Bill Inman sounds like a man after our own hearts: Fed up with the tales of horror and violence he saw every night on the news, the Lebanon, Oregon rancher decided it was time to find an alternative. So he hopped on the back of his horse, Blackie, and started off on a journey across America to find the true stories of its people.
Since June, Inman and Blackie have been traveling about 25 miles every day through America's countryside, with Inman's wife and their three dogs tagging along in a pick-up truck loaded with the couple's necessities (including daily rations of 20 pounds of horse feed). In each town he rides through, Inman stops to meet the locals, collecting their personal stories about life, love, work, and what it means to be an American. He's encountered all kinds of characters, from a barbed-wire collector to a generous Wyoming sheriff who battled a 25-mile drive through a storm to deliver dinner to the Inmans.
The journey hasn't been cheap: Inman estimates that the trip will cost about $45,000, even though many townspeople they've met have been charitable enough to offer the couple and their animals free meals and a place to sleep. But collecting these stories is important to Inman, who hopes to create both a book and a documentary film about his journey, in hopes of letting others see the good side of modern American life.
"It's probably the most stupid thing I've done financially, but I truly believe in it,"
he told CNN.
Despite a mix of torrential storms, 100+ degree weather, and, most likely, some serious aches from spending that much time on horseback, there's one thing that hasn't rubbed Inman the wrong way: "I haven't run into any bad people," he told
CNN.
Having passed through five states already, Missouri is next on Inman's list. So if you're around and happen to see a man riding his horse through the middle of town, make sure to stop by and say hello. And if you've got one to spare, he'd sure appreciate an extra bag of horse feed.
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