Portland, Chicago, now Kentucky? In a week I was already two-thirds of the way across the country...

Our train followed the I84 east and we watched the green cliffs to the right pass by, with the occasional waterfall flowing between their rocks. To the left was the entire expanse of the Columbia river. We could see the brown rolling hills across the river and the small houses dotting their sides. On the opposite shore under those houses I could see the tiny cars of a train heading westward into Vancouver, Washington.

About twenty miles out, the train stopped. Looking around all we could see were the trees on both sides of the tracks. Until Jade yelled, "Oh my god!" and turned her back to whatever she saw .I shuddered at the thought of a mangled corpse lying on the tracks like the pictures I had seen on www.deadtrainbums.com. Looking over her side of the train, I could smell the death as I saw the ground up body of a deer on the tracks next to us. I breathed a sigh of (slightly disgusted) relief.

We pinched our noses and swatted the flies away until a train passed by, freeing us to continue on our way. I don't think anyone had the desire to look over and see what further damage the deer had incurred.

The train veered away from the I84 and continued into the woods of eastern Oregon as the sun settled into the west horizon. It was still 3 1/2 days to Chicago, so I settled down to sleep. It had been a long day.

I woke up the next morning to the realization that we were passing through Boise, Idaho. Not only that, but in a few hours we would be in Glenn's Ferry, where my parents lived. I hoped that the train would stop for just a few minutes, as my parent's house was only two blocks from the railroad tracks. I fantasized about running to the house, dashing through the door saying, "Hi mom! Hi dad!" running to the fridge, grabbing two armloads of food, and sprinting out the door. "Bye mom! Bye dad!" I would say as I ran back to the train, leaving them in total confusion. But the train didn't stop. Flying through Glenn's Ferry, I pointed at my parent's house saying, "Hey! I can see my house from here!"

We spent the next night going through Wyoming, singing a few Propaghandi songs and playing cards. Everyone spent most of the next day sleeping while I stared out at the scenery for hours. I was too deep in thought to do anything else. I thought about how many people had ridden on this train before us. Somehow it felt like were were doing something no one had ever done before, yet I knew better. I watched the mile markers count down every mile on the left side of the train. I would wait for that magical 'mile 0' marker, and when it came, expecting some kind of land mark or doomsday event, all I got was the process starting over again. I wondered what the point was... We spent that night looking at my map trying to figure out if we were making good time. It didn't seem like it. The train was making a lot of stops, and we started joking around about how we had run out of water.

"Let's see..." I said, looking at my map.
"We ran out of water... here." Dave said, pointing at the map.
"And we'll probably die here," said Caitlin, pointing at another area on the map.
"And they should find our bodies... here," I finished, pointing at Chicago.

Fortunately, the train stopped next to a motor home park where Jade and Caitlin hopped off and filled our water jugs from someone's garden hose while Dave and I waited tensely, afraid the train would take off without them. I watched their silhouettes stumble up the hill, and took the water jugs from them so they could climb back in.

A few hours later we were nearing the Illinois border. Everyone had convinced me by that time that it would be a lot more fun to go to the Permanent Autonomous Zones (PAZ) conference in Kentucky instead of waiting around Michigan for two weeks waiting for my friends to get ready to leave. It was a funny coincidence because I saw the PAZ conference web site several months before and I remembered wanting to go really bad. "But that's all the way in Kentucky. I'll never be able to make it..." I thought at the time. Interesting how things change. I was looking forward to the workshops at this conference because most were dealing with how to start your own permanent autonomous zones, like infoshops, community spaces, etc. That was exactly the type of thing I had tried to do in Los Angeles. I remembered all the work I had put into gathering a collective of my friends together, working out the legal details, putting together benefit shows, only to have it all fall apart without me there to keep it together... oh well. I had already learned from my mistakes, and I hoped to learn even more at this conference.

