Walking to Los Angeles

By Keith Plocek Thu., Jul. 19 2007 at 5:06 PM

Categories: Spaced City

Noah Rattler is walking from Houston to Los Angeles to raise awareness of homelessness.

He began his walk on March 23 and is completing the second leg of his journey right now in the middle of summer, in the Mojave Desert.

Ben DeSoto

In June, I caught up with Noah just west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the half point of his trip. I was on a six-day journey of my own, accompanying my wife who was attending a spiritual retreat. Our daughter, not yet four, came along. A vacation for us, a pilgrimage for my wife.

Sitting in my hotel room, I was surfing the Internet on June 2. Out of curiosity, I checked in on the Noah on the SEARCH Web site and on Noah’s MySpace page. Two phone calls and e-mail got me talking directly to him.

The next day, we got together and talked during a scheduled break. (You can see a slideshow here.) Rattler, a graduate of Prairie View A&M with a degrees in both physics and mechanical engineering and a volunteer at SEARCH, wanted some way to bring attention to the floundering agency which tries to help people living on the streets of Houston.

Check out his video message from the Grand Canyon. Noah is also a regular on Larry Payne’s radio program Interchange, Mondays 7-8 p.m. KPFT 90.1 FM -- Ben DeSoto

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