River Folk

Before the first trickle of rain spurred us on our way through Lousianna, Jared the Cajun (who I just found out now has himself a motorcycle) mentioned that the pilgrim he hosted before me was walking across America. Intrigued, I looked up his story to find he is a journalist undergoing the citizenship process and as a way of finding out what it means to be American he set off on his own two feet from New York to Los Angeles. Due to the extreme weather near the Gulf he has hitchhiked through much of the humidity, although his story is still inspiring in my book. Our paths just missed each other in Lafayette by a day but it would have been reinvigorating to have shared a drink, pearls of wisdom from the road, and the inspiration to carry on.

The longtime innkeeper came down from his perch to welcome me to his sanctuary for travelers. A balding fellow with what remaining hair fell passed his shoulders loosely covered by a tie dye shirt introduced himself as Tom. For novelty's sake I chose not to ask for his last name and secretly dubbed him "Sawyer."

The accommodations weren't fancy by any means, although I wasn't expecting a royal chamber to begin with. A couple nights to socialize with like-minded sojourners was what I was after, having spent the last week or two in unpleasant solitude. It was bittersweet, however, to find that I had my choice of any bed this evening.

At least the haunt had an appeal that kept me fairly entertained, from exploring cobweb-choked cellars to investigating what decades of collecting left behind literature from vagabonds would yield in overflowing bookcases. Situated in the oldest part of St. Louis where many of the narrow roads are still brick-lined, the Huck Finn hostel was shoulder to shoulder with a plethora of restaurants and bars of equally unique character. Just past sunset, I took to exploring the historic French district known as Soulard (drunkard en Francais) to grab a bite to eat that didn't have to be microwaved or come with a happy meal.

Even the restaurants seemed vacant with melancholy but the indulged steak dinner certainly put a smile on my face, even if I only had to share it as a tip to my waiter.

Back at the hostel, my journal saw some writing to pass the time.

Not long after my fingers grabbed onto a rhythm for storytelling did I overhear some long-unanswered knocks at the front door. Tom mentioned having no other reservations booked for the night so it could only be the pizza man or some wayfarers who stumbled across a cheap place to stay. After a few more raps, I took it upon myself to go up and handle the business. It was a young man from West Virginia and a Japanese fellow who happened to arrive simultaneously. I gave Tom a ring to come out of his bear cave and get these gentlemen on the way to a bed while in the meantime I got acquainted with my new bunk mates. Matt, just a year shy of graduating with his bachelor's degree, has taken a beat up old van to explore everything east of the Mississippi. Yoshi, on the other hand has been bussing all over the United States and was thrilled to sleep in a real bed for the first time in a week.

Apparently park benches are a decent place to rest your head, or so the foreign adventurer says. Yoshi seemed thrilled to interact with a Japanese speaker, taken by how rapid fire his initially one-sided conversation was going. It was a phenomenon I knew all to well with only Chance to talk to for stretches of days on end. Eventually we managed to trade stories in his home language at a fair pace which seemed to leave him renewed in spirit as he hadn't encounter much kindness due to misunderstandings as of late. In spite of it all, he kept his sense of humor about him, even when he comically shouted from the shower for the towel he had left well out of reach.

For Matt, if he couldn't find a cheap place to crash by day's end, at least he had the convenience of the back of his van to climb into wherever he was. My envy only lasted until he mentioned how much of a gas guzzler his vehicle was. Then the jealousy was reignited when he regaled me with where he had just came from: the Appalacian Trail. The 2000 mile hike through 14 states reminded me of the half year hike that I crossed over at the Great Divide except it had a focus on commaraderie to it, much like the El Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. All the century old shelters and towns along the spine of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world are always welcoming of travelers and they, themselves are known for keeping one another's spirits high through acts of kindness. Unfortunately for Matt, most hike south to north while he was heading in the opposite direction, making for a pretty lonely three week hike. He hopes to complete it in sections over the years.

Yoshi retired early shortly after a beer courtesy of Matt's personal cooler and the two of us ventured outside to chat more about the nature of the road, solo adventuring and such. We spoke of how this wanderlust just seems to hit people in their mid 20s and how alike the journeys seem to be which had to say a lot about the rush to grow up in our teens and early adulthood. Once we started getting to talking about our engines a group of folks, similar in age approached and introduced themselves. The two young men were living in the third building of the hostel complex as semi-permanent residents and they had brought who I could only assume were their respective girlfriends. They were about to sit down to a game of Apples to Apples to which Matt and I were invited to. Sure, why not?

I'll spare explaining how this card game works as it sounds much more complicated than in it is practice but in it's essence it gets to an amusing point where social generalizations go out to window and it becomes a form of poker that says a lot about the individual's personality. Throw beer in the mix and complicate reading a person that much more for more hilarity! Before we knew it we were onto our fourth game (the last two I had won), it was close to midnight and we were only getting louder! Tom Sawyer came down to remind us to tone it down for the neighbors sake but he ended up getting roped into the last round of the game in exchange for beer.

The winner of that round quit while she was ahead and bowed out for some rest before an early shift of work. The other girl followed suit and the clown of the evening tailed her to leave myself, Matt, his friend Brandon and Tom at the initially quiet table. The old man patiently sipped from his bottle of Matt's stash then noticed Chance peaking from the shadows behind me.

"How many miles have you got on her now?"

"Hm, a few thousand. Coming up on eight, I think."