By our fourth day I had accepted our little space on the train as home, convinced we would ride the rails for eternity, our own private purgatory. I mean really, four days straight on a train is a long fucking time! That night, we were almost to Chicago, finally, it was only 60 miles away! Then it stopped. I grumbled to myself, and we sat down and began another card game. It was a strange night, a full moon was out, and we were surrounded on all sides by fields of corn spanning as far as we could see. A low hanging fog enveloped those cornfields, and it was one of the most beautiful gothic nights I had ever seen in my life. I half expected to see an army of the dead slowly emerge from between the stalks of corn. And silence. No insects, no birds, nothing. After 2-3 hours, we were starting to get impatient, and debated whether we should go up to the front of the train and talk to the conductors to see what was going on. I thought it was probably a bad idea. It was at least a mile and a half to the unit. Finally Jade and Caitlin decided to walk up to the unit and see what was going on. About a half an hour later, the air brakes hissed and the train shuddered forward. Dave and I looked at each other with that look of "Oh shit." on both our faces. Jade and Caitlin hadn't gotten back yet. We had all agreed that if for some reason one of us isn't on the train when it starts moving we would throw their pack off so even if they got stranded, at least they wouldn't be stranded without their gear. Me and Dave debated if we should throw off their packs while we called out their names into the night. The train was picking up speed now, but we didn't see them fly by or hear a response to our calls. We figured they were either in the unit, or had been walking back to our car when the train started moving and hopped on one of the cars ahead of us. The train barreled along for what I had figured was about 4-5 miles when it stopped again. We sat there nervously looking around, trying to figure out what had happened to Jade and Caitlin. After 10 or so minutes, I faintly heard my name called out in the distance. Then Dave's. We saw a flashlight in the distance behind us. The light was bobbing up and down next to the train cars, me and Dave thought it might be a rail worker but after a few minutes of tense silence we could see Jade and Caitlin's silhouettes in the distance behind their flashlight. We called out to them, and they ran up to our car. "We got to get up to the unit!" said Jade. "There's no time to explain! Let's go!" Wow. It felt like a movie.

We threw on our packs, and started running towards the unit. After what seemed like an eternity of tripping over rail planks and rocks stabbing through my weak chuck taylors, we made it to the front of the train where the units and train conductors were waiting for us. One of the conductors escorted us into the second unit. He told us that one of their area managers might be around, so keep our heads down, and that they would stop for us in an area of Chicago outside of the main yard where we could get off so the bulls wouldn't catch us. After giving us some food and water, he left with a "have fun!" leaving us to ourselves in the unit. Awesome! We were getting a ride in a train engine! Union Pacific units are fairly large, and we explored it for a while, and I noticed that that inside of the unit looked a lot like the cockpit of a plane, except there were no flight sticks, just a whole lot of dials and keypads. Dave and Jade sat in the two pilot chairs while me and Caitlin crashed on the floor. As the train started to move, Jade and Caitlin explained that they had been talking to the conductors trying to find out what the hold up was, but they didn't have time to come back and get us when the conductors had to move the train forward to make room for another train to pass. When the train had slowed down enough, they hopped off to come get us, and by the time the train stopped, they ended up behind our car. While they finished their story, I fell asleep on the floor, exhausted. I probably hadn't slept more than a half an hour or so before I was woken up by the train conductor talking and my friends picking up their gear. We had reached our stop.

Thanking the conductors, we hopped off the train and walked to a nearby patch of forest they had pointed out as a good place to sleep. We crashed there for the night, or at least I tried to crash, but the mosquitoes kept me up all night and it seemed like every insect in the forest decided my sleeping bag would be a great place to hangout... Eventually the sun rose, and we all walked to the train station where we took the long and expensive commuter train to Gary, Indianna. We figured that Gary, being the southernmost suburb of Chicago, would be the best place to hitch out to our destination; Louisville, Kentucky where the PAZ conference was taking place. Upon arriving there though, I realized that Gary was a pretty ghetto area, and I didn't think we would ever get a ride out of there. Especially not for all four of us. But after only a half an hour of Jade and Caitlin sticking their thumbs out while me and Dave sat on the side of the road, a mexican guy with a delivery van stopped and gave us a ride to Indianapolis. I think these two girls were Dave and I's good luck charms. On the ride to Indianapolis, Jade sat up front while the rest of us sat in the back of the van. The guy passed back a bag of weed, asking Dave to roll us all some joints. Everyone got high while I tried not to breathe in too deeply, so I wouldn't get stoned and fall asleep. I didn't like getting stoned anyway because it just made me fall asleep. When the guy dropped us off in Indianapolis, he gave us another bag of weed to my wide-eyed friends, then wished us good luck as he took off.

