Solar Panels The photo shows two Goal Zero solar panels hanging on my cart facing the sun as I was getting ready to leave my camp near Jordanelle Reservoir, Utah, the second night out on my walk. GOALZERO sponsored me by loaning me the large solar panel in the photo and a Sherpa 50 Power Pack. They are able to power my MacBook Air notebook computer which I use to write my blogs. I bought the small solar panel with a backup battery and they power my smartphone.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android smartphone which I use for all sorts of things. It is my camera, cellphone, GPS, and mobile WiFi hotspot. Verizionwireless is my wireless provider. If I have a good 4G signal, I can be out in the sagebrush using my MacBook writing blog posts. However, I also take advantage of businesses that offer WiFi, air-conditioning, wall plugs for power and a table and chair as a spot to write my blogs. Sometimes, parks have live power outlets. I have a couple of backup batteries for my phone as well.

I also do Ruby on Rails web development when I set up camp as I get the time. My programming buddy, Tyler Bird has been a great help showing me how to use Octopress as “A blogging framework for hackers.” Which means my blog is an Octopress blog as opposed to something like WordPress. (WordPress is good too.)

Deserted Buildings at Dearfield, Colorado

I camped a few hundred feet from these abandoned buildings. This is the first time I have ever seen the road sign entering a town “Dearfield” and the road sign leaving a town only about one hundred feet apart.

Monument Telling the Dearfield Story

This monument tells the story of an effort to make a home for African-Americans in 1910. Racial segregation would have been general across the United States at the time. This was only 45 years from the end of the Civil War. Blacks were slaves and then when they were emancipated, they were homeless.

It gave me additional pause to think about how do we treat each other as individuals, communities, nations and internationally, so that there are no refugees, slaves or homeless. I hope to share some some thoughts on the solution in another post.

Irrigating Corn

There is a lot of beautiful farmland around Greeley, Colorado. It seems like most of the farming uses irrigation. One method of irrigation is show in the picture.

I am on the plains now. The mountains are behind me. A lot of nice people in Greeley. I got a haircut in Greeley and when I went to pay, the stylist said that the lady she was doing before me paid for my haircut. What a sweet lady. Sometimes looking like a homeless person has its benefits. I spent a couple of extra days in Greeley catching up on my blog and resting my feet.

Family in Nyamlel, South Sudan

This photo is of Claron with the family of Luka Yei Yei. I stayed in Luka’s compound for one week on my first visit in 2007 to South Sudan. The two little girls on the front row are orphans that stay with Luka.

So far my blog has mostly been a travel log of my walk. I intend on saying more about the work of Southern Sudan Humanitarian. One of the schools we help is in Nyamlel, South Sudan where the picture was taken. The elementary school currently has about 800 students. Half of the students are motherless, fatherless or totally orphaned. We have paid teachers salary, built classrooms and provided supplies. Check out our photos on our Flickr account. If you sponsor me on my walk, it goes to help the children in South Sudan.

The Walmart in Timnath, Colorado is the only Walmart location in many miles that allows truckers and recreational vehicles to stay overnight in the parking lot.

I was near here when I called the police dispatch in Windsor, Colorado. This is a technic to find a camping spot for the night. I said that I was walking cross county and is there a park or someplace I can put up my backpacking tent for the night. The dispatcher said that there was not and if I stayed in a park, the police would hassle me. This technic helps if they say yes, you know right where to go and the police can watch after you. If the dispatcher says no, now you have a problem. I called the town of Timnath and got the same response of “no.” One of the dispatchers suggested that Walmart by where I was lets people camp there. I went into the Walmart and the manager said it was okay. She also said that I was the first person who had asked to put up a tent.

My repetitive talking about where I spent the night may be getting boring to my reader, but if you are a refugee or a homeless person, it is a big deal.

Plaque at the start of my walk about Utah Pioneers.

Happy “Pioneer Day!” Back in Utah, we celebrate July 24 for the day in 1847 when Brigham Young and the Mormon Pioneers first entered the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. I started my walk at This Is the Place Heritage Park. The Mormons where refugees back then.

The photo is of a statue in the Denver airport. I didn’t want to ride the shuttle to Fort Collins and get off the bus not knowing where I was going just before dark, so I stayed at the airport overnight. I met some nice people.

I met Lianbo, who is in the USA as a visiting professor from China. It was interesting to hear about her observations of the differences between the USA and China. A lot of the differences come from the fact that the Chinese government has actively taught that there is no God for 70 years. I stayed up most of the night catching up on my blog.

