Julie is taking a virtual walk to Moab, UT, to see her nieces and nephew. John and Ben are tagging along. As they pass Smallwander towns, John has a stream of consciousness. Read the origin story.

This post is about our journey during the week of May 10. I should have been noting the calendar intervals as we went along. Oh well.  We have been walking for 4.5 months since January. I am very near Moab, in Thompson Springs, UT, and Ben and Julie still have a considerable distance to go. Again, it’s not all their fault, as I sent them on various excursions to visit different Smallwander towns. Sometimes we get lucky when the destinations match up with pop culture. I just saw Nomadland the other night, which is about a woman named Fern, played by Frances McDormand, who lives in her van and travels to various parts of the country, working here and there, sometimes at national parks serving as a park host, sometimes for Amazon in one of their warehouses for the holiday delivery season, and various other places. Her path intersects with other nomads, some of whom have purposely chosen this vagabond lifestyle to escape the grip of ‘normal’ society. That is a long intro to say, for a good part of the movie, Fern works at Wall Drug in Wall, SD. This is where Julie set out from last week. What are the odds? This film, which won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, portrays the openness, loneliness, and freedom of not only Fern’s life, but the West itself.  During this week’s walk, Julie ended up in Sundance, WY, Ben, in Sterling, CO.

Julie is taking a virtual walk to Moab, UT, to see her nieces and nephew. John and Ben are tagging along. As they pass Smallwander towns, John has a stream of consciousness. Read the origin story.

After a week’s worth of walking, Ben has settled into the High Plains near McCook, NE. This place has an interesting story. According to their visitor’s page, back in the 1980s, a couple ‘east coast academics’ had suggested that this area was so depopulated and was going to continue to lose people that the town should be returned to its original prairie state and given back to the buffalo. The re-wilded area would be called Buffalo Commons. The residents were piqued by this suggestion, so they claimed the term as their own and rallied behind a tourism plan that included Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival. Perhaps as reminder to themselves, they continue to post the original article that prompted the uproar. Nothing like us east coasters writing articles to stir the pot. Meanwhile, Julie made it to Wall, SD, which is the gateway to Badlands National Park. I landed in Fuita, CO, just beyond the Utah border. I’ll ask Julie’s brother to start preparing my room.