I got the job! Patch.com!

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I blogged and since I returned home from my cross-country journey. To tell the truth, I think I’m still decompressing and reflecting on each state I traversed, every experience. It was a constant overload on my senses and it was so beautiful to be out in America. I used to be afraid to say that I love this country, out of fear that I might seem too patriotic. But what I now realize is that my patriotism was misplaced when I joined the U.S. Army on the day of my 17th birthday — the first day I legally could, with my parents’ signatures.

I remember that day so clearly. I was in a ceramics or jewelry-making class of some sort. Every day I’d go with my friends to McDonalds during our lunch. Maybe we’d return back to our classes, in rural Wisconsin, maybe we’d just drink the rest of the day away. Looking back at those years, it’s amazing how much I care about today that I couldn’t even fathom then. Food consciousness, reading, health.

Anyway, that day, I had my friends drop me off at the recruiter’s station, two miles down the main strip in Stevens Point. I didn’t ask for anything, I just begged the recruiters to take me. It’s not like I had to get out of my home town. It’s not like I had a terrible childhood. I pretty much did and got whatever I wanted in the confines of a working poor family. But I so badly wanted discipline, I wanted a new experience, I wanted to be shocked. It took me a long time to get over the moral problems I have with our occupancy in the Middle East, and to get over everything I went through during an eight-year stint in the military and nearly two years in Iraq.

But, now, I’ve been out for almost three years. I got out in December of 2007 right before my unit was mobilized again to Iraq. I was smart about it and my timing was right, not everyone can get out of it. My eight-year contract was just up, and my unit didn’t care about me because I’d just transferred there from my former Military Police unit. Luck or skill, I’m not sure, but I’m out.

What I want to say is the same reasons I enlisted in the military are the same reasons I wanted to go on a train trip across America after college graduation. Love for country, to shock my senses and to be uncomfortable in my surroundings. Change. Now, I can say without looking around me at my peers, that yes, I love America. I love every dry river bed, every small town, every bustling city and even the most angry of people. I want to tell stories, and they are stories.

I decided to keep up with the blog as I move to the next stage in life, a salaried job. I never though I’d get here. Please follow me along the way again; this time as I cover a daily news beat, and tell you all about my new job at Patch.com!

http://www.patch.com

Day 30, Two Medicine, Glacier

I woke up this morning under the Northern Rockies. It was more than peaceful. East Glacier is a small mountain town about 10 miles from the heart of Glacier. Today I hiked. I walked Charlie four miles in the morning, then headed up the mountain trail. I love hiking. These photos, sadly, are taken from my phone because I somehow misplaced my last card for my camera, the others I sent home. Urgh.

Two Medicine, Glacier National Park

The beginning of the 8-mile hike.

Bear country.

Secluded falls.

Scary footbridge with a loose cord for a "railing." This bridge swayed about two feet on either side.

Day 29, the “Great American Desert”

Ray Bergh calls North Dakota and Montana the Great American Desert because of its meager annual rainfall.

I woke up this morning to the rolling hills of North Dakota. “This is small town country, the Great American Desert,” says Ray Bergh, a National Park Service employee who volunteers for a program calls Trails and Rails — a partnership between Amtrak and the National Parks. He calls it the Great American Desert because the annual rainfall in the non-winter months is just 11 inches. This year it’s been particularly wet with 30 inches, but that’s rare, he assures me.

“We’re going to fly by it and if you blink you’re going to miss it,” Ray often says of the small farming towns we zip past.

Here, people make a living by growing wheat and ranching. The occasional oilrig peppers the brown wispy fields of wheat, but mostly it’s cows and crop.

Ray and others like him volunteer their time and ride the train, from places such as Los Angeles to New Orleans, from Chicago to Portland. The parks service volunteers basically tell us what we’re seeing, both historically and ecologically. The partnership vies to spur more participation in our National Parks, in part because of reduced parks budgets. Also, Ray says, it’s because of a growing environmental consciousness.

Now, I’m sitting in a communal lounge car with Charles by my feet. Depression and alcohol poisoning are the main causes of death here; Ray attributes this to the long winters and the hardships of farming and ranching.

But, don’t call a rancher a farmer, and don’t call a rancher a cowboy, says Ray. Cowboys work for ranchers and farmers have more than one way of life; maybe milking and ranching and growing crop. Ranchers, that is, cattlemen, only run the open range, says Ray.