The beautiful woman in the photo is my wife. After five weeks of walking, my wife and I spent about 72 hours together in Denver. Rental car, hotel and flying my wife in like regular American tourists. The building in the background is the Denver Temple.

Pat Legel

In the morning after looking down the barrel of a gun, daylight and dryness was most welcome. Pat Legel, pictured, was walking his dog in the park, and we had a good visit. I told him about having the gun pulled on me last night. He invited me to come throw out my sleeping bag at his place which is about a half mile from the park. I was grateful to have a secure place to sleep.

Before I left the park, I had the opportunity to meet local homeless person Jason. We had some good conversations. He seems like a nice enough guy. He has some odd habits, like yelling out at someone he is talking to whom you can’t see. I kind of felt like we became good friends. Not really sure whether he was the guy who pulled the gun on me last night or not.

I will give Wanderlust Adventures an unashamed plug. Pat owns Wanderlust Adventures. They are one of the five companies that have permits to run commercial rafting adventure on the Poudre River in Poudre Canyon. For $50, you can have six miles of whitewater adventure. As I mentioned before, Poudre River is amazing. It is some great river running in a fairly short distance from a metro area. If you get to the Denver area, look up Wanderlust Adventures and have some fun going down the river.

I had maybe more adventure today than I would have wanted. I started out bathing in the river. A little adventurous for me. After a lot of long days of walking, I am getting a bit foot-sore, so just thinking about another long day of walking seemed like a challenge.

It started raining before 3:00PM and I walked in steady rain, often heavy rain until after 7:00PM. The only things that I have a fairly sure waterproofing system for is my critical electronics. So, I knew that it was more than me that was getting wet. Sometime after 5:00PM, I was out of Poudre Canyon and reached the intersection of highways 14 and 287 to the first real convenience store/gas station in many miles. It was also my first good mobile network reception for five days. I was happy to be able to talk to my wife on the cell phone and have the prospect of Internet connectivity. Wilderness is wonderful, but, well, civilization also has it’s benefits.

I asked the clerk at the convenience store, Ted’s Place, if there was a place like a park with an awning where I could get out of the rain. She said that I could find an awning at Lion’s Park about five miles down the road in LaPorte. Sure enough, I finally got out of the rain under an awning over three picnic tables at the park. I cooked up some dinner for myself using my backpacking stove. Then I considered how I was going to get my stuff dry, but at least it was dry under the awning. I walked 23 miles for the day.

As it was getting dark, I pitched my tent on the concrete under the awning and between the picnic tables. No need for the rainfly. I climbed into my somewhat dry sleeping bag. I called my wife and we said our prayers together over the phone as is our habit when we have mobile network. I said my personal prayers and settled down to go to sleep. Then I started to wonder if the river which was nearby was going to overflow it’s banks. An internet search on my smartphone indicated that the river was a long way from flood stage. Then I thought, “I didn’t really take a good look at the drainage around this concrete pad. I should get out of the tent and look at the drainage with my flashlight.”

As I was climbing out of the tent, a voice said, “I’ve got you covered. Lay down on the ground. I am checking you out.” I was looking down the barrel of a revolver. It was mostly dark, but the guy pointing the revolver at me had a flashlight next to the revolver, pointed at me that also shined some light on the gun. I was thinking, 32 special like you would see in old TV police shows. I was a little startled at first, but I felt quite calm.

The guy with the gun said, “I have a badge.” But, he never did identify himself as an officer. Sparing you the whole conversation, I figure the guy was a homeless person that was maintaining his territory, but was nice enough to say, “I am clearing you to stay here for two nights.” I went back to bed and felt the Lord was in charge and I was going to get a good nights sleep, because it was in His hands. I slept well and in the morning, I found that the guy had left a mostly empty can of Bud Light on the bench of the picnic table.

Poudre River and Poudre Canyon

The Poudre River presents a lot of opportunities for recreation. This picture shows a stretch of the river that looks like great trout fishing. “Poudre” is pronounced by the locals as “pood-er” as in “food.” In Utah, we have some great canyons and streams, but this canyon goes on for ever and the river is within hearing distance from the road for, I guess over 50 miles. It seems to go on for ever, especially when you are walking. An amazing canyon and river.

The long stretches of whitewater present many miles of adventure for river runners. I walked 30 miles today and still plenty of canyon left to go.