Dispatches from the road

 Dispatches from the road: day 4 and the rainy beginning of day 5 

by Bill Poindexter

I lay in my tent on the morning of day five of my journey having a little meditation of how grateful I am just to be alive and be able to do the things I’m doing. My friend Monica reminding me she was the one who called me the traveling monk I resonate with that very much as my spiritual belief is strong no matter what religion I meet along my journey and right now I feel very Zen like. I’m laying on a forest bed in a conservation area just outside of Wheatland Missouri I’ve been up for a while listening to the pattering of the rain -I retrieved my stove from my panniers and had a fine breakfast of oatmeal with raisins honey and banana along with copious amounts of coffee. I love the word copious don’t you? Not exactly sure of my route today and the rain is going to stop soon and the sun is supposed to come out so I think I’m gonna hang out here and read my book Provence 1970, and let everything dry out including my boots which got soaked yesterday because of the two stream crossings – thanks Mac for that info wink. I’m starting to feel stronger getting used to the heavy weight of the load I’m caring. For you Bikepacker‘s out there I’m on a surly long-haul trucker, with two front Salsa bags on anything cages and two rear expeditionary panniers from Arkle out of Canada xm-45s. 

I’m carrying water food shelter clothing couple books maps and as my kiwi friends would say a assortment of bits and bobs. Yesterday I left Mac Vorce’s home in Warsaw and hopped on the Butterfield stage coach route, on section 8 from Warsaw to Wheatland. This route is one of the hardest I’ve ever done I would compare it to the great divide mountain bike route in terms of its challenging terrain and endless ups and downs stream crossings muddy dirt roads gravel gravel and more loose gravel… Lots of solitude and very little people and very much beauty. And I rode for nine hours and ended up taking a short cut in the end to Wheatland because of a pending storm which of course never happened. I found this patch of dirt I’m laying on and slept very well last night and this morning. I’m eager to get down to the Transamerica Trail to get started heading east as that is my ultimate destination. I am laying in the tent fully caffeinated dictating this to you from my phone. I feel good. Many people yesterday gave me water as I rode by their homes. There was a little dog named little missy who befriended me and kindly ran beside me for almost 4 miles yup 4 miles until the owners niece and husband got her. Little Missy was the strongest dog or I should say is the strongest dog I’ve ever seen no matter how fast I went down the hill I would have to go slow up the next hill and I would look in my rearview mirror and she would be that little spot in the center of the mirror running to me. It was a soulful encounter between a human and an animal and there was so much beauty in that moment it brings tears to my eyes, seriously. It’s a kind reminder that we all living beings are connected.

Namaste 

If you like my words let me know 

Wholeearthguide.blogspot.com

Dispatches from the road

 Dispatches from the road. Some of you were here too hear about it and see some pictures from my current journey from Kansas City to Martha’s Vineyard Massachusetts. I’m sending out dispatches from the road primarily on Facebook and on another blog called wholeearthguide.blogspot.com

So go to those two places for the most current updates and I will be sending out videos as well soon but it’s just easier to do it from the whole earth guide. Or Facebook. I’m having a great time here is kind of a recap of last few days hope you enjoy it!

Dispatches from the road:

