I am warm inside a bed and breakfast close to downtown Glenwood Springs, Colorado. My friends who I have met in the regional homeless community are either staying in the basement of a Christian church in West Glenwood or in the basement of a Catholic church in Aspen. Each overnight program has many more than 20 participants. This does not include the multitude of families and children who locally receive food assistance. Dozens of other homeless people are ‘camping out’ even though the location they end up sleeping at may be a criminal defense.

In “Glentucky” alone, over 60 adults attended tonight’s Extended Table dinner hour in the basement of the First Methodist Church Tonight it was hosted by St. Mary of the Star Roman Catholic Church of Carbondale, Colorado, which is located about 15 miles south of Glenwood Springs and 25 miles north of Aspen. In Garfield County, there are four towns that serve some evening hot meals. Glenwood Springs and Aspen have daytime shelters for homeless and disadvantaged adults.

I will write more about how it was living almost seven consecutive months in this region of the United States of America. Right now I have to resume my packing… the next freight train going west leaves Glentucky about Noon.

P. S. On 12/31/14, I left a Janzsport backpack in the 1st Methodist Church basement dining room. It had a smartphone, 15 year old address book, passport, banking documents, and other personal effects. I never saw it again.

I tried to contact the church and the town’s homeless daycare center… no luck.

So hard, if not impossible to replace stuff like that.

Less than a week later, I got off the Amtrak train ill. Went to a hospital in Reno.

A day after that, my wallet was pickpocketed across from Harrah’s Casino on Reno’s Virginia Street. [needless to say, in retrospect 2015 sucked!]

Honestly, Reno Nevada = the worst city in the USA to be homeless!