas, just a little hill here and there and a whole lot of grass/brush — then, out of nowhere, mountains.
tried my hand at the same spot alone a few days later.. made a little more beer pitch and scored a days work in some young couples front yard. didnt run into any other travelers for my time in casper. just wandered around, restocking on beer here and there and back again, practicing guitar. im sure there must be a good spot to busk somewhere around casper but i never found one.
i had originally assumed the daily z-seall went up this line but after looking over the cc and the maps realized that they moustly route around through billings and down via wendover in the east. cheyenne — casper — greybull — laurel is evidently all junk gms, and relatively sparse. so had to guess which string in the little yard here was leaving first, out of each respective yard. and once in laurel the mains of the lowline come through and theres less guessing there.
wind river canyon had been on the bucket list for a long time. for the duration actually, since picking up an issue of aaron dactyls 'railroad semantics', where he recounts his and one 'T-BOX's trip through there.. jumping off at a siding along the river where, waiting some days for another to side out, they find some old ass hobo tags carved into the rock wall nearby.
a gorgeous ride, and my manifest departed casper at the perfect time, so that i was rolling through it right around late morning. even the weather was immaculate and i caught plenty of pictures of the canyon for posterity.
greybull just an hour north of that, and its as small and low key as any. i find a shoestring tag from like 94 or something. cant find the photo of it id had now.
i wait a few days. almost lose my shit somewhere in the dark of the yard im so drunk, at one point. had fallen asleep on a lumber rack in the middle of an IDing mission like a dumbass and completely forgot, on waking, which track id grounded my gear next to.
between greybull and laurel my gm stops 10 miles out of lovell for something like 2 days. cant go anywhere ofc bc you dont know just when youll air back up and go, it could be any minute. but luckily, when i ran out of water, i found some up in the headend. then an empty box some 30 back from there before a big rain came. theres someone coughing in the box just ahead of mine, opened on the far side.. and next morning decided there was two up there cause for a brief time heard something like lovemaking.
laurels chill. but forget the travel center on the east side though. terrible beer selection and no foodies. just stay southside by the grocers, save yourself the time; there aint shit out there up the road. another couple weeks.. i do laundery, some folks give me money, i drink a bunch.. just drinking.. and ever so often i get a hair up my ass and look at my guitar. something haunts me and i play it out, sometimes successfully othertimes not so well. its a funny sort of.. process, this matter with the guitar.. am i drinking to play or is it the other way around.
i grab some loaded coal out of laurel and get off in helena to rinse and repeat there. some auto detailer gives me a few hours work in his shop, and theres a few bucks on the side made flying walmart. again, no fellow travelers anywhere i can see.. just more wandering around town, although i dont go too far here, the whole place is at a tilt and everytime i have to walk back uphill for more beer i swear its the last.
on the way back to the yard there i dumpster a couple of whole ass large pizzas from dominos. score. and when i get there, another coal train waiting on the main for me, theres a shower of greens and pinks dancing around in the sky to the north and i watch this over a pizza and long after we air up and leave into the night. tall shafts of grey pulsating electrically directly overhead all through the mountains and stars. aurora borealis.
missoula
id fairly set my mind some years prior, after buying the silvertone there, that id go back to missoula to stay and so when i arrived it felt like a real accomplishment. i may not have the glock id planned to have for it anymore but ive got everything i need to make it anyhow.
but all i do is play. play in the street, play in the dark and under the bridge and in the alleyways play.
labor ready gives me a few things but thats my only cash flow. i meet one other traveler there the entire summer and i dont know where or how i mustve missed the rest because missoula is definitely a point of interest along the hi/low line every summer.
teague and i were sent out to the same detailing job by labor ready. this big boat and rv place up reserve ave. id seen him and his dogs walking that way, out the window of the bus there. thinking oh look theres one… shortly before the shift starts sure enough. guy shows up and we acquaint ourselves. sort of a rare thing to see a fellow traveler working through labor ready, we agree… and to be assigned the same shift!
guys camping out on an island on the river with old unused tracks that run out to it. same day his dog shits, for what was i guess the umpteenth time, all over the place and they tell him to leave halfway through the day. but we chill at some point the following week — guys hitching the main drag south, bc they wont let his dogs aboard the bus.. i had just gotten off my temp shift at walmart and was sitting in the grass out by the street.. just looked up and there he was again, with his thumb out.
wasnt much longer before i left. the aim had been to find work and stay there, in missoula.. but as time passed, all i did was play.. in the street, in the dark, under the bridge and in the alleyways play, missoula. and when the summer had gone i was gone with it.. with cheery notions about the warm friendly beaches, missoula.