Day 33 Mile 403-422

Leaving Juntura

When I went into the cafe this morning folks started chatting with me and asking me if I was the guy walking across America... “Sure am”. Turns out the Burns Times-Herald had come out with their article on me and now people driving Route 20 East knew who I was. I met Drew From Ontario, OR who was staying with his aunt here in Juntura until he moves to Portland. Everyone seems to find peace in this Oasis valley. Lavonne who hosted me at the Desert Creek Ranch in Brothers was on her way back from visiting her daughter in Boise and stopped by the Oasis Cafe for a soda. She hadn’t been able to talk Donny in to leaving the Ranch and going into the city is not something that they particularly enjoy. When visiting her daughter she ended up cleaning up her place... I told Lavonne that it should be the other way around...especially after Mothers Day. Lavonne is also trying to talked Donny into getting a sleep number bed that she found at a great deal back in Bend. I sent my best wishes on to Donny and it was great to see a face from earlier in the walk. I sometimes get an out of place out of time feeling as I really live in the moment with not much that carries over day to day so it is always fun to see folks that I had met earlier out where I am in the present. I visited with Tammy, Brandy, Terry and Eva before purchasing some sandwich fixins and hitting the road. I walked out and along the Malhuer River and as I walked along in the heat listening to Issac Asimov tell his favorite stories, Eric drove up next to me and invited me to stop by at his place up a few miles. I came up to a great farm house and big red barn and saw Eric and some of his friends out on the porch watering the yard and staying out of the heat. I came up to the house and Luke came out and gave me a cold gatorade and a second one for the road. Eric, Lyle, Luke, and Dave are members of the Northern Paiute Indian tribe that extends From Central Oregon into Idaho, Northern California and Nevada. These four guys worked for their tribe as forest service workers and managed the house and ranch where they grow alfa-alfa to sell. Today they were out moving the watering systems around to another field. I talked with Eric for a while who I think was about my age. We spoke on issues of faith and culture and the distinctions between young and old civilizations. I told him about the Tinglit Master Story teller I had listened to in Corvallis and that from my walk and my connections with nature and the land I understood the meaning, depth, and lessons of a culture based on the oral tradition which educate its members on the soul of the world. Although him and his contemporaries are not fluent in their native tongue and most have accepted Christianity, he still finds joy in the traditions of his people which perceives the soul of the world and how we interact and connect with it. We found the detachment of younger or modern societies from legends depicting the earth as alive and from stories of how we became what we are as a missing element which could serve to make people more conscious and aware in their daily lives. I really enjoyed visiting and taking a break form the heat but I had to make another push in the afternoon and it was cooling off a little so I could push forward. I finally met the infamous Shoe Tree! Thousands of shoes tied to this tree and in such bunches that the shoes looked almost like the fruit of the tree and like it had grown organically from within. I camped out at a little bend in the road right down on low riverside land. I was on wet clay and thought maybe it was quicksand... but I poked in with walking staff and felt hard bottom and I didn’t sink during the night. The sunset on the trees and water just glowed.