Mitchell Oregon...

I haven't had the chance to blog in a while, so I'm working backwards. I ended up walking from the summit of the Ochoco Mountain into Mitchell which was 17 miles for the day. It felt pretty good! As usual, I got stopped several times and met some really interesting people. Previously on my Facebook, a girl posted that her dad was a baptist minister in Mitchell. As I approached the city about a mile out, he found me and offered to have me stay in the basement of his church while I was in town. My plan was to get another check up for LeeRoy and take half the day off. When I finally walked into the city I was stopped at The Little Pine cafe where they told me they've been waiting for me, mind you this is a town of 160 people. Before I even got there, everyone already knew who I was and what I was doing. The cafe bought me some food and called Carol ( the minister) to have him come pick me up. LeeRoy jumped into the back of his jeep and we headed up to his house. There I met his family and had a good time talking. They were very confused as to why I didn't have a gun on me for protection. I thought that was kind of funny. Later I was dropped of at the church and had a very comfortable nights rest. I had plans to meet Peggy the Vet down at the Cafe in the morning.

This is where I need to add a little back story so you can get the picture of whats going on. This weekend was the towns 3rd annual music festival that everyone was preparing for. The owner of the Little Pine Cafe was also the Vice President of a Motorcycle club and everyone was heading into town to be a part and camp out.

In the morning I get into town to wait for Peggy with LeeRoy tied out front. We wait most of the day and she didn't show up so I called to make another appointment for the next day. I headed back to the church to sleep and got up the next morning to go wait for her. Again she didn't showed up.  By this time, the group of motorcyclists arrived and are all hanging out with me on the porch. Everything seems to be going fine, LeeRoy is behaving well so I get up to go to the bathroom and by the time I get back, LeeRoy had hooked some lady with his horns. I apologized to her but now the attitude of the group has changed. What used to be cool and welcomed was now not welcomed and unfriendly.

I left and headed back to the church figuring Peggy was a no show. I decided that the next morning I would leave town and continue walking. I got up late, said goodbye to Carol and his family and headed downtown on my way out. As I'm passing the cafe, a lady stops to take a few pictures of LeeRoy, meanwhile a group of the bikers surround me trying to be intimidating and very unfriendly. The husband of the woman that got hurt ( by hurt I mean a little scratch on her side) yesterday was standing in front of me, at least 6ft tall. Staring me down he says, " a little word of advice, if the f***ing goat ever messes with my wife again, then I will slit his f***ing throat!"

Here's the thing, I don't do to well with older men trying to push me around or threaten me like they're abusing their authority. So immediately I got stiff necked. I thought of a couple "choice words" to say to him about how unintelligent his wife is for coming up to a goat she didn't know with horns… but I held me tongue. I looked him in the eyes and apologized  again… its not like I can be a tough guy with all these people surrounding me. They eventually left and I headed out of town. This really put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

I know its my responsibility to make sure LeeRoy doesn't mess with anybody but at some point there has to be some kind of personal responsibility to not put yourself in harms way.