More adventures in the deep south

So there I was again, walking down Hwy 90 east early in the morning towards the rising sun, away from Grand Bay, Alabama.  I could still feel the strange piece missing from my tooth, but the knowledge that it wasn’t really visible to people that didn’t know what happened was comforting.  I walked for an hour or two, alongside beautiful pastures and with the train tracks almost constantly on the other side of me.  After awhile, a pickup truck finally stopped for me, thank the Lord!  I eagerly hopped in.  Gary, the driver, was a fairly mellow older guy who never directly told me where he was going, only that it was around Mobile, which suited me just fine.  He talked a lot about his mercedes collection, how much he had invested in it, and how he planned on giving the cars to his nephew once he was too old to maintain them.  He was pretty cool, and seemed to like to hear himself talk.  Gary dropped me off near a walmart somewhere outside of Mobile, and I was off.  
            As I was walking down the road with my pack, I noticed a pretty cute girl in her mid-20’s wave at me.  I smiled, and asked if she was going east.  “I’m going to Daphne, but hurry up, I’m running late!”  So I quickly threw my pack in the back seat and hopped in the front.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, her car was BADASS.  A clean white Lexus IS 350, and the attractiveness of the driver made it even better.  Tory, the driver, turned out to be pretty awesome.  She was a raver, and had been to her fair share of festivals around the country.  But for the moment, she was late for work, and thusly driving like a bat out of hell.  As we were talking, she was passing cars on the interstate that runs through Mobile at 100mph.  I kept my eyes peeled for cops (she also had a radar detector), and generally enjoyed the ride.  “They gave me this car with 350 horsepower and expect me not to use it?  I mean common, really,” she told me, still weaving in and out of traffic.  It also just so happened that Tory was a big dubstep fan, so after we stopped talking so much she had Excision blasting through the Lexus’s fine sound system.  I was in hitchhiker’s heaven.  She dropped me off near her work, but not before giving me the name of some music festivals that would be going on in the following months in florida and around the south.  So, after saying rushed goodbyes, she jogged into her work and I made my way towards a nearby on-ramp, happy as I could be, pumping bass lines still throbbing in my head on that sunny morning.  
            After no luck after about 20 minutes of waiting, I told myself that I would wait no more than an hour here.  I really wanted to catch a ride on the interstate, though, so as to pass more quickly through the states of Alabama and Florida.  Just as the hour was almost up, a guy in a minivan pulled over.  Patrick, one of the louder rides that I’d had, seemed pretty cool.  He was excentric, and just happened to be paralyzed from the waist down.  He used to race motorcycles, FAST ones, and after a near-fatal crash disabling him from walking, he now sold wheelchairs.  “Man, you crazy!” he exclaimed, “jus holdin’ a fuckin sign out there, from whoever decides to pick you up! man, I respect the hell out of that!”  I told him that I respected anyone that had driven a motorcycle 187 mph and lived to tell the tale.  We continued the conversation like this, sharing stories about racing, hitchhiking, girls, all sorts off stuff like that.  I had him drop me off in Marianna, Florida, a spot at which I had gotten stuck for nearly half a day on my way west.  After changing into shorts (it was hot there in florida!)  I began the walk towards panama city beach, just 48 miles away, so the sign told me.  I walked for maybe a mile or two when a big dump truck pulled over for me.  Bill, the driver was another quite eccentric man, but this time of a different type.  He was a christian, and told me, just as many others have before, that he had been told by the Lord to pick me up.  He lectured me quite a bit about things, from the bible, sermons, experience, etc.  I usually just listen, occasionally asking questions, because my my knowledge of these things is still developing.  Bill, who was headed all the way to panama city, was kind enough to take me out to lunch when we got there.  So, for the first time in ages, I dined on mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, and meat, a meal the likes of which I definitely don’t eat a lot on the road.  Bill dropped me off in front of the paper mill at which he work, and after blessing me, I continued on my way east.  
            Pretty shortly thereafter, I walked into the town of parker, a small town neighboring Panama City that looked nothing like it.  Much less were the signs of tourism, but more those of a small fishing town.  As I was walking down the road with my thumb out, a cop car passed me, and abruptly did a U-turn.  Once he was behind me, the officer got out.  “Son, are you aware that it’s illegal to hitchhike in the state of Florida?”  I was not, in fact.  Several times, around panama city, sheriffs had passed me, thumb out and all, and not done a thing, so I just assumed that it was ok.  So, after patting me down, asking about the contents of the pack “Do you have any deadly weapons or narcotics on your person?” and running my I.D. probably three times, Officer D. Peavey agreed to give me a ride outside of his jurisdiction.  “I tell you what,” he told me.  “I’ll take you a few miles down the road.  After that, I can’t tell you what to do.  But if I see you hitchhiking in Parker again, I’ll arrest you.”  Fair enough.  I really had to poop, comically enough, so I had him drop me off at a nearby gas station, a few hundred meters from the end of Parker.  “You aren’t going to rob my gas station, are you?” he asked me.  Sometimes I wonder if cops think this way about all travelers.  

