Author Pens Tales Reminiscing from the Road

Here is a newspaper article about my hitchhiking travels that was published by the Lake County Examiner [Lakeview, Oregon] a week ago:

Author Pens Tales Reminiscing from the Road

Providence

This morning I hitchhiked from Cedarville, California to Lakeview, Oregon.  This tractor-trailer pulled over and gave me a ride into Lakeview.  The driver said that he had picked me up before; he was a Christian and we had a great talk; he knew my friends in Cedarville.

So I got dropped off near the county courthouse in Lakeview.  I went to the library and asked the librarian where the barbershop was in Lakeview.  I spent some time on the Internet and then walked up main street.

I saw the barbershop and walked inside.  I was sitting there getting a haircut when this older man and lady walked into the shop.  We started talking and she told me that she had read my first book High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America a while back!  That was a pleasant surprise.

I guess a friend of a friend of her's bought my book and then passed it on down.  We had a very engaging conversation.  She invited me to a local writers group that was meeting this evening.  I am not sure if I am going to make it.

Man, I tell you:  the Lord really knows how to put people in your path.  God's timing is everything.  A few weeks ago, I tried to hitchhike out of northern California, but it didn't happen.  I walked eight miles north and didn't get a ride.  So I changed direction, walked half a mile south, got a ride to this intersection and then waited five minutes and got a ride over Cedar Pass back to Cedarville.  So it was God's will that I leave today and meet that lady in the barbershop in Lakeview, Oregon.

Obedience is better than sacrifice--which is another way of saying that it is a good idea to obey the Lord.

A Short Hitchhiking Trip
Book Review:  High Plains Drifter
 

Back in Montana

Montana Landscape

Just got dropped off here in Helena, Montana. I camped out near the railroad tracks three miles east of Garrison last night; it was cool, but not cold. I camped between the railroad tracks and the river. I hitchhiked from Kooskia, Idaho to Garrison yesterday. This guy picked me up in a Porsche convertible and somehow I lost my other sleeping bag in the process. If I have enough money, I will go to Walmart and look for a cheap sleeping bag later today. Yesterday was a red-letter day in my hitchhiking: I got rides from two consecutive convertibles.

In the past month, I have hitchhiked from Idaho to Washington (visited some friends in Dayton) to California. I did some work for my friends in Cedarville, California and then headed back to Dayton. I hitchhiked back and forth between Dayton and Cedarville a few times. I pruned some trees and cleaned up their repair shop/storage building for my friends in Cedarville; I hauled some boxes of food to town and also pruned some trees for my friends in Dayton. I didn't think I would be coming back to Montana and Wyoming so soon. On one trip from Cedarville to Dayton, I went through Winnemucca, Nevada and Ontario, Oregon. As usual, I met some very interesting people on the way.

Once I got picked up by a guy near Ukiah, Oregon and he took me to a church service in Burns, Oregon. It was the Bible Baptist Church and that preacher was anointed with the Holy Ghost! I have told several people about that church. I rarely go to church, but I highly recommend anyone to go to that church; they have a very good pastor at the Bible Baptist Church who is submitted to Christ.

I stayed overnight with Kim and Pat near Harpster, Idaho last night. Looks like they have some very good fellowship at an Apostolic and a Baptist church in the Kooskia-Kamiah neighborhood. We had a good talk about the things of God and on the power of the Holy Ghost. We watched the film The Hurt Locker that evening. I thought The Hurt Locker was a very good film.

The Presence of God has been very strong since I left Cedarville on the 20th of September. When the Holy Ghost is burning you up, it usually means something: it could be that the Lord is revealing something to me or that a Satanic stronghold is being taken out (intercession; the anointing breaks the yoke of sin; when the Lord glorifies your body, things really happen in the heavenly realm) or maybe something new is going to happen in my life.

After I leave the library here in Helena, I will probably head south to Three Forks and then to Belgrade and then mosey on south to Idaho and then into Wyoming. It is great to be back in the Montana-Idaho-Wyoming neighborhood. It is a beautiful day for hitchhiking, it is a beautiful day for living.

