Jonathan Micheal Rout
Jonathan Micheal Rout will be lovingly remembered by his daughter Sarah, his parents David and Cheryle, extended family, and friends.
Celebration of Life
Saturday July 15, 2017 2:00PM
Trinity Funeral Home Chapel
10530 116 Street Edmonton AB.
So sorry for your loss David and Cheryle. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
So sorry! Jon was too young. It’s just heartbreaking. You will be missed!
Susan Katers(nee Allen)
Our thoughts and prayers are with you Cheryl and Dave and a young lady we haven’t met. So very sorry to hear of this happening. Take care of each other as life can be so short.
VERY SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT JON,,
Jeff Talbot
I’m still in shock with Jons passing, I will never forget you and the time we had together.
Hi Tracey
I just posted a message. If you feel like getting in touch, please do. Would love to hear about John’s life since I saw him last (April 1995).
Hi I’m Johns daughter Sarah how come you are wanting to know more about my dad?
I was just looking up John, trying to see if I could find him after all these years, to finally sit down and reminisce on our spectacular hitchhiking adventure through the Baja, Mexico. It was in December, the winter of 1994, that John and I met in the downtown backpacker’s hostel in San Diego, CA. I’d arrived and entered an elevator going down after first checking in. It was then that a thick muscled, square jawed, coke bottle glasses wearing guy sporting a full size Canadian flag on his forehead like a bandana introduced himself as “John Rout, as in Trout, but without the T”.
I never forgot the name after that!
To saying that John makes an impression is doing him a major disservice. We were both coming from extreme circumstances.
Within 2 minutes of our first introduction John was showing pictures of a car wreck, wherein he’d been speeding and lost control and wrapped himself and his car around a light pole, collapsed one of his lungs, breaking a femur and cracking his head—yet somehow he’d managed to crawl out of the car as it burst into flames and then slide into a coma. According to John, the Doctors were telling his family he could be in a coma for years when he woke up and made his way to the bathroom, still in a partial full-body cast.
It was just a few months later he and I met in San Diego. I had been through my own unusual saga getting to that point and we were both at a crossroads. We both wanted to continue our journey into Mexico and hold out the winter. We had four or five months to go. Problem was John had absolutely nothing to his name except a tent and a ¾ full Coleman stove. I on the other hand had a whopping $175 USD, no tent, no Coleman and just a flimsy old red sleeping bag.
We thought about taking the leap right away but, hesitant for obvious reasons, we spent one more expensive week in San Diego working together trying to find under-the-table jobs to build-up some sort of cash pool. We soon realized it was hopeless.
Steeling our never we resolved to take the plunge. After a quick mutual pep talk, a work out and a cross-border jump into Tijuana John and I made our way to the bus depot where we purchased a relatively expensive pair of tickets out of Tijuana to the nearest large town, Ensenada.
Before we could board, however, we were pulled aside by local Police and told to explain ourselves. It was self evident if they didn’t believe we had sufficient resources and a solid plan we would not be permitted to continue. I’d done phone sale work before meeting John, and it took one look at him and I knew he didn’t know what the heck to say, so I jumped in, pulled out a map and explained with pure unrefined confidence the B.S trajectory of our elaborate plans, which of course I made up on the spot. Somehow we were permitted to continue despite the obvious fact we had nothing to travel with except a hope and a prayer. After reaching Ensenada, we were let off on the north side of town. It ended up being two days walk to the southern part of town where we could reasonably hope to hitch a ride. Walking two days down main streets enduring thousands of peering eyes and the occasional threat from a truck load of bandits who saw John’s intense muscle bound figure as some sort of challenge to their manhood. With our backpacks we trudged along, sleeping both nights on the beach. Both nights were frigid cold in our flimsy old summertime sleeping bags, but we resolving to have no fire so as not to attract attention. Finally reaching the edge of town we walked along the beach straight into the back door of a Mexican Federal Military base. A cocking of rifles and a shouting in Spanish, we knew instantly we were not to move another muscle. Instinctively John clapped his heels, stood bolt straight and gave the salute. Laughter erupted from the turrets and we turned 90 degrees to the left, hit the main road and caught a very long ride in an open flatbed truck. There was only room for one in the front so John and I flipped on it and he won. As I rode in the back, the rush of warm air filling my cheeks into balloons as I stood holding the roll bar John regaled the driver with a mix tape featuring Public Enemy, which the driver enjoyed to the point he really began to speed and swerve through potholes on the highway.