We wandered into the main strip of convenience stores and gas stations that surrounded the freeway off ramp where we had been dropped off. We asked for rides at the shell station before moving over to the laundromat next door. After asking for rides to Louisville for about a half an hour without any luck, two guys Dave and Jade had been talking to earlier pulled up in their truck, gave us two handfuls of change, and stuffed something in an empty french fry containers saying, "Don't throw that away now," wished us goodnight, and drove off. Looking inside the french fry container, Dave pulled out a fat green nug of weed wrapped in cellophane. We all looked at each other and agreed that this was a good night. Without even asking, people just gave us money and drugs!

After the laundromat owner asked us to leave, a nice woman across the street gave us a ride to the next town a few miles south. She asked us if we had accepted the lord into our hearts, and Dave told here he in fact had, and started to ramble on about how he went to church all the time, and how much he loved the lord. Meanwhile the rest of us tried not to burst out laughing. We just looked at each other with huge smiles on our faces, while Dave rambled on about how great jesus was, doing an awesome job of keeping the woman pacified. Dropping us off in a place called greenwood (or something like that) we thanks her and walked over to the closest truck stop. I loved truck stop hopping, but I had been continually disappointed in the fact that every truck stop I had been to had no Johnny Cash CD's OR tapes! For what was supposed to be the trucker crossroads of amerikkka, this seemed ridiculous. With that aside, truck stops were cool. Unfortunately as far as I could tell, all the mom and pop truck stops had been wiped off the face of the planet, replaced by huge corporate chain truck stops opening up the possibility for me to persue one of my favorite pastimes, misdemeanor theft. Even with the almost insulting lack of security at most truck stops, it was still fun. I just wish they had my damn Johnny Cash CD. Walking away disappointed, but not empty handed, me and Dave laid out on the grass outside while Jade and Caitlin walked around the truck stop asking truckers if they were heading to Louisville. After about an hour of beating off the mosquitoes with sticks, Jade and Caitlin came back and told us that one of the truckers had put out an A.P.B. on his CB for any truckers that were going to Louisville and willing to give us a lift. So all we had to do was wait for the truckers to come to us... nice.

Jade and Caitlin headed back into the truck stop to use the bathroom and came out awhile later telling us that one of the truckers in the restaurant had given them twenty five bucks saying, "jesus told me to buy you dinner," damn, our little group was on a roll. Then the truck stop manager who was an asshole the entire time we were there, came out and said that if we didn't leave, he'd call the cops.

We were walking over to the opposite side of the freeway to find a field to sleep in when a shiny blue rig pulled to the side of the road, with a friendly trucker waving at us out the window. We ran up to the truck as he got out and helped us load our packs into his truck. He told us how he had heard on his CB that we needed a ride to Louisville, and saw us leaving the truck stop. So we all climbed into his rig, which was huge. I sat in the passenger seat chatting with our new friend Tom, while everyone else fell asleep in the back cab of the truck. Me and Tom bullshitted for a bit while rocking out to the WWF soundtrack (ha!) on our way to Louisville. He was a nice guy, and I could keep a conversation going with him without wanting to paint the walls with my brains, which is more than I can say about a lot of people I've ridden with.

