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Touchdown in Chinatown: Final

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Don't we look similar?

Overview

     Just finished a 130 mile hike.

     So as it turns out, I did a lot of things wrong and a lot of things right. First of all, I got to Chinatown. From the very beginning of the trip, I visualized being right there in front of the rabbit statue, and I eventually did it. I wouldn’t say that was THE most important thing, though…if I wanted to, I could have packed my bag and then driven to Chinatown easily enough.

     The most important thing was…that there was no ‘most important’ thing. The experience itself transcended any goals, brought me to what I thought my limits were and beyond. Lydia, one of my saviors, said that it was a rite of passage. Honestly, I don’t really know why I did it except that it was scary and I wanted to see if I could face that fear. In retrospect, it has definitely turned out to be a rite of passage, though to what place I’ve passed through to is a mystery. It’s a better place for sure; I know that much.

     I spent the week before in cold chills with no concrete fear other than the magnitude of the task in front of me. To combat that, I focused on the image of taking that first step on the road, the dust rising around my shoes, committing to the path ahead of me. The image was concrete – I could practically feel the gravel grinding underfoot. The fear, on the other hand, was vague, and if it was a specific fear, I thought of a specific solution. I didn’t realize until now how much that helped. In my mind, concrete visualizations turned into successes even before I’d set foot outside and specific fears became problems that were overcome, a different kind of success. The cold grip of fear was still there, but I could do something about it. I realized that the unnameable fear came down to a lack of faith in myself. I normally think of myself as a confident person, so that came as a shock. It’s not until you test yourself that you know yourself.

     Anyway, I came into this with a few preconceived goals, many of which were realistically impossible. Basically it comes down to making it all the way on foot and making it in two days. Technically, it’s possible, but much easier if you are prepared for it. These two goals caused me trouble from the start. I knew I wasn’t in the proper physical condition to do this; I’d never done anything physical long distance before, and I hadn’t done any special training for it. Furthermore, I have had very few successes with all nighters – I need my sleep. To convince myself it possible, I actually partially convinced myself that being on the move would awaken super powers that lay dormant in humans who never moved across the land like our prehistoric ancestors did. To some extent, I still think this is true. I am operating on very little periods of rest, fragmented across the trip…and I am still going. Well, sort of. The bit about not being physically prepared is still true, so while I’m still going, I am limping. And I doubt our prehistoric ancestors carried 30-40 pounds of gear everywhere they went.

     However, it remains the case that I wasn’t completely convinced, so I packed a lot of 5-hour energy drinks and, most controversially in my mind, incomplete camping gear. I brought everything but the tent, deeming it too heavy to be able to complete a 130 mile trek in two days. I brought a self-inflating mat, a sleeping bag, and a small tarp, figuring that if it rained I would wrap myself up like a burrito. No, that doesn’t work. Yes, I am stupid. The worst part about all of this, though, was that it conflicted with both goals. There was no way I could bring all that gear and complete the trip in two days on foot. If I brought the tent, I might have been able to complete the entire trip on foot, but not in two days. If I ditched all of it, I would have a better shot at completing the trip in two days…if I was physically prepared, which I was not. I remarked on Facebook that leaving just the tent was a bad compromise and it turned out to be a terrible compromise, as I would find out in the middle of the storm from Hell.

     Let’s see, other mistakes…bringing anything electronic besides my cell phone and the GPS. The chargers, the power strip, everything took up a lot of space and hampered organization efforts. Organization makes a big difference when you need to get to something in your pack fast. Not making sure my gear was waterproof. Bringing too many clothes and not enough of the right kinds, like socks. I could have left all of my underwear behind, as I stopped wearing any not even midway into the trip. Bringing my journal, again just conflicted with the time requirements, because when was I going to have the time or energy to journal when I’m constantly on the move? Packing only large quantities of rice for sustenance – initially, it did fine, but it’s incredibly heavy and mostly water weight. Something like matzo would have been better…light and full of carbs. Speaking of heavy things, I ended up throwing out a jar of peanut butter because it was insanely heavy and inconvenient to eat.

Anyway…

The Story

     The week before I set out was a mess. I knew the various things that I wanted to get together, and I accumulated them in fits and bursts, throwing them in piles on the floor. Thursday, the day before, I began to carbo-load, which consists of a high intensity sprint followed by eating 12g of carbohydrates per 12kg of body mass. After doing the appropriate conversions, it came out to the equivalent of 1.68 pounds of rice…dry weight. So I started cooking rice. Honestly, I have no idea how much carbo-loading actually helped.

     On Friday night, I got everything packed up, started cooking the last batch of rice to take on the road, and had dinner with David, Victor, Fong, Jeff, Ying Ying, and Pei, which was super kind of them. It gave me hope. I should have insisted on doing the dishes, but it was almost time to go. I got back and instantly knew something was wrong when I tried lifting my backpack. It was unreasonably heavy, possibly up to 40 pounds. DK stopped by to wish me luck, and we chatted while I put the finishing touches on the pack – reflective tape.

