The darkness was complete. Uninterupted, unbroken blackness for 540 miles. the road from Salt Lake City to Reno, Nevada might as well been a great void. The Love Boat was fixed at around 8:30 Monday night. All the banners and flags within had to be in San Francisco by 8:30 the next morning. That left me, with karma riding shotgun, to cross the plain of nothingness in 12 hours. So we jumped in, buckled down, popped in a non-stop parade of the loudest, fastest music I had on hand. Along the way suicidal jackrabbits, strange lumps, and a few cars crossed our path. Driving in my zone, I thought of many things... My girlfriend. What, exactly was the big black thing off to the right. My mother. Death. My girlfriend. But most of all I thought of the thousands of Tibetans who make a similar trek on horseback, on foot, or in the backs of rattly old trucks, for twice as long and twice as hard just to get a taste of freedom. Suddenly Karma and my 12 hour odyssey seemed tame and mundane in comparison.

Nevertheless from Tahoe on in to Albany, a city just east of Oakland, I was bordering on delirium, and we ended up being a little over an hour late, but the van and the banners and flags were eventually delivered by Julie who took the hand-off as I went to the first couch I saw and crashed hard.

So, while the first day of the March forTibet's Independence unfolded in San Francisco, I slept like a baby. so much for being At Large.

The days that followed, two things happened, we started to work out some of the small problems related to walking and living a nomadic lifestyle, and the Love Boat broke down again. Same problem too. So with us on the verge of a mental breakdown, we managed to get a full refund on the Van rental, and for the same amount, got a brand spanking new van with 68 miles on it. Now, the walk is really beginning.

Selected Images from the first week of walking: