The final day, the last hoorah, my great entrance into the mountain kingdom where I would bed down for my long winter’s nap. I awoke, packed up quickly, and was on the road again, burnt feet and barefooted still, by 7:25am. I had only Aurora between me and my promised land.
36 was getting quite flirtatious with Mr. I-70 that morning and I could tell she was ready to run off with him. I walked about two miles with her before she crossed over him on a little bridge. I decided to leave them to themselves for a bit so I hopped a fence and crossed over to a dirt road that paralleled the two. I figured there’s no reason for me to hold her up since I’ll be parting from her soon anyway, and hopefully they’ll be happy together.
Down this dirt road, though, it seemed he did his own thing and sort of paralleled 70 but veered a bit more north than I’d like. I spotted another bridge over the Interstate as a pickup pulled up near me and a hunting couple got out making their way into the fields. I asked them if over that bridge there was another parallel road that went into Denver and indeed there was, so I wandered down there and crossed over.
My little 36 indeed had gotten together with her affection, that little vixen. I walked along side the two of them for quite a few miles remembering that little road I picked up way back in Hiawatha and all the dreams she had. Now she was with an interstate getting ready to head north with him to Boulder. It touched me deeply. At exit 288 they scampered off. I waved goodbye as I met up with my old friend Colfax Ave. to take me in to the heart of the city.
I took a little break under a tree not long after getting on Colfax and had some oatmeal. Took a little breather for a bit then headed down the road some more as the city began to swell up around me with its suburban outskirts washing in. Within six miles I was in the thick of it, pawn shops and liquor stores mingled with gas stations and car dealers. I was about to cross under I-225 and take another break when I spotted something I hadn’t seen in sometime. A Waffle House. Resistance was futile, I ran in there like a school boy in a candy shop.
While I was in there I took the time to get a phonebook city map so I could really get a good idea of where I was going. I had two options I was considering and I couldn’t get to the bottom of which one I wanted to do. One was to go straight to my new home, meet the new roommates, settle in, and then go check on my job in waiting and wonderment. The other was to go to the job first, pack and all, and see if there is indeed an opening and if nothing else see some old friends as a surprise with the big hulking pack for added emphatic fun. It seemed that the latter option would add an extra five miles away from walking to my new home. I had camped twenty miles out of the city limits so that’d make it a huge walking day since my new home was about five miles south of the center of Denver where the miles were marked to. Either way, this was what I thought about as I munched down eggs, grits, hash browns, and coffee.
Off I went by noon down Colfax again. At this point I stopped thinking about how far to go before resting and all of that since my eyes were so occupied by all the activity going on around me and something new to look at every block I past. A stark contrast from lazily gazing off at the same field for an hour while slowly passing it over.
Slowly I began to recognize street names from when I lived there three years earlier, then after a while of that I began to recognize actual areas as the gold dome of the capital came into sight and drew nearer. There was one diner I wanted to stop in at on my way in which was Pete’s Kitchen. It’s a good food little landmark place that I went to a few times and I knew I’d be passing it before I had to make my decision of going downtown or going home.
It turned out Pete’s was right at the corner of where I needed to make my decision. I wasn’t tired because of the excitement of having gotten into Denver, and I was sort of anxious to know one way or the other about the job, so I decided, screw it, its my last day walking for a while, I’ll go the extra five miles and hit Pete’s on the way back for dinner before heading home. So I continued on.
Over the next hour I passed through the neighborhood I used to live in and walked the same old walk I did every day into work down the 16th St. Mall, which is the main tourist drag. Not much had changed, except when I finally got to my old coffee shop of Common Grounds, by Union Station, my friend Hilary, who I was hoping would be working that day, was not there, and from the sounds of it was on a little vacation. Poo. In addition the manager was not in, and was out for the day. I talked with the guy who was there and picked up an application as well as a coffee, of course, hung out for a bit then shuffled off back towards Pete’s.
