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.

The mules and I are riding deeper and deeper in to the eastern Wyoming desert. Creeks, ponds and lakes, reliable watering sources to the east, have vanished. Increasingly we are relying on windmills for water.

Across the Dry Land

Every day, mules Brick and Cracker drink 5 to 10 gallons of water apeice. I get by on less than a gallon. Until now, we’ve traveled from town to town. Mornings, I fill my jugs… Continue reading →

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 →

Maybe the mules and I have been alone too long. Maybe I’m childish. Who cares. Fist-pumping the Nebraska sky to get a coal train to blow its whistle at the mules and me amuses the hell out of me.

That ol’ train whistle sure makes me smile. I hope it does you, too.

Whistle Post Script

The whistle blowing caper happened in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The mules and I have since traveled to eastern Wyoming.