I missed the truck ride into town. Not surprising, so I decided to start walking.

I needed to escape; the last 8 days had been some wild ones hanging with the English and Kiwis. We had some laughs. When you spend that much time together you become a cog in the wheel and no one wanted me to leave. I had to sleep with my backpack so they could not steal it to keep me from moving on. We all speak the same language, but the English and Kiwis have so much slang that I only understood half of what they said. I had learned a lot in the last week. I told them in the future they should carry a dictionary of their slang for people who plan on hanging with them for more than a week. It would avoid some misunderstandings, but then again some of them were quite funny.

I was walking along at a good clip feeling the freedom of the dusty road. It was a dry land with a diversity of trees that were quite enchanting to look at. As I walked along, it felt like all living things were trying to suck the moisture out of me. There was a scattering of houses along the road all blasting music. They looked more like the outbuildings you would see on ranches in Wyoming, but no people lived in these buildings with their families. I would get the occasional wave from people out doing their morning chores, then the houses gave way to the wildness of the land and that winding road.

I heard them before I saw them—ump ump and getting louder—I looked up to see about 14 howler monkeys in one tree all moving out on the limbs to get a better look at me. What a collection of characters. One old boy had his knees high, elbows on the wing, scratching his cheek head tilted to the side wondering who I was. I had a good visit with them, got a chuckle out of it all and walked on.

I was getting hot and dried out. I knew that two miles from the beach camp was a little store, so I kept up my pace in anticipation of some cold juice. I got there with a powerful thirst and was greeted by a young boy holding a baby followed by the mother. I stood under the shade of that porch sucking down cold juice while the boy with baby moved closer to watch. I looked out on that wild land thinking it looked so much better from the shade. I said my goodbyes and walked out into the heat of the day, which was building fire. Just when I was thinking about hitching, a truck came along and offered me a ride. Good karma. They were headed into town. The teenager sitting next to me had on a baseball uniform and looked eager for the game. We stopped next to a cornfield and he got out and walked right into the corn. Christ, so it is true the story of the playing fields.