Coming out of the convenience store in Vidal Junction, California, I spotted somebody across the highway with a train of trailers filled with piles of something strung out behind a mountain bike.

I crossed over and saw the trailers were filled with bags of cans and plastic bottles. His name was Marty Pigue from Tennessee and he's come there by bicycle, not this one, as "I go through a lot of bicycles" and he'd been picking up cans and plastic in the desert for 15 months.

Marty Pigue, Vidal Junction, Calif.

Marty said he'd worked his way across America three times before and he'd been working up north, but they only wanted to pay him three, four, or five dollars an hour for migrant labor and he wouldn't do it, "The ones that are legal, they get minimum wage, but the other guys don't so I came down here."

When I asked him if he had any income, he said, "My income is right here, I sell plastic and cans in Blythe about 50 miles down the road, somebody from CalTrans gives me a ride" (CalTrans is the California Department of Transportation). And you live here? "I live wherever I pitch my tent." And nobody bothers you? "The Highway Patrol, the Sheriff, everybody knows me up and down this road. Some people call in during the summer and say he can't be out here as it's 120 degrees, but both the Highway Patrol and the Sheriff say he can be out here if he wants to, it's the cleanest highway in California."

One and a half week's cans and plastic

Marty said it took him a week and a half to collect the cans and plastic on the trailers and he was waiting for his ride down to Bythe to cash out and pick up supplies. After that he'd be out collecting again and not just on the highway as the wind blows things into the desert.

When I asked how much he'd get for the current load he said, "Between three and four hundred." He added that he sends some of it home as his mother is old and needs some help. That sounded like not such a bad income, considering the overhead but it turned out to be a lot of work as he covers California 62 from the Colorado River to Twentynine Palms, 100 miles to the west, from Vidal Junction 50 miles north to Needles on US 95, and 150 miles west from Needles to Barstow on old Route 66 for a total of some 300 miles.

When I asked him if anybody donated anything he said, "Sometimes," and added that he needs more money to get a larger, two axle trailer which would make things much easier.

While Marty doesn't have a bank account, you can reach him C/O Kim Price, HC 20 Box 444, Vidal, CA 92280. Cell: 760-464-9352.