After doing my thing, I was back on my way.  Having no luck for the next few hundred meters, I was forced to walk along a moderately long bridge, probably about 1000 meters long.  On the other side of this bridge, as it just so happened, was Tyndall Air Force Base.  This meant nothing to me then, but I would soon find out.  I walked a good few miles before my previous situation repeated itself.  As I was walking, thumb and sign out, an MP passed me from the other lane.  I did my best to put down my arm before he saw, but it was too late.  I watched, amused, as he did a U-ey, steering sharply towards me and slowly coming to a stop.  Apparently it was illegal to hitchhike on federal land, which is exactly what the Air Force Base was.  After patting me down, asking about outstanding warrants, the usual, the officer gave me a ride outside the the Air Force base.  It’s a good thing he did, because the base stretched on and on and on, and it DEFINITELY would have been a bummer to walk all the way.  Where he dropped me off was a few miles outside of the town of Mexico Beach.  After two quick rides, I was in Port St. Joe, where I spent the night by the water(!), hidden by a some bushes and palm trees.  It felt great to be right alongside the Gulf coast.

That morning, after itching the apparently 50 bug bites that I had got in the course of the night, I was back on the road.  In just a few minutes, a red ford pickup pulled over, and I had a ride to East Point.  I decided to splurge a little, thanks to the $100 that I now had, and get some breakfast.  So I asked my ride, Nick, where a good place to eat would be, and he dropped me off in front a restaurant that he said he liked.  Three pancakes, two pieces of french toast, some bacon and 2 eggs later, I decided that although I could eat more, it was best that I leave.  After walking across town (which wasn’t more than a mile or two) I got a ride from Leon, a friendly old guy who, as it turned out, loved to travel with his wife.  He was headed towards Carrabelle, and on the way, asked me if I would like to eat lunch with him and his wife.  Despite already having eaten breakfast, I told him I would love to.  

Carrabelle is a “poor, sleepy fishing village” as Leon put it, which was a more or less correct description.  He and his wife had quite a nice place, with a beautiful porch in the back, on which I sat and played some harmonica as his wife prepared lunch.  We had tacos with coronas (a nice touch, I thought), and after finishing the meal, talked about travel.  Leon and his wife, Francis, had been everywhere.  Shanghai, New York, Ibiza, New York, France, all over the place.  And to top it all off, they were foodies! (I myself claim to be one, although I usually don’t like to spend enough money to get the delicious food I want).  After lunch, Leon dropped me off at the end of town, so I could continue my trek.  

