A lady in too-tight pajamas is smearing peanut butter on white bread. Off in the distance, my mules are grazing. Travel has gotten easier in the past 200 years. The mules and I have arrived at Independence Rock, Wyoming.

I saw this camper and knew that if I took it home and fixed it up I could drive it back in time to when someone lived in that abandoned stucco house in Shawnee, Wyoming. Actually, I yearned to drive it farther back in time than that.

After I fixed it up, that camper would take me all the way back to when the days moved slowly and I wanted to chop out great big chunks… Continue reading →

My brother Christian recently asked me in the Comment section, “sleeping question for you: when do you set up the bivy, as opposed to the big tent? Is weather a factor, time?”

Here are some answers bro.

The Bivy

A bivy (bivouac) bag is just a sack that keeps the… Continue reading →

Hello – and goodbye – from Casper, Wyoming.

The mules and I arrived in Casper Tuesday evening. We hope to set out toward Muddy Gap today.

Muddy Gap’s sort of a misnomer given that it’s smack in in the middle of Wyoming’s best dusty dry land. The good news is… Continue reading →

A few mornings ago, the mules and I woke to a heavy fog. I saddled the damp mules and we headed in to the foggy desert landscape.

7:35am: That seventh day has rolled back ’round again. Coffee pots from coast to coast are bubbling to life. Your brain’s still calm before the caffeine. I was going through my photos of the week and this one just seemed restful.

It’s a photo I took last week when I came across a wind mill when I really needed one. That story coming up this week.

I like this photo because it… Continue reading →

“I’m tired of standing there by the beet piler watching the beets fall,” he said. “I want to be a truck driver.”

He wasn’t piling beets when I met him. He was mowing grass and his mower had overheated. While he waited for it to cool he told me about working sugar beets.

“The beet season starts mid-September and runs until the first frost. They grow the beets east of here, pick them then… Continue reading →

I walk across deserts with mules. I drink beer in saloons. Last night I ended up sitting across from a bottled alien talking mules and Wyoming with Carl and Diane Strode. They own the White Wolf Saloon.

I don’t carry beer on saddle trips.… Continue reading →

Question: what do you want to read or see more about on my current mule voyage across America? I ask this because today it dawned on me that my journey from North Carolina to Hailey, Idaho is about 3/4 complete.

Yikes.

I Write for Me

I’ve always written the RiverEarth.com blog for my readers and me. I don’t get… Continue reading →