Saying Goodbye to Dalton
Yesterday, May 31st, was my last day in the apartment. As of today, this apartment is not my home. My lifestyle, built on having an address, a place to call home, is over. Now I have begun living a “walking without an address” lifestyle. I guess I’m officially homeless for the next year or so. It almost makes me want to sing along with Jim Reeves, “This world is not my home. I’m just a-passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world, anymore.”
Almost Overwhelming Last-Minute Problems
Everything I had has been given away. The past four days have been particularly stressful as I’ve been saying Goodbye to Dalton, to my sister and mother, to the local church I attend, and to my friends and neighbors.
No Walking Trailer
On Friday, the 27th, I received information that the Hipstar Walking Trailer mass production was being postponed until August to fix some design issues that have surfaced, so I contacted the CEO and explained that I would be “somewhere” on the trail, but no idea exactly where, by the time August arrives. He kindly offered to refund my pre-purchase $360 under the circumstances.
Too Much for One Backpack
With just four days left on my lease and no walking trailer to carry all my gear and supplies, I now had to figure out how to trim two full backpacks down to one.
On Sabbath, May 28th, I lay the question of how to depart without a trailer at Jesus’ feet. I believe that one should not just remember the Sabbath day, but instead one should remember to keep the Sabbath day Holy. It felt good to rest from the worries and approaching deadline for one day.
On Sunday, May 29th, my youngest daughter and her husband flew in from Denver to see me off. I asked them to help me make the hard choices of eliminating things and getting my gear and supplies down to just one backpack. We unpacked, rearranged, packed, brainstormed, unpacked, tried different approaches, packed, lost track of stuff, unpacked, repacked, and got nowhere. Finally, Robert, my son-in-law, starting brainstorming ways of creating our own version of a walking trailer.
By the end of the day, I had bought a “jogging stroller”, a three-wheeled baby stroller which Robert and I had decided could be turned around backwards with its handle attached to my belt. On Monday, Memorial Day no less, we spent the day modifying the frame by bolting on aluminum tubing to extend the handle, repositioned the angle of the handle to lift the third wheel off the ground which made the baby seat a deeper well directly over the “rear”, now front, axel for better weight distribution, and figured out the best way to place and secure the two backpacks.
Domain and Blog Crashed
Late in the afternoon on Monday, I discovered that this “I am Sparrow” website had crashed. Because it was Memorial Day, I wouldn’t be able to call the domain host service to find out what happened until Tuesday, May 31st.
On Tuesday, when I called them, they checked everything and couldn’t find an issue. I suggested that perhaps if they restored everything from a recent backup, perhaps it would solve the problem. The support technician started the restore, then, he started saying, “I’m still working on it…” every four or five minutes to reassure me that he hadn’t walked away from the phone and forgotten about me. Finally, after an hour of this, he told me he was going to have to escalate my trouble call to the Level III repair technicians because he had finally discovered the issue and it was definitely something wrong on the back end of my domain. He said it would probably be 48 hours or longer before the issue was resolved, but that they would email me when they got it up and working again.
Great!
There were zero days remaining before vacating the apartment and it looked unlikely that I would be able to blog about the first day of walking.
No Turning Back
Today I started walking, hitched up to my MacGyver walking trailer, towing two backpacks while wearing a mini backpack holding a three-liter drinking water supply.
Katrina and Robert offered to drive me to Savannah, where my route from Dalton actually intersects the East Coast Greenway. Five hours after leaving Dalton, they let me out at the Savannah location. We hugged and prayed together, checked everything with the trailer one last time, took some pictures, and waved goodbye.
Bull Street Library
The first thing I did was look up the locations of the various branches of the Savannah libraries. The East Coast Greenway runs on Bull Street. It turned out there was a library also on Bull Street, about five blocks away. I went there to get on the internet and see what, if anything, had happened on the broken “I am Sparrow” domain. To my relief, it was working again! However, writing these blogs takes quite a bit of time, actually, and time is limited on the library computers to just one hour. I decided to get a hotel room for the night instead of finding a suitable place to pitch my tent, so that I could charge up all my electronic toys and write this blog that you are reading right now.
Glad you are off and walking!! I know this a dream of a lifetime as well as an attempt to fall in line with God’s will for your life. Praying for you as you start this adventure. Having some family issues in my extended family that I cannot discuss here but want to ask for your prayers. God knows what they are.
Also, I have always been curious if you were ever able to talk with the Pastor in Paradise. Just wondering. I realize I was one of the first to know of your Sparrow experience. I appreciate you sharing this with me. God’s blessings on one of His special sparrows as you walk over the next year or more.
No, I never did get a chance to talk to the Paradise pastor. However, I lived in Dalton, GA from 2015 to now and have had a number of long talks with the Dalton pastor. Thank you, Nancy, for remembering, caring, and being a close friend all these years.
Wow, what a rocky start you’ve had. Glad it all worked out in the end. Savannah has some great places to stay (no tent required). But you’ll learn how to find a free outlet to charge devices as you travel. Good luck and we miss you already.
Thank you, kiddo! You, and your mother, and your family are all right here with me [taps heart]. Kiss Kitty and Amy for me.
Bruce, I am following your “Exodus” story with the greatest of interest and was pleased to find your unfolding story here. I am praying for you every day for the best outcomes for you imaginable!
Love your battle scarred brother in Christ Jesus, eugene borg
My dear battle-scarred Gene,
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Imagine a horrific battleground. Smoke fills the air, bombs, mortars, field mines, IUDs exploding all around, bullets whistling as they pass. The confusion mounts as the two enemy lines advance on each other. One side has overwhelming numbers. The other side, though smaller, is lead by a fearless Commander riding a pure white horse. He cries out, “Victory is already ours!” and his words push outward like shock waves, toppling the enemy forces like a sickle. The smoke begins to clear and through the thinning haze you see the Christian soldiers, STANDING.
I love that imagery. “Stand your ground, and having done all, to [still] stand.”
Eph. 6:13