Monticello to Cedar Rapids

After leaving the library I decided I would give the church a go in order to see if I could find a place to crash or see if I could work for a meal or some small amount of money. There were two churches in town, a Lutheran and a Catholic. Initially neither had anyone in them so I came back later. I finally found a religion teacher and her class in the catholic church. I asked where I could find the father, she led me to him. I got in and waited with the receptionist, she was very cold and seemed to look down on me when I explained my situation. I hoped the father would be different, but as I listened to his superficial phone conversation in the other room for half an hour as I waited I highly doubted it. He did not disappoint. The catholic priest did not show so much as a glimpse of warmth and was very dismissive. I left disappointed.

So now I returned to the park, where I would presumably be sleeping and listened to music until near sundown. The camp ground where I thought I would be able to take a shower was watching me very closely because I refused to pay $12.00 to sleep in the ruddy garbage dump they called a camp ground. Seriously, the camp ground was the only unattractive part of Monticello that I had seen.

So I fell asleep on a nice comfortable hill in the park for a short period of time until sudden movement woke me from my slumber. It was an animal about the size of a medium sized dog or a very large cat. I grabbed for my pepper spray and it sprinted at my sudden movement. This obviously wasn't going to work out, so I decided to head towards the gazebo. I slept one of the most uncomfortable nights sleeps of my life, it was rainy, cold, and headlights kept passing by. I made a pillow from my towel and scarf and wrapped myself in my sleeping bag.

I woke up at 4:10 a.m. It was still raining a bit so I put on my parka and headed over to the camp grounds to see if the lobby was open so I could sneak into the shower, unfortunately, it was locked. I decided it would be best to just start walking towards Cedar Rapids at this point as I wasn't going to get more sleep. I had a vitamin and cereal bar for breakfast and headed down 151. At around 6:00 or 6:30 a cop stopped me and asked if I was hitch hiking, if I had a weapon, and all of the usual questions. I answered honestly, told him I had mace and a pocket knife on me and that I wasn't specifically hitch hiking but I was taking rides if they were offered. He left me alone and told me to be careful and stay off the road.

At about 6:40 or so a man named Joe stopped and asked if I would like a ride, I accepted. Joe was a really nice guy who goes to Kirkwood college in Cedar rapids, he had similar musical taste to me and was about my age. Joe bought me coffee and even went so far as to give me his student access number so that I can update my blog. I gave him the url to this blog so that we can check out my progress and proceeded to go in and start writing, which is were I leave off.

P.S. I talked to my dad last night and mentioned the priest I had talked to. My dad actually went online and found his number and called him lol. Funny stuff.