What I never expected when I got into adventure riding years back would be the door it opened to the people I'd meet on the road. It has been a mosaic of folks, interesting and not so interesting, but there have been many special moments along the way.
Kim and I had found a cheap campground on our way towards northern Colorado, realizing it was also a place where many folks lived permanently, some in tents, some in old RV’s or vans. It was a pretty rough camp and RV park, replete with meth heads and drifters as well as older people who simply had little money to live on.
The morning sun was hot and growing hotter, as I feverishly worked on the bikes trying to get us on the road for the day. I was frustrated with the task I was attempting, made more so by the heat and sweat in my eyes. Down the way and over the handlebars I could see a thin man with long, black stringy hair and tattoos making his way our direction, moving very slowly on a walker. As he came closer I could hear the slow click of his walker each time he moved it, until he got close enough to say hello, a brown-toothed smile coming from under his black gimme cap.
Honestly, I really didn’t want to be interrupted, but I stopped working on the bike and introduced myself. Nick began talking and we chatted, typical small talk from strangers. He spoke slowly, almost weakly and said he’d been born with muscular dystrophy, eventually becoming a tattoo artist in Michigan. When the big BP oil spill occurred in the gulf, he, along with his brother and father went to work in the clean up operation to make extra money. What they did not know was that the chemicals used in the process were neurotoxins. Nick said he became severely disabled and his father died. Luckily his brother did not suffer quite as badly, due to age and overall health.
Nick told me he and his wife had been living on the road for a while in a very old and now broken down Winnebago, which I could see parked at the end of the campground where he’d walked from. His wife was working odd jobs and "flying a sign" as it’s known, panhandling for money on street corners. He said he was happy to be in Colorado now, having arrived recently after being in New Mexico for a while in the RV. He loved Colorado because he loved collecting rocks and minerals, as best he could, and proudly showed a slab of turquoise he kept in his pocket, its origin location a highly guarded secret he said with a smile.
We talked a long time and about many things, including organic farming which was his expertise and something he enjoyed studying. Nick was highly intelligent and well read, going into deep discussion of microbiological processes and their effect on organic foods and vegetables, as well as many other things. He talked of the difficulties of living on $722 a month for disability with an additional $65 in food stamps. He and his wife had lived mainly on BLM and National Forest lands taking advantage of the free dispersed camping where, as he said, they had lived on $10 a day in gasoline for their generator, that is until his health decline forced them to move near a town for a doctor.
With a lowered head, Nick said it was very hard, and most of all, how much he hated that his wife had to work odd jobs and beg for money on corners. He said it was demeaning and difficult being judged, and he had been able to join a class-action lawsuit against BP in hopes of getting some money some day. He said his dream was to buy his wife a little RV park before he died from the complications, so that she wouldn’t have to work. I told him she really had to love him and he said he knew how lucky he was. He shook my hand again and said he’d seen us arrive and just wanted to say hello and introduce himself.
I watched as Nick struggled away through the grass and dirt, his gaunt, bent body weakly pushing the walker, his shared dreams of a hopeful future for his wife ringing in my thoughts. I went back to work on my bike and a while later, I heard my name being called. Nick was slowly coming back through the grass with his walker to my bike and he said "I have something for you." He dug into a collection of rocks and pebbles in the pouch under the walker seat, handing me two small rocks, veined with sparkling green. He said he wanted us to have them as memories of our stay in Colorado. I shook his hand in thanks and asked where he'd found them. He answered "when I'm in my walker all I can see is the ground, so I look for stones as I go..." As he struggled away, tears came to my eyes, eventually dried by the dusty, hot breeze and thoughts of the stones in my own heart.