Drive through Colorado.

After I left, Guymon OK, I headed through the Northwest corner of New Mexico, past Capulin Volcano, and across the south edge of Colorodo to Utah.

Soon after arriving in Colorado on I-25, I turned west on Hwy 160 and that is precisely when the adventure began. I stopped at a small coffee shop just to get a cup and to sit down and write out a postcard before heading towards Durango Colorado. As I walked into the coffee shop, I noticed an older man with a backpack and hiking pole, but neither of us really paid much attention to the other. Inside the coffee shop, a nice woman offered to take my postcard to the mailbox, because it was out of my way, and I had the "itch" to get to Moab. ( I was about 5-6 hours away). When I walked back out, curiously, I asked the guy where he had been hiking. He pointed up to the mountains (Sangra de Cristos) and said "up there". I became even more curious, because I would never even consider going up those alone. Especially if I looked like this guy. He was slightly overweight and could have been a grandfather. Anyway, I sat down next to him to finish my coffee and asked where he was headed. He said he came into town to wash some clothes, eat, and catch a bus to Salida, CO to continue his walk. THe only problem was that there is no bus running from Walsenburg, CO to Salida, CO. So of course, I said, "well I'm going west, hop on board." He quickly agree, we introduced our selves and left. His name was John and I asked him where he was from, he said" I was born in the U.S., grew up in Canada, and now live on the road." I was fascinated by this guy, he wasn't headed anywhere and was not the typical wanderer. He wasn't technically homeless, but he didn't really have an address. To make a long story short, he had an amazing story. We rode together for 4 hours all the way to Durango, CO. I found out that he was a retired Delta Force officer. He had 6 kids, 18 grandkids, and lost his wife. 2 months prior to their retirement, his wife since he was 18 was killed in a car crash. It was then that John shed all of his stuff and just went walking. That was ten years ago. He lives off of his Army retirement and his family is a very wealthy Morman bunch in Utah. So he didn't have to live on the road, but he did. He had severe survivor's remorse and just couldn't deal with what his life used to be. So, he moved himself, "to the bottom of the food chain." We talked the whole time. He told me about Vietnam, how to hitchhike, how to hop freight trains, and about his experiences around the world. A couple of times a year, he teaches a survival course for the Army and it is urban survival. He takes 8 men out with a mission and no identification and they have to make it around on basically nothing. He was adamant in saying that survival was not "killing and eating everything in site somewhere in alaska" he said survival is when your plane crashes and you have 1,000 people looking for you and you have to survive. He was a really cool guy and we had a lot to talk about...wars, civil rights, homlessness, survival, hiking, and worlds of other things. He had some awesome and unbelievable stories. He may have been completely lying and I may end up in his freezer a few years down the road, but if it was all fiction, it was a damn good fiction book.