After 10 days in the Crater Lake National Park it was time to return to civilisation. July 21st. to be precise, almost a month ago now (tempus fugit).
 The good people who run the shuttle bus took me back to Klamath Falls and got me to the Amtrak station about 4 in the afternoon. The overnight train south wasn't due till 10pm so I walked around the town for a while, had a bite to eat in a deli and was reminded that small town America looks a lot like I think it does.
 Then I parked me and my rucksack on a bench on the platform and watched the sun go down over the hills. Every now and then a big old Union Pacific freight train would come clanging by.
 Jack Kerouac used to work as a brakeman on the Pacific railroad. I think I saw him in the distance.

 My friends James and Komoot live in the Sunset district in San Francisco. Walk about 15 blocks to the west and you hit Ocean Beach looking out to the Pacific. I walked here on the last morning of my trip to the States (July 26th.).
 Kenneth Rexroth the great poet, translator and essayist based himself in San Francisco for most of his life. He once noted that anyone who came this far from the east and the "old world" must have really wanted to get away from something. Before the beats, hippies and other sub-cultures there were bohemians and radicals of all persuasions, not to mention the "huddled masses" (and the Native Americans who were here already).
 On a previous trip way back when I remember standing on the roof of James' apartment having traveled from New York. Looking out towards the sea I had a sense of being at the end of a whole continent, or the beginning...