“This was the Wild West, and a lot of people say it still lives,” says Ray. Here, if someone didn’t like someone, they’d stick them with a knife.”

“It’s much quieter than a gun, they stick ‘em quietly and they bleed quietly.”

Here, $1 million it takes to start up a farm, and that’s only for equipment, says Ray. That’s not including the land and the animals.

How do I know, I grew up on a farm, up at 5 a.m., he says.

Day 28, Chicago to Glacier National Park

It’s almost here: Glacier National Park. Charles and I are back on the train today after nearly two weeks in rural Wisconsin. We’re traveling west again, through Milwaukee, Portage and Tomah, Wis. Through Winona, St. Paul and St. Cloud, Minn. Through Grand Forks, Devils Lake and Williston, N.D. We arrive in Montana tonight at 11:41 p.m. In true last-minute fashion, I called Glacier National Park lodging today and booked the LAST ROOM available for the Wednesday and Thursday. It’s difficult because I’m not driving so if I didn’t get those rooms that leg of the trip would be impossible.

Right now, we’re driving along the suburbs of Milwaukee, heading into Minnesota. The Wisconsin River is barely flowing out my window and I feel like so far I have really seen a slice of America that I hadn’t seen before. Farms populate the landscape here, and have since I left upstate New York; through Ohio, through Illinois and Wisconsin, and finally to here.

Day 27, more blackberry picking

My grandma was up this morning at 2 a.m. because she had to drop my grandpa off at work in town, he drives truck for a construction company. She went shopping for me in the upstairs, the mythical place that is full of magic and that everyone if forbidden from entering. But she gave me three pairs of boots from the 70s! I am so happy and feel so proud to wear clothes that my grandma wore. And when I’m complimented on the attire, I get to talk about my grandma.

We picked more blackberries today and got lost in the woods for about a half hour. We made more tomato juice and weeded the garden more. Perfect day.

Day 26, Monarchs

My grandma took me out to the pasture tonight, around 7 p.m., to cut hunks of firewood from fallen trees in the pasture where the cows and donkeys spend most of their days. Tonight we would have a late night fire and talk, eat pork ribs with sauerkraut. This was a natural ride; we do it two times a day, to feed the donkeys fallen apples or pears, scraps of tomatoes and cucumbers from canning throughout the day. We give the animals grain and we visit them every afternoon, so like I said, nothing out of the ordinary. Except, when my grandma rounded one of the corners on the “superhighway” — the road that winds between cornfields and open mangers — I glanced up and saw, literally, hundreds of Monarch butterflies overhead. They were dangling from branches, fluttering over the corn fields! They passed by our ears and in front of our eyes and formed a canopy of Lepidoptera. I’m not lying, they formed a ceiling between us and the sky.

I clutched my dark lager and grabbed my grandma’s shoulders. I just held her and we looked up together. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this. I’ve heard about the Monarch migrations and the clusters in Santa Cruz, but just feet from my grandma’s front door? On our farm? The sight wasn’t over though. As we wound through the six-feet high stalks and over the boulders left from glaciers ages ago, as we bumped along on the four-wheeler and pulled our trailer in the back full of chards of wood, I looked left. There was a doe standing not three feet from us. She was just standing there. Anyone who knows deer knows they might stand there for a split second, but the moment they sense movement, they kick their hind legs up and the whitetails are off to another field to feed. Not this one, she just stood there, staring at us. She was so beautiful and smooth. Her caramel coat shone in the sunset and her eyes were the size of dollar coins. Oh my God. I forgot the rest of the day when I was writing this entry, it stood out so vividly. I made sure to tell my grandma that this was something I would never forget. She dragged on her ultra light and looked ahead. I knew she was smiling too.

Day 25, Polish town

Today was day three of jogging around the five-mile “block.” No matter how cool it is when I set out, the day immediately heats up and the sun rises when my foot strikes the new blacktop. The loop is not too difficult, save for the three massive hills. I don’t care that much because I feel better when I collapse near the garden and look up at the big Wisconsin sky. Blue and so perfect, this is what I took for granted as a kid.

