Mountain Home

From Caldwell I headed down through Nampa, and then south on highway 45. Walking that evening I hit more rain, but nothing severe, and camped in the ditch for the night, my poncho strung from the fence underneath an old crab-apple tree.
In the morning I left the farm country, and dropped down to the Snake river from the bluffs above, then followed it for a ways before winding off toward Murphy. Owyhee is the second largest county in Idaho - bigger than Connecticut and Vermont combined - and yet the county seat, Murphy, has only a hundred and fifty people. The courthouse was five minutes past closing when I walked up from the highway, but the door was still open and I found the janitor inside. He let me fill my water bottles and offered to let me stay out in back of the building, for the night.
I rolled out the sleeping bag in the alcove near the back door, ate some spaghetti soup, and read for a while. I've gone through five books since leaving home, so far. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters, I brought from home, and read on the train. At the library in St. Helens I bought The Piano Shop on the West Bank, and finished it in Portland, before reading The Devil and Ms. Prym. And then in Maupin I bought an old copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
It's interesting to me how hard it is to leave a book behind. The first two I left at my cousin's, in Tacoma, and the third in Portland. The fourth was a library book and I simply put it back on the shelf, and the fifth I handed over to the librarian in John Day. Each time (excluding the fourth) it's felt rather awkward, as if I was doing something that I was going to regret. I think that my notions of possession are off kilter, and blown out of proportion, and it's something I need to work on.
Shortly after turning in for the night, behind the courthouse, one of the Sheriff's deputies found me. He took the information from my driver's license, and it started raining.
"You can sleep inside, in the lobby, if you want," he told me. "There's a couch." But I was already set up, and out of the rain for the most part, so I declined.
In the morning, the courthouse employees passed me one by one on their way inside, and as I packed up my things, one of them came back outside.
"If you follow this street," she said, motioning, "and then take a left at the bottom, you'll see Delamar. Go right on Delamar, and you'll see a yellow house with a Sheriff's truck parked outside. My husband - his name is Daryl - will make you breakfast. I'll tell him you're coming." She went back inside and left me to finish packing up my things. It's amazing how quickly a meal can fall into my lap.
As I approached the yellow house, the door swung open, and Daryl greeted me. He showed me inside, and I washed up in the bathroom before sitting down to eat a huge plateful of biscuits and gravy. Daryl is a big, muscular, guy, with a bushy mustache and a blonde buzz cut. He sits down across from me at the kitchen table.
"How many miles do you make in a day?" he says.
"A little over twenty, normally."
"Well," he says, "you've got a pretty long stretch between here and the next town. Nothing but sagebrush and ranches for thirty miles." He strokes a corner of his mustache, thoughtfully. "A little under twenty miles from here you'll see a sign for Wees road." He spells it for me, and then makes a map with his hands. "There's a guy who lives over here," (pointing a spot on the table) "who'll put you up for the night, if you need a place. Just tell him I sent you. If you get all the way to Grand View, tonight, you'll see a little hotel just off the road. Lady that owns it, Kelly, can hook you up with a room, if you want. Tell her I sent you."
I try to remember the names and the locations, and continue eating my biscuits.
"Now, all the way down in Bruneau," he looks up, "are you going through Bruneau?" I shake my head. "Well, if you decide to, there's a guy down there I know who'll let you sleep at his place for the night.....Just tell him I sent you." I'm fairly sure that Daryl knows everyone in Owyhee County.
When I finished eating, several more possible contacts spread out down the road, I filled my water bottles and headed off.
The thirty miles between Murphy and Grand View are pretty bleak. Lots of sagebrush. A few wheat fields. Not a lot else. But the weather held. No rain and no blistering sun; just a breeze at my back. I made it before the sun was down, and put up my tent just off the road, in some scattered grass near the convenience store.
Today I left early. Turned north and crossed back over the river, then crawled back up onto the bluffs, heading for Mountain Home. Twenty five miles through more sagebrush and sand, past the airforce base and down into town. It's a nice little place, around ten thousand people. I haven't found a place to stay, yet, but I'm not worried. It's getting easier and easier, it seems, as the days go by.