An hour and a half later, we crossed the bridge over the river into Louisville, Kentucky! Tom dropped us off at the factory where he was delivering his bizillion tons of chicken fat, and we walked down the road to a clear field with a pond, next to what I discovered later was a water treatment plant. It was really late at night, and we were beat as hell. We pitched Jade and Caitlin's tent and went to sleep. Waking in the morning, we all started walking into downtown. I was sweating profusely, unused to the awfully high humidity in Kentucky. I hate humidity. To make matters worse, on our way into town we walked by a pig slaughterhouse!!! The stench was so completely nauseating that I was doubled over, and felt like I was going to projectile vomit! Hearing the shrieks and screams of pigs as I forced myself to look in the building along with that smell was something I will never forget for the rest of my life. One semi-truck was outside, filled with pigs ready for the slaughter. Just looking into their eyes gave me a lot of appreciation for those who commit the 'crime' of animal liberation. Hell, if I had a blowtorch, I would have released all those pigs without a second thought.

We walked for a long time through the blazing heat and humidity through downtown. My nausea finally subsided around noon and we bought lunch at an awesome chinese restaurant. We took the bus to where the PAZ conference was taking place, the BRYCC House. The BRYCC House (pronounced 'Brick') was an old 'deep south' style movie theater converted into a youth center. We were one of the first groups of people to arrive, so there wasn't much going on. It didn't really help that we were two days early for the the conference either. We went to help out at the Maplewood House where Food Not Bombs was preparing some of the food for feeding everyone at the conference. I had a lot of fun helping out with the cooking and while their house was too full to let us stay, they let us pitch our tent in the backyard.

I spent the next day hanging out at the BRYCC house and helping out when I could. A few kids from around the country started trickling in that day, including an old friend of mine from Los Angeles, Marie. Her dark black dreadlocks with the split ends going everywhere, making her look like she stuck her finger in a light socket... The sun hadn't darkened her light tan complexion, and I remember how she had commented on her spanish ancestry. She wore the same tattered hoodie with a few new patches and stood almost a food shorter than I, and it showed when she ran up to hug me.

It brought back memories of saying goodbye in LA. She decided to pick up and go hop a train with this guy we met on melrose ave. I gave her my blanket and pepper spray that night and told her if that guy tried to take advantage of her to pepper spray him and throw him off the train. That seemed pretty funny now. She could definitely take care of herself. Finally I remembered sleeping on rooftops by myself. It was a lonely time for me after she left.

We caught up on old times, where each of us had been, and what our plans were. It was nice for nostalgia's sake, but I could tell things had changed. We weren't the same people anymore, and we didn't talk to each other much for the rest of the conference.

Later that day I met a girl named Liz from New York City, and she carried a huge bike messenger bag. I'd never seen a bag like it. You could probably carry two 30 packs of beer in there with room to spare. She looked fairly normal with just a pair of blue slacks, a bright neon orange tank top, and a red visor on her head, both of which she had found in a dumpster. She had beautiful long brown dreadlocks that were tied back behind her head. I immediately had a crush on her and spent a lot of time with her during the conference. That night me, Liz, and a few other people went to a rooftop a few blocks away to drink a few beers. We had to climb up a wall with pipes and vines to get to it but we made it up without much of a problem, and we all drank and talked while Liz smoked a few bowls. Time passed and I eventually passed out. I woke up to the pale blue sky slowly being lit by the rising sun and felt a slight drizzle on my face. I left to catch some sleep back in my dry tent at the Maplewood house.

A few hours later I came back to the BRYCC house for the first day of the PAZ conference. The day was filled with workshops on everything from pirate radio by Free Radio Berkeley, to a very interesting workshop called 'Radicalizing Your Parents'. I cooked food with Food Not Bombs to help feed all the people in attendance. At the end of the night was a movie showing and open mic session where Jade and Caitlin told a few jokes. Almost 300 people had converged on the BRYCC house by that night, and it was was the first assembly I had ever been to that truly felt like home.

The second day exploded into more workshops on computer security, organizing collectives, and dealing with abuse in a community. Two very funny guys I met there did an absolutely hilarious puppet show about the Garbage Liberation Front with a variety of different puppets and paper mache props. A lot of 'Guerrilla Workshops' started coming together that day as well. Posted on the wall was a large piece of construction paper that anyone could write down what they wanted to do a workshop on and where. This led to many interesting events like the 'kissing workshop', radical cheerleading, how to stencil your own patches and tshirts, and a few discussion groups.