Now I was anxious to get to my new home and see what life would be like. I took a different route back through diagonal streets to quicken the journey and ended up getting minorly lost around a children’s hospital. I popped out back on Colfax a few blocks off from where I wanted to be and made my way back up to Pete’s for a good little meal. A nice grilled cheese and some more coffee did me well and by 6 I was heading home.
The trek to the new house was not terribly far, maybe four or five miles, but it was like the approach of Christmas Day to me. Counting every step, doing all the math in my head of timing how long a block took to walk, then figuring how many blocks it would be from the addresses on the doors occupied my brain while I tried to quell the stirring excitement floating about in there.
I had to navigate around a country club, then was surprised ten blocks later by a high school and I-25 in my way which threw me off my course a bit. Finally I steered myself back on course with swiftness and efficiency, steady myself, checked the winds, battened the hatches, and zeroed in on my target. Four blocks more, three blocks more, two blocks more, then one and a half blocks away from where I would be able to rest my aching dogs and drop my pack for six or seven months my swift fluid stride was broken by a light that had just turned red.
Traffic. A river of cars stood before me and my salvation. I waited thirty or forty millennia watching as the ages passed through time before that little red sucker disappeared and his little green friend popped on below him.
At long last, I counted down the numbers on the front porches down the street and came to see the little white building I could actually call home. I didn’t need to be invited in, I wasn’t going in under the kind generosity of someone pleasant I’d met, I was an official inhabitant of the abode and I had every right to come and go as I pleased. The screen door was wide open as well as the main door behind it, the lights were on and music was going, and as I stepped up the little stone steps to the walk way two of my roommates, Andrew and Ravi, peered out like prairie dogs from inside the living room as I made my final approach. A welcome home indeed.
Apparently Andrew had gotten the email I’d sent yesterday today and thought I was coming the next day. They were in the process of cleaning up the living room when I got in so we all sort of milled about getting to know each other for a bit as I settled into my new room and they picked up some more around the house. In the kitchen I saw the note declaring my arrival which read “New roommate gets here tomorrow! Everybody wear pants”. Ah, home.
I was a little disoriented with the idea that I wasn’t going anywhere anymore and that I could actually start rooting myself temporarily with a job and friends, and even little things like ornating my room. There was talk of a concert the next day to go to, and after meeting another roommate, Ryan; she, Ravi, and I piled into her car and went grocery shopping where I didn’t have to consider weight on whether or not to buy, and things that required refrigeration were an option now. I ended up getting a five pound brick of cheese, four boxes of crackers, a Boston cream cake (thinking it was a cheesecake), and a roll of cookie dough amongst other things. It was stable life once again.
So this was my homecoming. Later in the night I met the fourth and final roommate, Mat, and was able to finally secure in my mind that, yes, all of my new roommates are in fact cool people as it had seemed over emails, and I will have a good time this winter. The lot of us chatted some throughout the night as I unpacked things in my room and they cleaned or made dinner and such.
The end of the first leg of the walk was at its end, so now, I suppose, for the winter break I bid the lot of you that have been following along from Georgia to Colorado a temporary adieu. Most likely I’ll be rummaging over this site through out my stable months and fixing up posts here and getting things working better like the map and other things, as well as putting up the pictures from Kansas and Colorado when they get developed and adding to previous posts stories I may have forgotten to write in at the time but remember later on. I’m also thinking of putting up a monthly update to keep some sort of chronology going before starting off again next spring, so feel free to keep checking it periodically; there may be new things to see and read of interest if you would like. Who knows maybe this winter I’ll just save the world from something. For now though, I thank the lot of you for your interest in my travels and all of your support, those who put me up or physically aided my journey in some way, as well as those who simply think this is cool and told me so suppressing the doubts that occasionally rise in my head wondering why I’m doing this. So, without further adieu I bid you all goodbye for now.
Tune in next season as The Walker from the East traverses the deadly Rocky mountain passes through the wilds of Wyoming and beyond. Will he make it to Seattle alive? Or will the evil Awol’s army of automatons finally seek him out and crush him? The chilling conclusion in 2004.