"Oh yeah? How about just on this trip?"

"Yeah, about eight."

The hippy got a smirk on his face and told us a story about his first big adventure with a motorcycle. Tom signed up to join the Peace Corps to dodge the Vietnam draft, aiming for a stint in South America. He ended up with a two year assignment in India which took him some time to get behind but by the end of his contract he cashed out the plane ticket the organization gave him to fly home. Instead, he bought himself a Royal Enfield motorcycle and rode around for months, met his wife then finally emigrated home with her. They are still happily married and she, too, runs a hostel in Boston.

By this time, Brandon had fallen asleep in his chair and Matt and I were the only ones hanging onto every word Tom was weaving. He declined the offer for another beer, doing his best to reach back into his memories for more stories to entertain us with. At one point he finally visited South America on his own accord and coincidentally met up with other Peace Corps members. The two were not fond of their duties out there and confided to Tom that they were going to break into Machu Picchu and camp there. Morally torn, Tom originally declined and parted ways. Like a piece of sand agitating an oyster, the idea churned in his mind until the pearl that eventually emerged was resolved as being in the name of adventure. In the dead of night he hiked his way through the peaks and made it to the 500 year old Incan city in the mountains. The story took a turn for horror as he described navigating quietly through a pitch black maze belonging to a dead society while the living guardians are soldiers patrolling with AK47s. The tense, aimless stumbling through the dark came to a quick halt when he heard foot steps... The company revealed itself to be a llama! It was difficult to say who was more frightened; Tom or the llama but in the end, the confrontation ended with the intruder getting spit on. Eventually he would find the Peace Corps deserters' camp and get whatever sleep he could for the plan was to be packed up before sunrise when the guards would return. Unfortunately for them, the said gun-toters shift started much early and violently woke the three of them up with the barrels of their guns. All Tom could say to end that story was that knowing how to sweet talk in another language is the moral.

We were mesmerized by his tall yet believable tales. Proven as a great story teller by my standards, I was set to hear at least one more before bed so I asked what it was like living a sedentary life now. He smiled thoughtfully to himself then admitted that his passion for adventure has never burned brighter thanks to all the stories that not only pass through here at the hostel but actually occur here. One such tale of folk-like merit took place a few years back and involved the beloved Mississippi River.

Two Japanese boys met at the front door of the Huckleberry Finn Hostel one spring day - one by bus, the other by bike. Neither had even thought to encounter a Japanese in St. Louis of all places as its not normally a top Asian destination. Both of them simply needed a place to crash for the night on their way through. While waiting for Tom to come down to the office, which seems to be a slow, timeless tradition, they got to talking about their travels and how one was heading east while the other west. Eventually, they spoke of home and discovered they had both read Mark Twain's fiction in high school. Suddenly they were joking about how the two of them ought to do as Sawyer and Finn and raft down the Great River! I could hear them both now, just prime for a jinx: "naze ikenei no," (why not?!).

What began as a place to crash for a night became their home for an entire month while they gathered supplies from local junk yards and recycling plants. It became a community effort in no time with Tom and many hostellers pitching in to donate plastic bottles, gallon jugs and plenty of rope. The makeshift raft with one's beloved bicycle attached was then taken to the river with much pomp and circumstance where it would be tied up until the two amateur navigators had their course plotted and donated gear collected. At what seemed like the height of their anxiety to set sail, it was discovered that vandals had set the raft aflame. Parts of it were found just down river while the rest had sunken along with their hearts.

The defeated pair did their best to dissuade anyone's pity and were ready to face the reality of going back home as they had long exhausted their holiday. Tom, among others in the community confronted the boys about committing to the dream. The pep talks managed to bolster their resilience and the duo took to rebuilding the raft with even more determination, spending an additional two months in St. Louis. Tom managed to find them a boat motor and even helped them get the raft registered as an official maritime vessel. The enabler of an innkeeper seemed to recall the christening as an event the entire city was proud of. They set sail down Old Blue and it's said that three weeks later, Tom got a postcard from them with a photo from New Orleans.

Ready for bed, the owner of this adventurer's haven slid his chair back, thanked us for the beer and mentioned that even though he hasn't travelled much himself as of late, people like us and the stories we bring keep him inspired to set aside time sooner than later for one last hurrah. Before parting he shared that he intends to hike the full length of the Appelacian trail before his 70th birthday.

We savored the silence in the story's wake for a minute then I looked over at Matt and mentioned half jokingly if we could build a raft that could support the weight of my motorcycle, I'd be down for floating down the river. He chuckled and thought about it for a while only to land on the conclusion that he had folks waiting for him in Minnesota. What are the odds? If only the river flowed northwards. Then I got that look that said I was making something that shouldn't make sense actually make sense in my head. I slammed my hand on the table announcing that we could remove the rear tire of the bike and replace it with a ghetto-rigged paddle wheel and have ourselves our own miniature paddle steamer! I could see it now... He laughed and bid me goodnight.

So then I was left in the dark with the snoring tenant, Brandon. For a moment I thought hey, there's a daring Japanese fellow crashing in the dorms right now. I should wake him and pitch the idea! For better or worse, I finally came off the buzz of hearing a really good story and pocketed the concept for another adventure - as if I didn't have enough ideas already. No, there isn't anything quite like a good story to get you back on the road with spirit, determination and the drive to keep the inspiration flowing downstream to whomever could use it.