As I was walking, not with my thumb out because of a cop I had just seen, some people yelled out of a car, “Hey, you need a ride?!” Well of course I did!  Apparently Mike and Gale, the occupants of the aforementioned car, had seen me hitchhiking back in east point.  They were kind enough to take me a few miles down the road, to a little store, and upon leaving the car, they each gave me $5!  After thanking them, I left and explored the area.  Earlier that day, my friend Nick, the one who I was originally planning on meeting in southern florida (presumably Miami) for spring break, had told me that that was no longer the case, that he was going to panama city instead.  This would mean that I had almost a week to burn before meeting him in Panama City, so as I was walking by some vacant lots and seemingly empty houses, I scoped them out a bit, with squatting on the mind.  What more badass way is there to spend a few days than to occupy a foreclosed beachfront house?  After taking a look, I decided that I would head south more before thinking about that.  I walked a mile or two in the florida sun before getting a ride in a pickup (again).  The driver, Tony, was in the air force, and thought it was a “damned shame” that I wasn’t in the military.  He had joined out of high school, quit 8 years later to join his father in the tree service business (which I did before I started this trip) and then joined again recently.  Having turned 40 last year, he regrets having quit the first time (he could be retired by now).  As he dropped me off (in literally the middle of nowhere) at his turn-off about 30 miles down the road, Tony told me honestly, “Well Ben, good luck.  If I didn’t have shit to do, I’d probably join you.”  That’s not the first time someone has told me that, and I always wonder how it would pan out if they didn’t have jobs or families (although in most western societies that would pretty much mean that they were nobodies)...

As I was walking happily through that beautifully wild stretch of Highway 98, admiring the sun, sky, trees, and swampy ground with my thumb out, I saw a white truck pass me.  About 200 meters down the road it did a U-ey and headed back towards me.  I figured that either this person was lost, or they were turning around to give me a ride.  Indeed, it was the later!  As I jogged up to the truck, a young lady got out.  “I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers,” she said, almost as if she was doing a bad thing.  “Well thanks for stopping for me then, I really appreciate it!” I told her.  “Umm, you can just hop in the back, I have kids in the backseat,” she replied.  Did I look that dangerous?  Either way, I had zero complaints about riding in the back.  In fact, on most sunny days I’d rather ride in the back of a pickup than in the seat of a car!  There’s just more freedom in it.  Wind whipping, looking at the beautiful terrain passing you by, and the knowledge that you’re going way faster than you would on a bike or on foot.  It’s a hitchhiker’s heaven.  She dropped me off at yet again, another turn-off in the middle of nowhere.  I didn’t have any problem with this though, it was a beautiful day for walking.  

I didn’t have to walk too long though.  Maybe 2 miles down the road, a pickup truck pulled over.  As I hopped in the small back seat, the occupants introduced themselves to me: Ron, a middle-aged man with eyes so dark brown you couldn’t tell the difference between the iris and retina, was seated next to me, and Frankie & Jen in the front.  The first thing that I noticed about Frankie was that he looked almost exactly like Joe Dirt.  He was wire-skinny, had long, dirty blond hair, and was wearing clothes that fit his frame.  As the group talked to me animatedly in the thickest southern drawls I’d ever heard, I was glad to be there, in a part of Florida that I didn’t think I’d find.  Apparently the group was going out to some spot to get some large rocks that Frankie needed for something, I couldn’t remember what.  After we got to the spot and hoisted the rocks into the bed of his truck, we headed further east, into Perry.  After dropping off Ron, Frankie and Jen asked me if I would like to stop by their house for some food and a glass of ice water.  I wasn’t hungry and still had plenty of water, but I gladly took them up on the offer; With really nothing to do and days to burn until Panama City, I was glad to stop for this sort of thing.  After some hydration and good conversation, Frankie dropped me off on the outskirts of Perry.  Upon dropping me off, he told me about an abandoned motel in the neighboring town of salem that I could probably sleep in.  Apparently, the owner had died recently, and now it was deserted.  In fact, he had taken some towels from there a few months before, so I figured it probably wasn’t in too bad of shape.  Plus, I’d never actually squatted, so I figured I would give it a shot if I was near there when it came time to sleep.  

While I was passing through Hwy 98, I had formulated the plan that I would go down as far as Cedar Key and then turn around, in time to make it to Panama City to meet Nick.  The more I walked down Rt. 19, the more I began to consider ditching this plan.  The area looked more “redneck” than anywhere I’d ever seen.  Trailers made up probably 80% of the structures, and I saw more ferocious dogs and “NO TRESPASSING” signs than I could count.  After walking several miles without a ride (thanks, in part, to a cop that pulled somebody over about a quarter mile in front of me) I decided that after reaching the abandoned motel in Salem, I would turn around.  The natural beaches and tiny fishing towns were much more appealing to me than this.  