A few noteworthy things from my run: I counted at least 15 different kinds of butterflies in one hour’s time. More deer than cars; resting in the woods, behind the thicket, in the pools of rainwater. Wildflowers galore. Just fields of them. Always some farmer mowing his or her lawn to perfection. People peering out their windows from drawn shades. Cowboys and cowgirls (yes I’m sure they are because I know the farms they live on), driving their brand new pick-up trucks with four-wheel drive, a shiny paint job usually red or blue and wheels jacked up so high it could be a monster truck.

After my run, we washed and canned pickles, some from the garden and some we picked up from a local farmer, who wore high socks that had turned brown and were full of holes, leopard print boxer shorts that did not look new, and a now off-while tank top. His one-word answers, yep, nope, okay, were all we needed to hear.

More deer and wildflowers everywhere throughout the day. And at night, we went to church. The Catholic Church my grandma and mom and aunts grew up going to. Most of the people who live in this area are either German or Polish, and this was true at church, and after the mass, across the street at the Polish bar.

There, most drank cheap beer atop fake marble bars. We obliged.

Day 24, high school mini-reunion

Today I saw my best friend from high school. It’s not like I’ve tried purposefully not to keep in touch, but I think it just happens. Life. Moving, growing up, plus I’m not a big phone talker. It’s been nearly 10 years since I’ve seen Samantha Cordy, now Samantha Anderson. She’s married to one of our mutual childhood friends and she has three kids!

It’s amazing to see people in a different light that what I’m used to. I don’t have much else to say about today, it was nice.

Day 23, hometown Stevens Point

This town, Stevens Point, that I partially grew up in, is now completely desolate. I wanted to go downtown to get online and to maybe do some shopping. The downtown area ends where a lake and two parks meet. It was always busy down there. College bars, tattoo shops, eateries, kitschy clothing and jewelry shops, etc. It had character and it was fun to just walk around there.

Now, it’s completely desolate. There are literally two or three stores in the mall that I’d estimate used to have upwards of 60. The downtown walk has some stores left; there are a couple restaurants and there’s a sandwich place and a tattoo shop left, but there’s no one down there! It was so sad to be there. My mom and I did, however, have a really good bonding day. I love being with her and I’m glad she moved home to Wisconsin after spending 10 years in California.

As we drove the main stretches in Point, the cobblestone downtown area and the winding main strip, we both noticed the same thing. Nothing is thriving, nothing is there. Most of the businesses that we’d remembered have since been put out of business. And most importantly, a new area has sprouted up. A section of town that used to be wild and natural is now a strip mall. Complete with WalMart as its cornerstone, it also has a Best Buy, all the fast food you could not want, blah blah blah, fill in the blanks, it’s all there. Maddening.

Day 22, the U.S. officially out of Iraq

I watched on MSNBC tonight that we’re officially out of Iraq as a combat theater, and although there will still be 50,000 troops there for support and training — just as we are in Germany and Bosnia — it’s official. Truthfully, I’m not sure how to feel. Although I am deeply happy that the U.S. presence is reduced, I feel like there’s something I am not being told, or maybe its uneasiness, or maybe disbelief. Not sure. It’s been interesting being here in the country and on this trip in general because I don’t listen to the news as adamantly as I usually do. I have spotty internet connections or none, no radio and no NPR on the train. I haven’t watched television in months and when I do get the occasional movie in New Orleans or newscast in Wittenberg, I feel lucky. I like being off the grid, but I miss the daily grind of news and being connected. I didn’t think I’d feel this way but after gay marriage passed in my city, and this plus more, and that I have to hear it second or third hand, makes me feel disconnected.

I can’t decide which I like more, the gritty reality of life on the road or my life. I guess I Iike them both.

Today I was witness to life even more off the grid than mine. We drove to another small area town called Marian. This is an Amish community. My grandma needs a Ferrier to come cut down the donkeys’ hoofs so she asks the gas station where the Amish live in the area, then an Amish greenhouse where the Ferrier is, then after asking around, we find him. No electric, no wiring going to the house, manual tractor pulled by workhorses litter the perfectly manicured farm grounds. There is not one weed in the garden; everything is just so. “Is there a man around,” asks the Ferrier. “There can be,” quips my grandma. “He’ll pick me up at 8 a.m.,” he says.

As we drive back to Wittenberg, a horse and buggy trots by with a big family stuffed in the back. Wow, just wow.

Grandma Jeannie plays bingo at the Polonia church picnic