The Hoe Down

Celestial The Navigator has come a couple of thousand cycle miles or so to try out her sea legs!

A special thanks to the Williams family for putting one of my posters in their shop window and for being so much fun to hang out with!

THE HOE DOWN

I am camped under a cliff on the warm shores of the sea in Darwin, Australia; the moon is almost full and even at night the tropical heat radiates off of the ocean blue green salty sea. I awaken with a sudden stinging startling surprise; call the police I shout out into the balmy moonlit glow of the interior of my little tent, a glowing luminescence so intense it is like sleeping inside a florescent bulb. “Call the police they are trying to take me alive”, I shout.

My legs are bleeding, my back is taffy sticky from sweat, my chest is thumping. Like a fireman who has just emerged from the flames I look down and see blood. Little droplets speckle my legs from toe to thigh. What has happened I think to myself? I search around for my headlight to investigate. I brush the sleep boogers from my eyes and as the glow of the headlight brightens the tent I see tiny squirmy black dots, sand flies, they are everywhere. And like cowboys at a hoe down, they are throwing back the pints of blood with a furious thirst and parched for more.

I light some tobacco, not to smoke it but to fill the tent with smoke in order to cloud their vision and their little minds. “Sand flies blinded by smoke and leave town…news at eleven” I can see the headlines now! Or perhaps the headline could read “Hundreds of sand flies found intoxicated on the outskirts of town playing miniature violins and searching for a new location for the annual sand fly hoe down”. Yeah, that would look good on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper.

After the invasion of sand flies and way past last call at the sand fly hoe down, I reoccupy my tent and I lie there trying not to itch my already bleeding legs and smile. I smile while thinking about what a wonderful little town I have found in Darwin, Australia. Indonesia is only 600 nautical miles away, across the ocean I am camped on. After having met half the population of Darwin and littering cyclist looking for a crew position on a sailing yacht heading for Indonesia posters all over town, I smile with a knowing hopefulness that someone will either tell someone who will tell someone who will tell someone or else someone will see a cyclist looking for…poster. Therefore, me, Pandemic the Magic Nautical Bicycle and turtle Celestial The Navigator will be sailing across the beautiful blue green ocean and be able to be on our way soon enough.