The First Week

Today I left home.  Bye bye Kalamazoo Michigan.  Elkhart Indiana is my first order of business, for there lies my first couch surfing host.  I will miss all of my friends and family, yet despite this I feel the single most beautiful sense of liberation
I've even known.  I now have only the road to keep me company, only the next horizon to tempt me, only the gentle wind to usher me forward.  I thank God for this immersion of solitude, for this overwhelming sense of uncertainty.  Such is the perfect setting for the start of a marvelous adventure.  
So off I set, down a long country road whose name I can't recall.  Mile after mile, through meadows and forests and pastures and towns.  By about my 9th mile I took rest beneath the shade of an oak by the road, the glaring sun and the fourty pounds strapped to my back having joined forces in bringing about my demise.  Or at least, it showed me down a bit. 
My hope was roused when a kindly young sir in a Superman T pulled over and offered to help me on my way.  I cannot help but admire someone who chooses kindness over caution.  Thus I was extracted from my sauntering slog of sweat-soaked suffering, and after so soundly rescuing me the Man of Steel drove me the full 30 miles to Elkhart Indiana.  I thanked him heartily.
In Elkhart I met Brock, my first couch surfing host.  An experienced vagabond, he shared with me many tales of his travels and was a hospitable host, giving me his barn loft as my place of sleep and repose.  For the next few days the two of us engaged in deep conversations around the bonfire and I was introduced to several of Brock's friends.  We played cards and beer pong at night and during the day he showed me around Elkhart.  It is a quaint town.  We even visited the railroad museum. 
By the end I can't help but feel a brotherly fondness for dear Brock.  He was a smashing host and I will forever remember his kindness and hospitality as well as his wealth of worldly wisdom.
So long, blood brother.
Brock dropped me off at an interstate on-ramp and wished me luck, and taking heed of a few pointers he gave me I quickly solicited a ride.  From there is was smooth sailing to Michigan City in the bed of a pickup truck.  Even at 70mph I quite nearly fell asleep.
Once there I trekked into town and pitched tent in a small strip of forest by a railroad track.  My little tent kept the mosquitos out, and watching them bounce against the mesh in tiny futile crusades for the blood from which I forbade them was endlessly satisfying.
After a lumpy night, I decided there was nothing in Michigan City I was looking for and got back on the road.  My next destination, I decided, was Champagne Illinois.
Hitchhiking went well enough that day, up until, at a pygmy truckstop town halfway to my destination, I was given a talking to by a couple coppers.  Blah blah blah illegal blah blah blah dangerous blah blah blah well meaning advice.  To be fair, they did seem well meaning.  But ultimately it was thanks to their intervention that I was now stranded.  So, much to my displeasure I decided to take their advice and ask around the gas stations and truckstops for a ride.  Altogether I received cold shoulders, blatant BS and some useless advice.
Finally a man rolled into the shell station as dusk began and promised me he would be coming back southbound through town in the morning.  He said he would pick me up.  I believed him.
By this point I had joined a conversation with a few truckers and was quickly learning their routes and indigenous trucker lingo.  We all talked for hours.  We talked into the night.  In that shady parking lot, beneath the awning of a shell station, pouring rain all around us, we engaged in the kind of conversation you only find among fellows you know you'll never see again.  But what we think we know is seldom ever so.
We had become genuine friends, and by the morning (we had pulled an all-nighter) we were exchanging numbers.  I was told if ever I need to get somewhere in a hurry, call one of thrm and they'll see what they can do.  It was almost as if I was one of them.  It was good.
I said goodbye to my trucker friends and they all went their ways, back to their routes.
I myself remained under the awning at the shell station, and by 11am it became abundantly clear nobody was coming to pick me up.  Ah well.
By this point I was undead.  Slogging about in my sleepless state I was about to return to asking for rides when suddenly I witnessed a woman's car break down.  She didn't seem to be able to get it started again.  Make no mistake; I would have helped her regardless of whether or not I needed to get to Champagne.  That said, I am also something of an opportunist.
I got her car started for her, and in the process I gently guided our conversation into the subject of my Truckstop Purgatory. 
She took me to Champagne.
In Champagne Illinois I met Christopher, my second couch surfing host. 
A man of deep intellect and quiet integrity, Chris welcomed me generously into his home.  Hr offered to let me help out with a few moving jobs, so in short I spent my few days in Champagne working, eating burgers, sipping coffee at local coffee houses and spending long hours discussing science, spirituality, philosophy, politics and health.  It was a grand stay in a lovely college town.
Finally I bode Chris farewell and went on my way, now bound for Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Thumb up on the interstate, I squint my eyes against the brilliance of the day and stand stoic, thumb and spirits aloft.

QUOTE OF THE WHATEVER ~

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” ~ Jon Krakauer