Day 4

By Bill Poindexter

A recap of the last four days. On the 2 April I made my way out of Kansas City heading south to Louisburg Kansas to the Cedar Cove feline wildlife sanctuary where I was graciously met by Steve Klein the Director. Steve showed me around the facilities and introduced me to the animals: Lions, Tigers and wolves, Mountain lions, leopard, fox, lynx, bobcat, Who are given a second chance in life by the good people of Cedar Cove and it’s an organization need your help as well only 30 miles south of Kansas City I’ll be posting a video of my interview with Steve soon so keep an eye out and I was able to sleep on their property as well and fall asleep to the roars of lions and tigers as well as the Howells howling of the wolves, it truly amazing experience. On day three I made my way east and south east into Missouri on a southeasterly route to the Transamerica bike route which I should connect to you in a couple of days and then I will start heading straight east across Missouri into Kentucky then into Virginia to Yorktown and then north to Martha’s Vineyard Massachusetts. My second day was actually a little bit rough and late in the day I was tired made my way to a Casey’s which is kind of a quick shop and talk to a woman named Cheyenne who wanted to hear about my journey and she was inspired and shared some food with me from the shop and it was her way to be part of my journey probably would never be able to do what I’m doing I can live vicariously via my story, I love that! I found a nice patch of dirt to sleep on that night in a conservation area run by the department of conservation in Missouri and got to sleep soundly in the rain by myself as there was nobody else in the whole area. On day three of my travels I left the conservation area and traversed over back roads saying places that a few people ever see, dirt roads gravel roads places where people live quiet lives and whose lives are inter-weaved with nature. I stopped at a gas station for some coffee and sat in front on the bench and table pulled my food bag from my panniers and made some oatmeal hey man William, from Springfield Missouri befriended me we had a great conversation share similar thoughts on life he wanted to hear about my story and shared some of his own stories as well he said he wanted to buy me lunch and he did actually with what he gave me I can buy quite a few lunches, again was his way to be a part of the journey, and it’s what the street is about to meet people to talk to people to look them in the eye to find the soul and I mean it the soul of America the humanities alive and well and 99% of the people are good and just want a simple life. The rest of the day I spent rolling down dusty gravel roads talking to cattle and singing songs from the 70s like from Bob Seger and the Eagles. And when I wasn’t on the dusty gravel roads I would be on the highway where cars will flyby at 80 miles an hour but fortunately I have a nice wide shoulder so I feel safe. But I do prefer the back roads of America. I made my way to Warsaw Missouri a small quaint town are very friendly people and extraordinary good food I was greeted by Mac the head of the chamber of commerce, and he let me bring my bicycle into the building and charge my phone and charger. He also offered me a place to stay in his backyard so I could pitch by Tent. And then made my way to a double cheeseburger and french fries get the hungry skillet and then to two scoops of ice cream where I’m at to retire gentleman who were diligently consuming the largest banana splits I’ve ever seen in my life! They invited me to join them we had a great conversation about life and their retirement and their families one of the man lives on Cape Cod Massachusetts which is where I’m heading on my journey well actually to Martha’s Vineyard off Cape Cod. Then I made my way back to the chamber where Mac was and again he invited me to his home I graciously took him up on it because I needed to regroup do some laundry get a shower and it’s always nice to stay with a local in a town rather than a hotel. Just then Jen Bradshaw who is a Adventure cyclist pulled up on her mountain bike. Jen and Mac work together on creating events, adventure events as well as teaching kids and their parents here in Warsaw how to ride mountain bikes and have adventures on extraordinary mountain bike trails they have created in Warsaw some of the best I’ve ever seen. I got to ride with 30 young people and their parents on Monday night in a group called kids club, it was so much fun than Mac Jan and I came back to Max place had some dinner learn more about each other I finish my laundry got my first shower in four days and here I am at 4 AM the next morning dictating this into my phone in my tent on the ground in Warsaw Missouri. I’m gonna go back to sleep for a couple hours and then get up and eat some pancakes and sausage eggs and drink copious amounts of coffee figure my route for the day with the help Mac and then roll. Didn’t take a lot of pictures today so you’re gonna have to just enjoy my words. I’ll start to getting to videos soon, mostly you know me as a writer and I do love to write. If you’d like my words in my stories let me know in the comments below! Remember you are to a part of my journey. Thanks to all those who contributed and encouraged me. You are now too many to list so so you know who you are and you know what you mean to me in this journey :-). Peace and love from the road, Bill Poindexter

New adventures

 New adventures: So rolling south east from Kansas City, Missouri to the Ozarks then will turn east and connect with the Trans America Trail and follow it to Yorktown, Virginia (with a few side adventures). Then plan to roll north using multiple routes which parallel Revolutionary Routes from the American Revolution to Newport, RI and then catch a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts where I will be working on a farm and dairy as a field hand and cheese maker for the summer. At least that’s the basic plan. I won’t be posting too much but will periodically and will share some videos. 

