Part Fifty Seven

     September 23rd - 25th                 Rawlins, WY                           (Go to Pt 1)
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I reached Interstate 80 late in the afternoon with a cold, harsh wind blowing down the interstate corridor.  Broken glass and cans littered the ditch alongside the highway and paper trash blew in the wind.  Across the Interstate sat an old, weathered gas station/convenience store/Greyhound bus stop.  I crossed the highway and entered the building, leaving my pack at the door.

Aside from some old codger watching the cash register there was no one else around.  I got a bottle of soda from the pop machine and sat down in a small waiting area they had for bus passengers, hoping to catch a ride into Rawlins with the next eastbound traveler.  Eventually, a rig worker driving a flatbed truck pulled in for gas and was okay with taking me the thirty or so miles into Rawlins.

Click map for a larger image

It was still daylight when the guy let me off at an exit ramp on the west side of town.  I walked down from the highway to the nearest motor lodge and got a room, checking to see if Craig was registered there, which he wasn’t.  I went to my room and decided to wait until tomorrow to call around and look for him.  I took a shower and ate supper at a diner across the street then sat in the darkening motel room, watching cars pass by on the roadway beyond.

Sitting alone in the dark, Craig’s absence was keenly felt.  We had been working together on this project to walk the Divide for well over a year now and had been dogging it out on the trail for over four months.  The struggles we had endured and the terrain we had covered and survived had depended largely on the motivation and perseverance of two guys, and now that synergy was gone.  

Whether I had enough motivation and perseverance to fill the void I didn’t know, but before walking out of the desert I had decided I would at least complete the rest of Wyoming and continue on to Steamboat Springs, CO, which was the next planned section of the trip.  For me, getting to Steamboat would mean something extra because in 1955 I was born in Steamboat Springs. If I wasn’t going all the way to Mexico then at least getting to Steamboat made sense to me.

The next morning I called a couple of motels and found where Craig was lodged, which was just down the street from me, and rang him up to see where his plans stood.  He told me that after he’d gotten out of the desert he’d called his parents back in Oregon who were now driving out from Portland to collect him but were still a day away from being in Rawlins.  He also said he’d found the potholder and a couple of other doodads in his pack and would stop by my motel room in a bit, then we hung up.

I wondered what I was going to say, ‘Tough break, pal. It’s been fun, good luck’?  In one sense, it was a relief the measure had finally run its course but when I put myself in Craig’s position I could see how utterly devastated I would have felt had I suffered a similar, breakdown injury. And I’m sure I would have pushed things to the breaking point, same as Craig had, because admitting the injury meant defeat.  But I didn’t dwell long on this part of the overall, gloomy situation at hand because I was too preoccupied with worry about myself.

When Craig finally stopped by my room, he didn’t stay long.  I asked him what he thought he might do next and all he knew for sure was that he was going back to Portland to look for work.  Then I asked what he was going to do about his knees and he just shrugged.  Without health insurance, which neither of us had, there wasn’t much he could do.  Besides, knee surgery in the ‘70s wasn’t nearly the miracle it is today and didn’t offer a practical solution for most people. 
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The conversation wore thin pretty quick; I was going to continue on, at least to Colorado, and Craig was headed back to Oregon.  Beyond that, there was really nothing more to say.  Craig’s disappointment and dejection lay heavy in the room and “sorry” was all I could manage.  Craig left and that was the last time I saw him.  The next morning I walked out of Rawlins, headed south for Colorado.

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Go to Part 58

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The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

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