This month Aim and I added showtime to our cable package. It actually lowered our cable bill by $40.00. It also made the movie "Into the Wild" available to us. this movie is about the true story of a kid named Christopher McCandless. I've watched it several times since the the first time. It is the first movie that I have watched in a long time(if ever) that moved me. Which sounds funny to hear me day in my head or to even write on a blog. But the story is based on the book by Jon Krakauer.


Shortly after graduation, he gave the remaining money from his education fund to Oxfam(a charity that fights poverty and injustice). The check written by Chris, totalled $24000. He then left quietly from home to begin his adventures and assumed the name Alexander Supertramp of which he got from the book The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by William H. Davies from 1908. (which is supposed to be amazing also)When asked by someone where his family was at, he would reply that he didn't have a family anymore. Which is sad because he came from a troubled upper class family, that was very much alive.

He travelled through various states of America in his car (which he left after it was caught in a flash flood) and by train, hiking, canoeing and of course hitchhiking. The challenge to himself was to travel with the least amount of belongings as possible and as little money as possible. He had no map and no agenda, just the will to travel. Crazy if you ask me. I guess I rely so much on technology that the thought of being without the Internet disgusts me more than eating squirrel.

His dream was the Alaskan adventure and he would tell this to those he met along the way. Some people he worked for on odd jobs would try to convince him to stay and some would insist on giving him supplies to help with the journey.
He seldom accepted. In the film he makes a life changing impression on everyone he comes across.

He reached his final destination on April 28, 1992 in Fairbanks Alaska.

Four months later he died from a combination either starvation or poisoning and his body was found in an abandoned old Fairbanks City Transit Bus numbered 142 which was located on the Stampede Trail.

He kept a journal along the way and took self portraits now and then. His final self portrait was a picture of him holding a farewell note in his left hand and waving with his right hand. He was about 135lbs in weight and eventually died of starvation and possibly poisoning from fungus on some fruit he had eaten.

Emile Hirsch plays Chris in the movie. Watch it if you have the chance.
It says to me that sometimes its not the destination that makes the trip, but the journey to get there. It has a killer soundtrack too.



Here is the last pictures of Chris McCandless before he died.