While meeting attendees and councilors discussed a number of official agenda items at the Winlock City Council meeting on Monday, June 8, there was an out-of-towner among the attendees who also spoke during public comment.
That man was Kelso Bradshaw, an Orange County, California, resident, who recently took up a challenge from his friend Thomas Blackwelder to go on a cross-country trip without the aid of his smartphone or other modern travel aids such as GPS.
His goal was to make it across the country simply by asking for directions, along with hopefully finding new friends he could couch surf with, though he did have a tent packed with him in case he couldn’t find shelter.
“Just over a week ago, I had no idea Winlock existed or what a Winlock was,” Bradshaw said.
This wasn’t the first major trip Bradshaw’s taken, as he has already taken his bicycle across the country and journeyed to Alaska on a motorcycle.
This was, however, his first major trip without his smartphone, which his friend sealed in an envelope. It was also the first trip he documented with a camera, as he intends to start a travel vlog on YouTube.
The challenge started off with Bradshaw being dropped off by Blackwelder in Eggville, a small unincorporated community in northeast Mississippi.
“I let my best friend blindfold me, put me on a random plane with white noise so I couldn’t hear as well, and he flew me to a random place in the lower 48,” Bradshaw said. “I didn’t know where we were flying, and then we went in a rental car, and I had no idea where he drove me.”
Eventually, they stopped. Bradshaw got out of the car and was given a camera and an envelope. Then, he was left on his own. His only clues were in the envelope along with his sealed phone, and they were simply a paper with his destination written on it, Winlock, along with a note that read “meet Tommy Thompson at the Historical Museum.”
Along with running the Winlock Historical Museum, Thompson also leads efforts to put American flags up for federal holidays in the South Lewis County community.
Back in Mississippi, Bradshaw had no idea where he was and only knew that it was humid and hot.
“I took the blindfold off. It’s like rural, maybe a cow gate,” Bradshaw said. “I walked to the first house I could find … And a very kind woman came out and said, ‘What’s going on?’ I said ‘I need help, I’m doing this video,’ and I said, ‘What state are we in?’ And she said, ‘You’re in Mississippi, son.’ She was very kind. She drove me to Tupelo, Mississippi, where Elvis was born.”
Eventually, after eight days traveling mostly by Greyhound bus, he made it across the country and found himself in Seattle, where he was finally able to get down to Winlock.
“I did it for the adventure and to see, using directions, maybe in a previous century what it would have been like to go on an adventure in the United States,” Bradshaw added.
While he had been in the region before to visit Kelso, traveling through on other road trips — as he shares names with the city — he had never been to Winlock before but found it beautiful.
He also had two suggestions for possible slogans for Winlock. The first was “There’s only one Winlock,” a fact he confirmed on his trip.
“There’s also another one I thought of today, which is, ‘As sure as there is rain, there is a train,’” Bradshaw added.
While the video has yet to be uploaded to YouTube, it will be on his YoutTube page, @KelsoBradshawAdventures.