But I will be writing about this entire endeavor and interweaving the cycling expedition and farm experience with history and sharing my thoughts on the present, past and future and maybe offering some solutions on how humanity can get along and treat the planet well so we will survive.

And I will tell stories along the way as well that won’t be so ‘deep’ but still interesting.

You can find the videos at wholeearthguide.blogspot.com

Doing this on a tight budget $14/day, cooking my food, won’t pay to camp, so will rely on the kindness of strangers so should be interesting, will use the traveling cyclists hosting service Warmshowers periodically for a shower and laundry. Excited to send dispatches sharing my adventures with all of you. I will be true to my writing and won’t sugar coat anything. 

If you like my writing and stories and want to support my journalistic endeavors there is link on the site or just reach out. A cup of coffee and a sandwich will help with the budget. But only if you find value in my voice or words.  

I want to find America again, that’s where the history comes in, sort of a reverse expansion to find our roots from our past start here in KC where Lewis and Clark started in the Frontier for the Western expansion, I will be heading back East sharing their stories, Civil War stories, 

and reminding us about why the American Revolution happened while I roll over trail and share stories of those who came before and are here now and my thoughts on our future. 

Here are some images of

My basic route. I leave KC on Friday morning…April Fools day:)

Hope you follow, and feel free to invite your friends and family. I will share my gear list in the next few days.

Thanks to Robert Thompson, Natalie, Aimee, Lauralyn, and Justin M Short BA for your generous support as well.

Bill Poindexter

What matters most

 Just wrote:

These guys brought up Daniel too!

What really matters; today.

This morning, this Sunday morning- today, I stopped at HJ‘s community center to have a coffee, and as I was leaving I saw two homeless men pushing their cart heading north on the trolley trail. I had come across these two men about two months ago on the trolley trail and had given them some food and they seem very kind. Omi, kind of a white Irish looking guy with red hair and the second guy is Chris a black man from California. They are a couple and they’ve been on the road for two years and have traveled through 30 states. Both are well educated and for various reasons, all physical, have chosen a nomadic lifestyle. Winter is a particularly rough time for the homeless and because this couple is a biracial gay couple they have been ridiculed and attacked many times physically, mentally and spiritually. Today they shared some of their experiences with me and Aimee. And although they’ve had some strong trials -their attitudes towards life are remarkable. Just one week ago they were sleeping in a field that they did not know was private property and the police came and took all their possessions threw them in a dumpster put them in a paddy wagon took them to the police station and then let them loose because they didn’t have any room in the jail to put them in. These two men are very strong Christians they believe in the Bible literally and even their Bible was taken away from them last week by the police and thrown away. They harbor no ill will they’re just trying to live and have the ability to roam free. They’re very kind they’re both on disability and they sell walking sticks that they make themselves from fallen limbs from trees. Today they’re going to be in front of the Panera in Brookside it’s off 63rd St. just one block east of 63rd and Brookside Boulevard. I am giving them two sleeping bags and a backpack. I gave them some food this morning and I made them breakfast at HJ’s community center and gave them two pairs of socks, two thermoses that somebody gave me and two rain jackets that I was going to use for my trip but they needed more than me and I gave them a Bible. I’m going to encourage all of you to take a chance and go down there and meet Chris and Omi. Chris a is shy but Omi likes to  talk. And they need to know that humanity is alive and well in our crazy world. Maybe you might buy a Walking-stick from them. If you do meet them I’m interested in hearing about your experience.

They could use two bikes and a trailer as well. FYI. 

What matters most for these two is a warm place to sleep, food, shelter and warm clothing, personal freedom.

