Searching

We didn’t leave the town of Chico until fairly late in the evening. I had to leave that night, or might not ever leave. So, amongst the tears and broken hearts, Chico, my freshly named dog, and I started the long drive across the desert to my Dad’s house in the mountains outside Boise. I knew we wouldn’t make it far the first night. When I drive, I try to take slow routes, dirt routes if possible, and different routes too. This time, we were driving over 299 East heading towards Alturas and Lakeview. It wasn’t long before I was too tired to keep driving. Just outside of Burney, we pulled off the highway onto a dirt road, unpacked my therma-rest sleeping pad and sleeping bag, tied Chico up, and tried to sleep. Trucks barreled by in the night carrying loads out across the states. As their lights crested the hill, the trees and bushes around me brightened and I could see Chico for a second, standing at the end of the rope peering out into the dark.

When I first got Chico, I didn’t realize how much he would change my life. There is a joke I like to tell about dogs and women. They say if you really want to see which one loves you more, your girlfriend or your dog, lock them both in the trunk for an hour. When you open it, see which one is still happy to see you.

This story is not about the love between a man and woman. I spent the last four years trying to create a home with a woman. After failing miserably and watching the home I tried to create collapse, Chico and I are hitting the open road. 15 years ago, when I was helping my Aunt out in Alaska and poorly attempting to do my best Alaska fishing guide impression, I guided a dentist out onto the Karluk River. The tide was pushing up and the salmon moving with the tide. I motored the boat slowly up the channel in the lagoon to where the river began. I had guided quite a few people, mostly well to do white men. They were men of monetary success and at that time in my life I was impressed by some of them. I would ask them about how they did it and if they had any advice. Most were quick to share. On this day, this one particular dentist (I had guided quite a few dentists) told me there are searchers and there are finders in this world. The world needs finders. I have tried hard to find something worth holding onto.

For almost four years I strained to find myself in a healthy relationship with a beautiful part Italian woman from the central valley of California. Unfortunately, she was searching inside herself and unable to find the peace of mind to return the love. When I found myself with a broken heart after she found herself with another man, it gave me the perspective one can only find when caught in a deep lie, a lie so deep you begin to believe it might be true. So, when I started to search back inside myself again to try to find something from which to hold, I found the land again.

Most of my life I have dreamed of seeing the world. When I was a child, I had a globe in my bedroom, something I think every child should have. I would trace the route of my future travels and caress the relief of mountain ranges I would one day cross. And while I don’t normally care much for political boundaries and lines drawn in the sand, I respect and am humbled by natural boundaries.

Now, I am on a three-month plan. By the first of the year, Chico and I are loading up in a car and driving, because sometimes the world needs searchers.

Travels with Chico

I was packed up and ready to leave. My little red and rusted s-10 pickup was filled to the top, camper shell filled, and small enclosed trailer meticulously filled and balanced across the axels. I was off to a new town, a new college, and a new degree, when my friend, poet, and advisor, Jeanne, called me to tell me that she had a dog just for me. Dogs are her thing. Two unaltered male Portuguese water dog puppies showed up at the local Humane Society. I was packed and ready to leave. I didn’t even have a place to live yet. I asked my climbing partner and friend Dave to go look at the puppies because he worked close by. He walked in there, both puppies rolled over onto their backs and submitted, but one of them peed all over itself. Dave didn’t call me to tell me anything, he simply paid for little mangy black puppy who didn't pee on itself and brought it to me. He reminds me to this day that I still owe him that money. When he stepped down from the back of Dave’s little fuel efficient Toyota Matrix, the dog was covered in dreadlocks, and his eyes hidden behind the drooping eyebrows. He shyly smiled up from behind them. He was (and still is) a nervous dog. Jeanne gave him a quick bath. My mom was there and as I removed things out from the front seat, she put them into her car for me to get later. The dog and I loaded up into the truck, he nervously looked at me, and I named him Chico for the town we were leaving.