I woke up around 7:30 a.m. and I left my girlfriend’s apartment around 9:00 a.m., when she went to work, to drive to Manchester, New Hampshire. Manchester NH is a city that was devastated by the opioid Crisis in the early 2000s up until today. I heard they had a large homeless population but I haven’t seen it.
I had been looking at good places to camp, and chose a patch of forest behind Pine Grove Cemetery. There is also a disc golf course in that forest which gave me a good place to park my car.
After I parked my car at the disc golf course I took my bike off the rack on the back of the car and began riding through the cemetery along the woods. I came across a man playing the bagpipes and I got a recording.
I found a path that became shrouded in foliage, I pushed through the foliage, and found a small clearing of pine trees covered in vines. I decided to set up camp here later. It was open enough for the tent, flat, and concealed. I was right behind the graveyard. I decided to come back and set up camp later.
I saw on Google that there is a homeless meal provider that serves lunch every day. It was around noon so I decided to check them out. It was about a 15 minute bike ride.
When I arrived at the 1269 Cafe I saw many homeless people around. When I entered the establishment I saw 50 or more homeless people sitting at tables 2 per table. It was in a basement. I could tell right away that many people in this room were fentanyl users from the track makes and pocked skin. I was served a Corn on the cob, salad, and a veggie goulash. The staff was really nice. I decided to ride my bike around after I ate, and I saw many homeless people in the street, and realized there was a homeless shelter around the corner from the 1269 Cafe. There was about 100 homeless people sitting outside the shelter.
I took a ride to the library to do some work and charge my phone. There was a park across the street from the library with different groups of homeless people hanging out. I was shocked by the volume of Homelessness in this city. The library was nice. They had a lock box phone charging station, I’d never seen anything like it. You get a code, open the box, plug your phone into the charging cord in the box, and lock it up. At first I didn’t like it, then I realized I could leave my phone charging without having to worry about someone stealing it. It was a good system.
After charging my phones and portable battery for a while, I rode my bike to a large waterfall I saw on Google maps. There is a river that runs through Manchester. It was a beautiful spot and I even found a cool spot to set up camp, but decided to stick with my graveyard site.
At 4:30 p.m. I rode my bike back to my car. I drove my gear over to the spot behind the graveyard and I set up camp and finished around 7:00 p.m. In the area I set up my camp, there was a chewed up ball, a chewed hair brush, a hammer with a chewed handle, and a chewed up milk jug. There had been a K-9 here at some point domestic or wild I could not tell.
After setting up Camp I rode my bike to a Hannafords about 7 minutes bike ride away. I bought a turkey sandwich for dinner and a 24 oz Redds Wicked black cherry cider to drink at my camp.
As I sat and drank my cider it got darker. It was a hot day, over 90 degrees and it was not cooling down. I began to get the heebie-jeebies. This place gave me a weird vibe. It was pitch black dark out and I suddenly heard a large branch crack. It was very loud, and scared the shit out of me. It kept happening. I called my girlfriend. I told her how scared I was. While I was on the phone with her I heard something running around outside my tent. I was terrified. It was too dark to run. I refused to run. The cracking continued through the night. Ideas of angry ghosts filled my mind. I didn’t fall asleep until after 3:00 a.m.