Tim Shey in Belgrade, Montana, 2009

The Pacific Ocean

This morning I hitchhiked from Philomath to Newport, Oregon on U.S. 20. It is a beautiful, partly-cloudy day here on the beach just west of Newport. There is a constant roar from the waves of the Pacific crashing onto the sandy beach. I found a nice rock with a flat top to do my writing. There is a grassy cliff behind me and a vast expanse of blue before me.

The last time I was in Newport was back in 2001. I had hitchhiked from Iowa to the coast of Oregon travelling mostly on U.S. 20.

I remember I was hitchhiking in Virginia in the late 1990s and this guy picked me up. He knew a guy who had been all over the world--this guy said that the most beautiful place on the planet was southwest Virginia; he also said that the most beautiful coastline in the world was the coast of Oregon.

I used to live two blocks from the Pacific Ocean while I was living in Venice, California. I lived in Venice on Howland Canal for three months in the spring of 1984. At that time, I was working with The Horse and Bird Press of Los Angeles: this press published the poetry of Carolyn Kleefeld. I sold books in New Hampshire, Vermont and California (I was not a very good salesman). I house-sat for Patricia Karahan who was the publisher of The Horse and Bird Press. Patricia had gone to Greece and Spain on vacation--that is how I ended up in Venice.

I was told by someone who lived in Los Angeles that LA was the most stressful place to live in the United States. I would have to agree. Every Wednesday I would drive to Century City and pick up the mail for The Horse and Bird Press. When I got back, I would have a splitting headache: the traffic, the people, the air pollution all contributed to the stress.

The first week that I was in Venice, I had a persistent sore throat. It was probably from the smog. So I would drink a quart of orange juice every day. My sore throat disappeared.

Usually, every night I would walk the two blocks to the beach just to sit on the sand and listen to the pleasant roar of the waves hitting the beach--I guess it was my therapy for living in such a stressful city.

I remember seeing this guy walking around the boardwalk in Venice in a white robe--he was also barefoot (but I don't think he was with the Discalced Carmelites). I thought that he was a Hare Krishna follower. So I walked up to him and asked him about his beliefs. He told me that he was a Christian and that he walked in faith. I told him that I had been a Christian for two years. I asked him if he needed a place to stay for the night. So he stayed at my place on Howland Canal for the night.

I made him some soup and sandwiches and then we had a good talk about the things of God that evening. He told me that he had spent some time in Italy: the people there thought that he was Francis of Assisi. I had a copy of Thomas Merton's The Wisdom of the Desert, so I gave it to him. He was very grateful.

He slept on the living room floor that night and left the next morning. That was probably in April of 1984.

Today, there is a gentle breeze coming in from the ocean. I am glad that it is not raining. It is sunny: there are clouds, but they are high-altitude clouds. There are people walking on the beach.

There is a lighthouse to the north--it is around three miles as the crow flies from where I am sitting. There are a few sea gulls gliding around just above the cliff. There are three people flying kites to the north of me. I see a ship in the distance on the horizon to the port side of me (I have always wanted to say that). So that means that the lighthouse is to the starboard (now I am starting to think of Moby Dick by Herman Melville). This reminds me of the time I hitchhiked up Highway 1 on the coast of California back in the late 1990s: I slept in this grassy field near this lighthouse--I believe it was Point Sur. California also has a very beautiful coastline.

Speaking of the coast of California. I hitchhiked from Nebraska to California back in April of 1983. I stayed with a friend in Big Sur for a week. I then hitchhiked down Highway 1 to a place near Santa Lucia (I don't think this town exists anymore). There was this Camaldolese Monastery near Santa Lucia; the monks let me stay there for three nights--I had my own hermit cell. During that trip, this man and woman picked me up and told me that a friend of their's had a dream about an earthquake that was going to hit California, so she flew to Thailand. Within a week or so of me hearing about this, an earthquake hit the Coalinga area of California (2 May 1983; 6.5 on the Richter Scale).

It has been a very blessed trip from Montana to Oregon. I am breathing and hearing and seeing God's Creation here where the Pacific meets the edge of the Universe. "Breathe, arch and Original Breath"--Gerard Manley Hopkins. The Presence of God has been very strong in the past few days. I thank the Lord for bringing me back to the Pacific Ocean.

God willing, I will head south from Newport on U.S. 101.