@argonautphoto

20 years ago today I was walking across the US. From my journals: “Day 46, Bernardo, NM to Train Tracks, today:26 cumulative:887 Walking another plain of gold grasses on flatlands leading to low mountains, as I often do these days in the West, I walk east of Bernardo (which is itself only 1 building) past a community the locals called "Out There." Tire piles and trailers welded together, and a settlement of junk yards and Mad Max caravans and buses, and broken RVs. Stopping to photograph a desolate stretch of dirt that ends in white sky, a van pulls up and someone in the driver’s seat says that they “like my rig.” "Call me Seminole Bob the Wanderer!" (Seminole Bob uses the pronoun he) Seminole Bob tells me he once walked across the United States too! from Miami, Florida to Seattle Washington, for the 1962 World’s Fair on a $20,000 bet. He walked with a donkey and in moccasins and won that bet and walked away with the money. He's also done some wanderings on a bicycle with a cart, and in a bus, crossing the country many times when he was my age. (Using the language of 50 years ago) Seminole Bob told me he travelled with an act called "Oweena, world famous transvestite,” and wants to show me the first chapters of his book by the same title. As was usual when I met people not far from their homes Oweena offered: “Come on back to the house!” and I follow the van back towards Bernardo to a camper top and a broken-down RV surrounded by various junk, where Oweena and his wife reside. Now that we know each other I am allowed to call him Oweena instead of Seminole Bob. I have found in my travels that there is often an introductory name, sometimes it is a second name, other times, wholly fabricated, used until the person trusts you. I have passed the test. Oweena’s wife Sharon (slide 2) has offered up some bacon and eggs, toast and beans, a cup of coffee and plenty more if you want it, and I never refuse food, and I do, indeed, want that meal. She tells me as she serves up the food, how she has traced her lineage through King Arthur and all the way back to Christ.” (Continued in captions) #3349miles