After walking quite a distance, a truck finally pulled over and I hopped in the back, along with a bale of hay and tons of dirty tools.  After telling the drivers where I was going (they knew exactly where the motel was), the passenger and I began to talk a bit.  He asked me if I’d ever eaten “swamp cabbage,” and if I’d ever seen snow before.  These two questions together amused the hell out of me, and I couldn’t help but grin as I told him “no,” and “yes.”  They stopped in front of the motel, and I hopped out.  “Try room 11, that’s where everyone goes!” they yelled as I walked off.  

Sure enough, as I walked up to the lifeless place, I noticed that the doorknob was removed from the door of Room 11.  I pushed it open, and as the door opened, it broke several cobwebs and pushed aside several pieces of broken glass.  The place was absolutely filthy, there was just no way I was going to sleep in there.  The carpet had been ripped out, with broken bottles and a thick layer of gray dirt/dust lining the floor as well as some decrepit spider webs that covered nearly every corner of the place.  So, I walked out to the next set of rooms, where a window had been broken out.  I pushed my pack and bag through the hole, and then hopped in myself.  This room wasn’t quite as shitty as the last one, but I still wasn’t up for sleeping in the bed of broken glass and layer of gray dirt that covered the floor.  So, I shoved the adjacent door open to see what the neighboring portion had in store.  

This was better.  The place didn’t look bad at all, windows and doors intact, remaining furniture and all.  The kitchen was a shithole, but I figured I didn’t have any business in there anywhere.  So, with some remaining daylight left, I kicked back and relaxed, eating some of the cheetos Jen had packed me, reading some of my Bible, and jamming out to my iPod.  About an hour after the sun went down, I decided it was time to hit the sack.

I slept restlessly, due in part to the noise of the house that was next to the motel and all the four-wheelers that were being driven constantly, and also to my worry of being found, not only by the law but also by somebody else that might hassle me.  I was alone, after all.  In the morning, I packed up quickly and headed back in the direction that I came from.  The hitching was just as shitty as it was on the way down, and I walked for most of the morning without getting a ride.  On the way, I sat down a few feet from the road and ate the can of ravioli that Jen had packed me, enjoying the morning.   

After breakfast, I walked for a little less than a mile before getting a ride from Ed, an older man in a gray pickup truck.  He didn’t talk much, and attributed this to the horrors he’d seen during his service in Viet-nam.  Ed dropped me off in Perry, and there I washed up in the bathroom of a convenience store.  

After cleaning up, I remembered a spot I had seen while I was passing the panhandle heading eastbound:  what had appeared to be an unoccupied piece of land, and just down the road a plot of beach.  I remembered this place because I had stopped to take off my shoes for a change, and had lost my knife, having to go back and retrieve it.  So, I worked my way through all those small coastal towns:  carrabelle, apalachicola, and finally East Point, where the spot was.  I had bought some groceries in the previous town so that I would have some food while I was there, so when I arrived at around dusk, I sat down on a beautiful, almost hidden spot of beach, sheltered from the road by brush and palm trees and almost a mile from town, I sat and relaxed.  

            Two hours or so after the sun had went down, I walked over to the plot of land I had seen.  It turned out to be a pretty badass spot, completely overgrown on all sides, about 1 or 200 yards in any direction from neighboring houses, and with a tramped dirt path leading through the middle.  So, after finding a decent spot a ways into the long grass and short pine trees off of the path, I set up my tent.  While I was setting up, I encountered a problem that I hadn’t really taken into any consideration: mosquitos.  There were TONS of them, and I felt like I could here every one of them, buzzing by my ears, and touching my hands, neck and face (I had a flannel and jeans on to protect me, despite the heat) before I got a chance to swat them off.  So, I set up my tent as quickly as I could and got inside.   With a full stomach and piece of mind knowing that the mosquitos were at bay, I slept.
            Basically the next 3 days I spent as such:  waking up, sitting on that little spot of beach, playing harmonica, weaving bracelets, and walking through the tiny town of East Point, with a few exciting changes in between.  It was nice, but after those three days I was getting pretty bored, and quite ready to move on.  On the morning of my departure (mar. 9) I was walking down Hwy 98 west when I saw a truck turn around far ahead of me that I had just saw pass me by.  “Need a lift?” the driver asked me from across the road.  Awesome, I didn’t even have my thumb out!  The driver, Wes, took me to the outskirts of Appalachicola, a reasonably sized tourist-filled town across the bay from east point.  It was a beautiful day, the sun shining brightly on the water and illuminating all the trees that surrounded the highway.  As I was walking with my thumb out, a tan SUV in sad shape with big chrome rims pulled up into a driveway in front of me.  “Ain’t chu a little yung to be hitchhikin’? the driver, a black guy with his wife asked me.  We talked for maybe 30 seconds and he said that after he ran some errands he would come back and give me a ride in about a half hour.  