The next two days of the conference continued this way until the final night which finally culminated into the dumpster diving scavenger hunt that spanned a 50 block radius around the BRYCC house. Skull and crossbone stencils were painted all around town. The goal: follow the map to each of the jolly rogers and find the art supplies located near each one. Whoever collects the most art supplies wins. The secondary goal was to collect as much dumpstered goodies as possible and bring it back to the BRYCC house and make... well... something.

After the maps were passed out, the hunt began. Looking at our map, I saw three marks in the Louisville cemetery which was the farthest point on the map. I insisted we go there first. Not only would we be the first group there, but it would give us ample time to fuck with the other groups as they wondered around the dark cemetery trying to find the art supplies we had already gotten.

We found hiding spots and waited for all the other teams. We shook trees and ran between gravestones, making them call out "who is that?!?" to our dancing shadows. After a while it kinda lost its appeal and we emerged from hiding. All the teams had reached the graveyard, and the game was pretty much over. We walked out of the cemetery to the main boulevard while the word "Braaaaaiiiins..." echoed out of the crowd and we held our arms out limp before us, creating a crowd of zombies 100 strong. You can imagine the looks we got from the bar across the street. Then, the call:

"What do we want?!?"

"Braaaaaiiiins..." moaned the crowd.

"When do we want it?!?!"

"Braaaaaiiiins..."

We returned to the BRYCC house with all the dumpstered things we had found searching for the art supplies. I never found out who won the game. No one kept track, and really, it didn't seem to matter. The mound of dumpstered materials grew as each group added what they had found to the pile. Among the things we found were a bass drum from a music store dumpster, mops and brooms, a car stereo, spray paint, and a pair of shoes. People began taking the mess and putting it together. The broomsticks as legs, the bass drum as the body (with the car stereo installed inside), and the crowning piece: a white ceramic skull someone found in a laundromat dumpster as the head. After an hour of spray painting and accessories, we had our life size anarcho-pirate.

It even said 'I eat fascists' spray painted on it's chest. I took a step back to admire it, and cursed myself for not having my camera with me. It was the end of the last night, and I sat down with a few of the friends I had made, people that were still so new to me, but felt like I had known forever. With a kind of sadness, we watched as events of the night wrapped up, realizing that this was finally all coming to an end, and how bad we didn't want it to. It just tugged at my heart. It was the perfect semblance of anarchism at work. We worked and learned with each other for almost a week, and it was paradise.

All it took was a bunch of silly kids that wanted nothing else but to create a space for what mattered to them the most. No money, no glory, just acceptance of one another and the desire to share knowledge. That was the first time I realized anarchy could happen---when people cared enough to make it.

Caitlin and Jade were hitchhiking back to Canada the next morning, and Dave hopped a train back to Baltimore that night. I had new travel partners now, Liz and Jakie, two girls I had met at the conference few days before who wanted to learn how to ride trains. I told them I could show them easily and we decided to leave that night.

Jakie has to be one of the most entertaining, loving people I've ever met. The first time I saw her she was walking around the conference on stilts wearing a funny looking vest, a cowboy hat with plastic teeth circling the rim, and a mass of sparkling ribbons around her waist that she called her too-too. If you know her, well, you know that's just her style. She had big eyes and cute freckles dotting over the dimples in her cheeks. Her hair was very short except for the two braids she had going from the top of her head to the back. Rambunctious and full of energy, she was fun to be around.

We took the bus to Jeffersonville, a small town across the river where my friend Cricket told me would be the best place to hop a train up to Chicago. The three of us laid out in the park near the tracks and waited for a train while I told ghost stories to Liz's dismay. She said it would give her nightmares. We fell asleep and were awakened by only two false alarms before morning broke. About two hours after sunrise a train going north with an open boxcar stopped a dozen yards away from us. We ran stumbling over to it and climbed in hoping no one had seen us in the broad daylight. Twenty minutes later we were heading north and out of Jeffersonville...