Yesterday, after scraping and planing the inside of Vern's new canoe, I took a fitness hike with my backpack. Walking back to the house, I came across a cyclist with panniers riding up the hill. He was riding to San Diego and was looking for two trees to spend the night in his hammock. I said he could hang from posts in front of my house. On the walk up to the house, he said he was from Syracuse, NY (hey! I lived there four years), graduated a year ago (Christian Bros. Academy), and was taking off a year from college. He'd taken buses from upstate NY for 4 days to Seattle, another bus to Vancouver, BC, where he stayed in a grungy hostel ($10/night) with drug dealers and other ilk, and where someone stole his bicycle. He'd taken another bus back to Seattle, where he discovered that he'd left his camping hammock at the hostel, bought another hammock at REI (Byer Moskito Kakoon), bought a nice used Jamis Aurora to replace his bike and arranged for a place to stay the night at www.warmshowers.org. From Bremerton, he rode to Aberdeen looking for Stewart Park, and found me instead.
Andrew saw my hammock stand and said, "You know Shug?" After he showered, I looked at his hammock and suspension. I upgraded his rope to whoopie slings ("Dyneema?" he asked)--he offered to pay for them, but I wouldn't have been a good host if I'd accepted. I cut his single polypropylene strap in two and sewed in loops. I gave him my wifi password so he could do what people do on their smartphones.
In the a.m., I made oatmeal with fresh blueberries and he rolled down the hill to Westport.
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