     I had asked Don to give me a boost to just outside of town, so I left when Don and Wilson stopped by. They took me to the outskirts of town. I got out and started walking and Don and Wilson drove alongside for a while. We had a cinematic moment as Don strummed on his guitar and I sang Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Then I got back in the car and we turned around. I had forgotten bug spray. And I would need it. At about 9:30, we got to the actual dropoff point, which was about 5 miles farther than they had originally dropped me off. Along the way, the bugs were so thick it was as if the cornfields were snowing. They were highlighted by the headlights like a blizzard of blood sucking snow.

     Oh. Exhaustion finally hit me. I’ll finish this in another post when I wake up.

UPDATE

     I never passed out. Too busy replying to stuff and getting this nifty thing set up:


View Chinatown Hike in a larger map

     This pretty much traces my path. Most of the points are chronological, but not all. I went back here and there.

     I’ll actually let you go through the points to see where I went and what I was thinking at the time. For an idea of what time passed, by the time I got to Paxton, it was about 7am and I’d been walking for 10 hours. I got to Loda at 8am, called a coworker who happened to live there (who I’d only just met the day before) and slept again for a bit. I headed out again. Sundown next was during the bus ride between Kankakee and Manteno. Joe Park, Richard Chen, and DK actually called while I was getting my shit together in Kankakee and really motivated me to keep going, but I remember this specifically because I had to cut my discussion with DK short as the sun was going down and I had shit to get in order, as I said.

     OH, BY THE WAY

THANK YOU:

Jeane Choi, Spence Lome, Annie Choi – for the Camelbak! God, what a lifesaver! I don’t think I would have made it anywhere during daylight hours without that thing.

Matt Sanghwan Lee – for the GPS! I would have made it places, but I would have had no idea where the fuck those places were. I depended on the GPS a LOT.

DK - for the health kit (lolz yes, I said health kit), words of support, and visit just before I left.

Fong Fan, Jeff Zhang, Ying Ying, David Jung, Victor, and Pei – for dinner and support just before I left!

Jen Chen – for the ankle braces and painkillers!

Don Mach, Wilson Thai – for the warmhearted drop off and insect repellent! And texts throughout the trip!

George Wu – for helping talk me through it before, trying to anticipate problems ahead of time.

Joy House – for inspiring me. Seriously. You are bad ass.

Kin Fong, Perry Chu, Spencer Lome, Deen Farooq, Brent Trotter, Winnie Cheng and Nathan Cheng – for the words of advice on my blog. Definitely needed them! And Kin…What?! XD

Officer Berns – for the ride! If I’m ever in Loda again, I’ll ask around for you. My gratitude!

Sunny Choi, Leslie Elizabeth, Jake Chen, Peter Hu, Kyou, Sigmund Ku, Jamie Lang, Nathan Cheng – for the texts during the trip. These kept me going at checkpoints.

My family, Alyson Kung, Khin Way Kung, and Malina Chin – for picking me up and saving my ass and then treating me to dim sum!

Lydia and Alyssa Hernandez – I have no words, no way to convey my debt to you. You were angels in the darkness. Thank you so much for everything you did. Lydia, I hope your husband came back skunk-free!

     Everyone – for your support and for giving me Hope! Truth is, I Love you. But next time I try to kill myself, one of you act like you care and try to stop me, alright? Haha, just kidding.

     Probably couldn’t stop me anyway.

Weird Random Thoughts

  • I think rice vaporizes when it hits the stomach, because I didn’t take a sizeable crap the whole time.
  • I lost 5 pounds on this trip
  • My stomach shrunk…I filled up fast at dim sum
  • People who stop to ask if I need a ride are nice
  • People who scream as I pass are assholes
  • People warn me against hitchhiking and against people giving rides
  • I think more people are nice than are mean. And besides, the nice actions have more meaningful effects anyway.
  • Part of the reason I did this is to face my fear, like I said. But another part is because I wanted you to know that it’s possible, and to reach beyond what you think you can do.
  • Days I can eat just rice and furikake rice seasoning without hating it: 2
  • Times I wanna see large containers of rice in the near future: 0
  • Times people stopped to ask if I needed a ride: 7
  • Times people drove by screaming: 4-5
  • Times I screamed back: 1
  • Times I saw a glowing, ethereal memorial at the side of the road during the storm from Hell for someone who had died and thought the area was haunted: 1
  • Number of Clif Bars eaten: 2.5
  • Number of 5-Hour Energy shots downed: 4
  • Number of times I brushed my teeth, dry: 1
  • Number of times I showered (rain): 2
  • Number of times I showered (sweat): 2
  • Number of times I showered (soap): 0
  • Number of times I uttered “Truth, Love, Hope” with every step: Uncounted. Many, many times. It helped me keep moving.
  • Number of miles traveled (foot): ~55
  • Number of miles traveled (train): ~30
  • Number of miles traveled (bus): ~10
  • Number of miles traveled (squad car): ~30
  • Number of miles traveled (Wilson’s grocery getter): ~5
  • Number of brilliant ideas I had after waking up: 3
  • Number of brilliant ideas I had after waking up that turned out to be stupid and make me look like a fool or a lunatic: 1
  • Number of hours it took: ~36

Nightmare Storm

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I gripped the wheel, leaning forward slightly, as if doing so would part the rain in front of me. Every once in a while my fingers would go numb and I would shake them to restore the sensation in my digits. My grip was cutting off blood flow. If I could see my knuckles, they would probably live up to the old adage “white-knuckled.”

