Deer Trail 9/1/14

After leaving Denver, life seemed to calm down a lot. There just didn’t seem to be a lot of excitement. All the towns were about 10-15 miles apart. And by towns I mean a grain silo, a handful of houses and a gas station if I’m lucky.  So I had to find ways to entertain myself. I don’t know where I got this idea, but I decided I would try and learn a second language via Rosetta Stone. The only thing about Rosetta Stone is it’s so expensive. So I decided to get the less expensive and less good version (yes, less good haha). This video is very funny to me! You can hear how bad my Russian is...Haha.

This is a story that happened when I walked from Byers into Deer Trail, Colorado. Deer Trail is a very, very small town.  If I remember right, it has a population of like 561 (I looked that up...haha). The day I got there, two things were happening.  One, they were having a tractor pull.  In light of that, there were more people in Deer Trail than normal.  Number two, the town was having a vote on a unique proposal that highlighted the displeasure of the government surveillance which would have allowed people to get licensing to shoot down drones in local air space.  So, the little town of Deer Trail was having this big debate.  

So we are walking West to East on Highway 40 into Deer Trail. The city is mostly on the left hand side. The right hand side is really just a field with a gazebo in it. That’s what they call their city park. I decided that I would try to camp under that gazebo because I knew there was going to be a storm that night. I walked over and set my stuff down under the gazebo then sat on my backpack and looked across the street at the city and examined it. Across the street was a diner/bar and beside it was a vacant lot. Next to that looked like an abandoned mechanics shop. I could tell it didn’t ever have gas pumps, but it looked like a place that had fixed cars at one time. There were a lot of trucks pulled up in front, a lot of people outside smoking and they waved me over because they wanted to talk about the goat. It was the same old conversation..."What are you doing? What are you doing this for?"...blah blah blah. I could break the whole dialogue down for you, but I get tired of talking about the same conversation I have with people in every blog. One thing led to another, they invited me in to have some food and have a drink.

Okay, picture it: I’m in the bar with the mayor, some city councilmen and a few locals. To be honest, that was probably all of the people in the city government. First of all, everybody is pretty drunk at this point. They all surround me and mumble out a bunch of questions and I am trying to explain what I am doing. I usually don't take drunk people very seriously.  Once I know they are hammered, I just think "Okay, here we go."  I just don't really invest as much time into the situation.

So, the mayor and a couple of city council members start going so hard about Obama-Care towards me.  Then, they start asking me why I am helping people in another country when we have people who are in need here.  I try to explain that I don't see borders, I see humanity.  We are all humans; we are all alike in dignity.  God created us all alike in dignity and just because they live somewhere else or live in another country doesn't stop me from wanting to help people in need.  It isn't like I don't help in our communities.  I help whenever I can in local communities and serve in any way I can. He starts yelling at me, "You know, we have people in need here," and I say, "I understand that, sir. If you feel so strongly about it, you should do something about it.  You should get involved in your community."  Now, I know in a small community like Deer Trail, maybe it's more difficult to to find ways to get involved, but I was encouraging this guy to get involved in his community. The other part I always tell people is that I am a Christian and this is what God told me to do. So, if you have a problem with it, you need to talk to God about it. I am just doing what I am told.

Then the mayor goes off and somehow this whole drone thing gets brought up by somebody else and it goes crazy! Someone on the city council and the mayor just start yelling about government over-reaching, big brother, total chaos and they look at me and start asking, "What do you think?"  I honestly had no idea what they were talking about.  I kind of get removed from the topics or the issues of the day because I don't really follow the news too closely when I am out on the road; I don't often get a chance.  So, I didn't know anything about these drone strikes in other countries or flying overhead in the United States and spying on people.

Honestly, they were so drunk, they weren't making any sense.  I was pulled into this conversation and I am talking about things that I have no idea about.  The whole time, I am trying to figure out what is going on.  I am thinking, "Drone robots?  Like Star Wars, the drone wars or whatever. I don't get what you guys are even talking about." I excuse myself so I can go to the bathroom…

When I came back from the bathroom I did my best to excuse myself so I could go set up camp under the gazebo.