Wandering Aimlessly
Hey, I'm Brian Cray - adventure travel writer and seasonal worker. Follow my adventure short stories on hitchhiking, train hopping and wandering.
Trainless Days in the Woods
The air suffocates my face as mucous dribbles down my nose and onto my lips. I lay there on layers of moist cardboard, wrapped in a cocoon of nylon, listening to raindrops plunge into mounds of fresh snowfall under the whistling of night. I can barely feel my toes again. Their wiggling existence is numb like the brisk breath of winter. I'm comfortably cold, and as I look up at the silhouette of naked limbs dancing above me, the dark clouds roll in, and I droop my eyes. Stiff chills jolt my neck as I adjust my head upon...
A Dome of Decay Peels the Ocean Away
Peel back her ocean walls with the rain and snow. Soon her translucent white and golden glass will stain the floor with shattered fragments of decay.
Waking up in Canada…
She beat around the steel, rocking me like a baby in a cradle, and as soon as I shut my eyes I started drifting to sleep with the darkening sky. My nose pressed into her pile of wood chips as I buried myself to a state of desirable comfort and the thrumming of her wheels lulled me to sleep.
It felt like only moments passed and I awoke to the creaking sound of her wheels halting, slicing the rich dark roasted coffee of sky, free of stars. I rubbed my dreary eyes, peeling back...
I See It All By TRAIN!
I'm living while I'm dying in a paradox called life,
slowly wandering,
feeling the heartbeat of Earth through her thunderous squeals of steel, creaking, rolling, slicing, stomping, thudding, melodies so dear.
I see the open landscapes speckled in rolling green hillsides, in deep blue whispering lakes, in calm soft-spoken riverbeds, in the roaring blazes of blistering night, in white chiseled hillside bleached by sun, in dunes breathing reds and yellows. And through the yawning of wind, the stampede of rain and snow, the swelter of sun and the...
Greed and the Grave
When the sun stings the somber eye and the curtains fade to endless sky, I can only hope for passion in this life. Without passion there is only greed. The palpable spirit, so free, so wild, should never be tamed, but in brevity, meandering the sinuous path unknown to even he. For he himself seeks life of a thousand unknowns, garnering each jagged piece to the puzzle of creativity with the eye of a new sun. For the price of youth is insurmountable to even the most precious stone.
Loaded Coal and Locked Dreams
Train Hopping Denver
After kickin’ it for a week in a townhouse off of Martin Luther King Blvd., gettin’ high off edibles, and free climbing...
Satun, Thailand and My Princess
Satun Thailand
I laid in bed under one sheet, freezing, while the AC blasted. I rolled over and slightly opened my eyes after hearing the...
Freight to Fresno on a Work Car
Train Hopping Fresno
It briskly showered the night before covering my bivy in a film of morning dew. My sleeping pad soaked up every droplet...
Walla-Walla-Bing-Bong, Cassidy and Holiday
Hitchhiking Volcano National Park
https://youtu.be/k5wbdFcwhQ0
I pushed my flight back until November 14th while my visa processed for New Zealand. With the sudden change of destinations...
Abandoned Tokomaru Bay
I stood right outside Tologa Bay by the only shoulder in the shade, flexing my thumb as minimal traffic whizzed by along highway 35...