Not that I could see much of anything.

It was raining hard, harder than anything I’d ever driven in, and more unrelenting. It had started out as just a downpour, but as I proceeded further and further into the heart of the beast, it became something else. A malevolent god, demons screaming and hammering themselves against my car, pounding to be let in, pleading to blind me and freeze me, the sting of rain and hail at the speed of gale force winds.

And still, I tore a path through the storm and across the highway, ripping a path through water and elemental fury at a stupefying (and stupid) 80mph.

The tachometer hovered there, sometimes falling dejectedly down to 70mph as I slowed, panicking over total loss of sight. The truck in front of me was spraying water in quantities that would have filled the car instantly without the windshield. I took a shallow breath and pushed down hard on the gas, revving back up to 80 and pushing through the solid wall of water.

For a second that lasts for what seems like minutes, I can’t see anything. I can’t even hear anything. My car is, for all intents and purposes, completely submerged in water.

The guide lights on the sides of the truck become visible through some miracle, and I jerk away from the truck slightly, having somehow drifted dangerously close. Again, the submersion, but there’s hope ahead, less actual visible signs and more like the reasoning part of my mind telling me that it has to end with the front of the truck. I pull ahead, outside the truck’s wind tunnel, and into just rain. It’s “just” a rain that obscures everything past 20 feet in front of me, but at least it’s just rain.

I feel myself start to breathe again, and my eyes dart to the next pair of rear lights in front of me. I’m driving almost blind, 15mph past the speed limit on normal days, god’s fury raging around me. I’m coming up fast.

There is no one going as fast as I am.

Part of me mourns the waste. Part of me wants to stop, pull over, stand soaking in the downpour and scream in defiance. Part of me wants to take it down a notch, to about 60mph and be one of the cars left in the wake of the trucks, massive whales on a highway lost in the ocean. But part of me has decided. It has decided on 80mph. The rest of me screams silently as I lose the road.

I relax, and it is very sudden. My brain scrambles furiously to pick out the yellow outer line and the white inner line delineating the lanes, but the white inner lane has reflector plates, so I make it easier by driving directly on top of those, in the middle of the street.

I’m coming up to another truck, but it is different this time. This time, the truck is in my lane, in the left lane. It’s passing a passenger car. In this bizarro highway, it is the trucks that move to overtake cars. Whether by dint of the trucker’s experience, the size of the vehicle, or the vantage point of the driver, trucks move effortlessly through the maelstrom. But this one is still not fast enough to outpace me.

Suddenly, the truck is right in front of me. I brake hard, unsure of where the truck is before me. My depth perception is fooled again and again by the blinding flashes of lightning and the obscurity of the water. But so close to the truck, I enter a dead zone. Winds pass right over the truck and over my car, taking the rain with it. Noise drops to a minimum, muffled not by water this time, but by air. Twin sprays of water ejecting from either side of the truck blind me to anything but the truck in front of me. It’s a safe haven, a bit of peace and quiet moving at 70mph behind a behemoth of steel. The little lights on the rear guide me, tell me where to steer to stay inside this place of quietude. The truck signals and lane-changes to the right and I follow, mesmerized.

I shake my head, signal, and swerve back into the strangely silent mist behind this truck. It is a FedEx truck. They are the worst. They are twice as long as other trucks, towing two shipping containers, and have two waves of backspray. But the spray is silent, diffused, unlike other trucks. Takes up more visual space. The overly active part of my mind jibbering in the corner wonders if the diffusion is a sign of aerodynamic efficiency. The rest of me focuses on surviving the maneuver as I pass the truck, again essentially blind.

Three miles, I tell myself. When I’m three mile markers from my exit, I will slow to 60mph.

Why not now?

I pass a giant yellow Hummer, a single spot of color in a monochrome world speeding past me. Lightning flashes, but adds no color. Water splashes, but only blurs. My eyes fixate on the next set of lights and the next.

I reach mile marker 240 and I slow down. Suddenly, everything is clear and simple. The rain is just rain. I can see everything. The car makes contented sounds. I can enjoy watching the storm and the lightning, now so clearly outside my car.

I breathe easy for a mile. And then I begin to feel that something is missing. I eye the mile markers, then the tachometer, calculating roughly how long it will take me.

The storm peals off another round of lightning in the distance, lighting up the sky, and then, just to see if the nightmare was real, I begin to accelerate again.