Day 140, August 21, 2012

  I woke up after hearing a truck zoom by. I looked out and it was all dry. The rain must have stopped in the night. It was pretty overcast still and pretty cool temperature still. I got up and packed my things. It was about 9am.
        I took off down the frontage road heading west. The frontage went about 6 miles before tying back into the 40 where it ended. So I walked down it and enjoyed the quiet. Sometimes jumping on the 40 first thing in the morning can be a little overwhelming. The big rigs flying by you less than 10 feet away, one after another. Some loads blow you back when they pass by. So the frontage is nice and peaceful opposed to that. Plus this one was more slow than usual.
           I walked about 3 miles when I stopped on a railing and made a peanut butter sandwhich for breakfast. I stopped there for maybe 10 minutes and then got right back at it.
         I got to the dead end where I turned left to get back onto the 40. I jumped back on the 40 and was still going strong. It was a lot of uphill, not steep, but very gradual.
        I got on a roll and walked all the way until the next exit which put me at about 12 miles in. I pulled off there to take a break where there was a gas station. When I walked up I noticed a really cool old car. When I got close I saw that the car was covered in signatures. The guy was standing at the gas pump and I asks him what the story on the car was.
        The guy looked at me and then looked back at his phone and told me its driving all around the country to help kids with cancer. I thought all the signatures were cool and I asked if I could sign somewhere. The guy looked at me and sarcastically said "are you a kid with cancer?". I said "oh, it's only signed by kids with cancer, gotcha." then he looked back at his phone and turned away. So I just walked away. I liked the purpose but the guy was pretty rude.
       I left my cart by the door of the gas station. I walked back to the guy and asked if there was anyway to follow the journey? And he said "ya Facebook" and never looked up from his phone or said anything else. So I asked "what's the Facebook page?" and then he said drive away cancer. I said "cool, il try and get you some likes". Then he turned to me, he seemed surprised like he didn't think I had any way to access Internet. I'm not sure but that was my guess. He said "where are you going?" so I told him. Then he had changed his attitude suddenly. He asked if he could get a picture and then gave me stickers and a wrist band and asked me to sign the car. So I did.
         I went inside and sat my stuff on the table. I got a hot dog and a drink there. My food supply has been very low and I planned to get some stuff in the next town at a dollar store maybe. I sat there and ate while my stuff was plugged in behind the hot dog machine.
        I took about 20 minutes to rest there before leaving. I left there quickly wanting to get further down the road and find a place before dark. The next exit was a ways. So I needed to get back at it.
         I walked from there about 6 miles when the sun was lighting up the sky in a really pretty color. There was an exit there but not far enough yet where I wanted to be done for the day. But I decided to take the off ramp to get up higher for a picture.
        When I was climbing up the hill on the exit, I saw a van parked off the exit. I didn't really think twice about it. But when I passed the van there was a guy in there and he asked if I was "hobo nick?". I said yeah! He had been following my travels and was on his way back to AZ from back east. He spotted me and wanted to stop and check on me. Awesome! He a pro motocross racer that heard about me through the Moto industry. I have a lot of people in the industry following me since a bunch of my friends race pro.
       He asked if I needed anything. I didn't want to ask for anything so I said I was ok. He said when I got to the flagstaff area ahead he would come meet up with me again. That was cool! He said Good luck and took off. I took some pictures of the sunset and went back down to the interstate to keep walking.
        I walked another 6 miles when it was getting pretty dark. I came to a little pull off where there was a construction yard with huge piles of rocks. I got off there and was gonna stay there for the night.
       The biggest pile was about 30-40 feet tall and had a ramp going to the top. It was pretty steep but I pushed my cart up top of it. I got to the very top and could see all around. It was a really cool spot to sleep! I laid my bed down there and it was pretty comfortable. Even though it was rock, it had a little give in it and the rocks were even rather than sticking into me like sometimes rocks do.
        I was happy with the spot and fell asleep there with clear skies around me. I had walked 24 miles and was beat! I fell asleep in about the coolest outside spot yet around 9pm. It was a good night.
      I could have never imagined what was coming in the morning. Possibly the craziest thing that has happened the entire way so far was about to wake me up in full survival and intensity mode....