Poems from the road

 

These are some of the poems that I write while on my bicycle tours. When I’m on a bike tour I spend a lot of time camping out. Sometimes I’m camping out in campgrounds, but more often than not I’m just camping in a field off the road out of the view of anybody. I spend long days on the bicycle and when it comes down to the sun going down if there’s a spot that catches my fancy I will just lay my gear down set up my tent if I need it otherwise just lay my sleeping pad down and sleeping bag, and settle in for a restful sleep on a patch of dirt. I will usually week sometime between two and four in the morning and write something in my journal and periodically gaze up at the Milky Way if the sky is clear or the moon if it’s good enough to come out. Then usually I’ll go back to sleep and wake back up in that moment before night slips away and the sun starts to rise, and it’s that moment were magical things happen. So here are a few poems that I wrote while in a tent in the middle of the night on a patch of dirt laying under the stars of the Milky Way.

Poem -the Bikepacker 

By Bill Poindexter 

"I am pining for the trail

 I cannot help myself

 I want to ride

I eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m thirsty, 

pare the fat off my soul and live

 simple

Reducing my eating irons to a spork and my life blood

 a cup of coffee.

at the end of the day, with the “right to roam” in my heart, 

I come off the trail 

 any wild place I choose, 

lay my bedding on the cold earth,

 and sleep under the blanket of the Milky Way Galaxy, 

and then, and ONLY then

 will I be set free and when I wake

I do it all over again

I am Bikepacker."

A place to lay my bedding 

By Bill Poindexter 

Been on the road for the day

All day

Up at dawn

Now Dusk waining in my face

Campground too, well, urban 

Town not hospitable 

Visitor center, open from 9-4, after that move on strangers 

Sun is setting fast, I saunter north,

Sun to my left,

There is no panic 

Any patch of dirt will do

I am a Bikepacker 

I wake with sun 

And

Sleep with the set

I travel 6 more miles,

Over 90 miles all told

Road is gravel, familiar 

I like the sound when tires embrace

Gravel 

There, to my left 

A field and a open gate

50 yards from the road

I do not care,

I am tired

I

Feel I have a right to roam the American West 

Private property 

Land once unowned, free

I set up my tent

Watch the sun slip away and stars 

show themselves

As dusk becomes night 

I slip into dreamland 

Satisfied 

Awaiting first light

To ride again 

I am Bikepacker

Soul freedom 

I am bikepacker poem

By Bill Poindexter 

( A first draft after a ride)

I can’t help it

The tug

On my soul

 Soul that is attached 

And unattached 

Chaos

Soaring into space

With massive wings

While playing with old friends 

Gravity and Wind 

Perhaps some Dark Matter

But for now

My bicycle 

Take me where

My other friends 

Serendipity and Chance 

Meet

I am bikepacker

Traveling with Daniel

 Hi and thanks for checking in. I am getting ready to ride my bike from Kansas City Missouri to the East Coast of the United States and then I am heading north to an island off Massachusetts to work on a farm and be a cheese maker for the summer and possibly for my future. On the journey I plan to write about; commonalities of humanity, the environment and nature, communities I meet and see along the way and the people. I want to find out which really important what really matters in this crazy world to people of all walks of life . I also want to see what America is like to ride my bicycle under my own power roughly 2000- 3000 miles over a 40 day period.

I thought of calling this journey a bike ride across America but I’m not really sure of a working title yet. I’ve recently befriended another writer, Carmen who works as a security guard at my local grocery store in Kansas City. 

Carmen who looks more like the next-door neighbors grandmother, small unassuming very kind and always engaging with beautiful gray hair nice eyes and a great smile always willing to say hello to watch my bicycle why I go into the store and always ask me how my friend Aimee is doing. When I first met Carmen we exchange some pleasantries in the store and also our names. Somehow Carmen thought my name was Daniel so she kept calling me Daniel for the next few months. Not wanting to embarrass her I didn’t correct her and after a short time I started to enjoy her using the name Daniel for me. One day we both found out were writers and I was going to give her my contact information and had to tell her finally that my name was Bill and not Daniel but that I’d like Daniel and she could still use it if she wanted to and she did. We were talking yesterday and I was telling her about my adventure heading to the East Coast on my bicycle and the journey that was about to happen and what my intentions were for the journey. Carmen suggested that a good working title it be: traveling with Daniel  or something of that nature. I do like that title so I think I’m going to re-search the name Daniel a little bit more and possibly use it in the title. 

There are so many things I want to do for this trip.