This was the beginning of our trip. That night we slept one more night without the tent, on a pile of concrete rubble inside a half-completed concrete domicile without a roof. It was then, far from the light pollution of the city I was struck by the incredible brightness and clarity of the night sky, the milky way and the imperious Orion soured directly overhead.
Waking with the sun and having already walked well away from the edge of Guerrero Negro, John and I spread his Canadian flag out between us and stuck out our thumbs. It took maybe an hour and a gurgling rumbling old VW Van pulled over and we were picked up by a crazy old German fellow fleeing a Texas cult called ‘the Immortals’; yes, the Immortals. This guy was in a real state, fresh off his meds and had just picked up a stray off the streets of Tijuana. As you can imagine, traveling with John, this fellow’s peculiarities didn’t threaten us in the least. He was on his way to Mulegé, a tiny little town on the inlet side of the Baja, along the Sea of Cortez, exactly where we wanted to go, and where we might find a beach on the edge of town where we might pitch the tent, cook some basic rice and see what we could see from there.
And so began our epic journey.
I often think on the various unexpected, unbelievable, sometimes dangerous and always thrilling episodes of our five-month odyssey. I wonder how the heck we made it! John and I often didn’t eat for days. Sometimes we were taken partial captive by local Police, their Chiefs and their cadres of racket running banditos taking liking to John and I; folding us into their lives, John and I were obviously a specie of North American Male they had never met. The humility of our circumstances, the masculinity of Johns body and my mind, were a perfect match for Mexico at that time. We were welcomed into many peoples lives, always curious to them, exotic, something to investigate and spend time with. It was our spirits that set us apart and identified Mexico as the land of Spirit, a place where one, or two, can survive and even thrive on spirit alone.
All toll, John and I experienced significant adventures in Mulegé, Ensenada, Agua Verde, Santa Rosalía, Loreto, La Paz, La Ventana, Todos Santos, Cabo San Lucas, El tezal, San José del Cabo, and on way back Ciudad Constitución, Ciudad Insurgentes, Santa Rosalía, El Rosarito, Punta Prieta, El Rosario, Maneadero, and then San Diego once more. I can not tell you what a disappointment it is to me personally, to not be able to meet up with John after all these years, three years too late, and be able to meet up again for the first time since parting ways in April of 1994, and reflect on the pure adventure, the wild crazy happenings, the insane and beautiful people and the many many thrilling and unexpected victories we shared on that incredible journey.
I have often thought of John, wondering if he was also thinking of our trip, what he thought of it in later life, if he told his loved ones about it, and what details he remembered and shared.
I have often thought of writing about the adventure John and I shared, either as an extended introduction to my Mayan novel series, or an epilogue on what mainly contributed to its creation. Now I think I will.
It was during this incredible, improbable, unbelievable and utterly magical trip with John as my comrade in spiritual arms, that I fell in love with Mexico, and then its ancient histories, the Aztec, the Maya. I think of the many indigenous peoples John and I encountered, how they always seemed to spot us across the room, across the street or down the beach somehow, and would invite us into their lives for food and a half construed conversation in slowing perfected Spanglish.
We were made familiar with perhaps most generous, welcoming, friendly and helpful sort of people John and I have ever known, all of whom made our adventure possible, and many times saved our lives. All the while it was John and I, tag team adventurers, wild eyed warriors, loyal comrades, spontaneous daredevils and absolute jokers out for gold, unseen and intangible gold, surfing on the edge of the Zuvuya.
John and I had one of the greatest and unexpected adventures I have ever read or even heard of.
If anyone who truly knew John wants to reach out and visit with me, to talk about our times, and to fill me in on the rest of his life, I’d love to hear from you.