After he drove off, I walked for probably an hour and a half with no sight of him.  I sort of figured that this would happen, but I didn’t care.  As I was walking, I saw two figures approaching in the distance from where I had come from.   As they got closer, I got a better look; in front was a kid probably 25 years old, with red hair and tattoos on his face, dressed in all worn, black clothes and riding a scooter, with an old man cruising on a bike behind him.  Once they had caught up with me, we talked for a little while.  Apparently they had come up from Key West (around 600 miles away) and were heading towards Port St. Joe, the next town over.  They had both been doing this for years, and seemed pretty road-worn.  At the end of our brief conversation, Willie, the kid on the scooter told me “well man, I don’t want to mess up your ride.  We’ll see you in port st. joe or panama city man, just look under some bridges or at the entrance of wal-mart (a favorite pan-handling spot).  We said our goodbyes, shook hands, and they were off, scootering at a mild pace.  

A mile or two down the road, I saw a blue cadillac pull up onto the shoulder behind me.  It was the guy who had offered me the ride from before!  He ended up taking me all the way to panama city, and even bought me a barbeque sandwich and some water on the way!  I suspected that he was a drug dealer or something, just by the way his extremely skinny, seemingly malnourished girlfriend was acting, all the money he somehow had, the stops we made along the way, just to mention a few things.  either way, I didn’t care.  It had rained on the way there, and I was glad to be inside a car, away from the elements (I had already had my share of beating sun that day). I asked him to drop me off at the library, so I could get a chance to write some, and stay out of the rain, maybe even wait it out.  

After wasting most of my library internet time on facebook, I left the library an hour later to be welcomed by gray, dreary skies, but no rain.  By way of asking several strangers, I made my way back to Hwy 98, and stuck my thumb out on the traffic-filled road.  Only a few minutes later, I heard a car honk at me from a nearby parking lot.  Excited at my quick success in getting a ride, I eagerly jumped in.  Inside were two gay guys, chatting about things that I had zero interest in hearing, but didn’t mind because I was getting a ride to Panama City Beach, about 14 miles to the east of Panama City (Panama City Beach is the spring break hotspot of the country during the entire march of may).  I asked them where to find the spring break madness, and after telling me, I got out and was on my way.  

Upon walking down Front Beach Road(the main beachfront drag) , I noticed a few things.  First, the immense amount of people riding motor scooters.  Second, the infinity of jacked-up, decked-out pickup trucks, tuned cars, cop cars, bars, and generic souvenir shops.  I made my way to the beach, and walked down it in hopes of meeting some people.  It’s at times when you’re surrounded by people, especially peers all having a good time, that you feel the loneliest.  So, I worked on fixing that problem.  Even though it was an overcast day and fairly late in the afternoon, the beach was pretty full of kids, playing beer pong, volleyball, and lots of other sports and drinking games.  I had my pack on, so I knew I stuck out like a sore thumb, so I figured it shouldn’t be too hard to make some friends.  As some frat guys passed by, one offered me a beer, and I took the opportunity to take off my shoes and sit down for a bit.  After I began walking again, some kids asked me where I was going.  I sat down, and we began talking.  They were two guys and a girl, sitting in the larger guy’s arms.  They were pretty interested in what I was doing, and ended up inviting me to hang out with them later.  The girl, Steph, upon hearing my plans for later that night (finding a place to sleep behind some abandoned buildings) offered to let me stay at her place for the night and take a shower.  This was perfect!  After stopping by walmart for a bathroom break, we headed over to Steph’s place to hang out.  I was so relieved to not have to sleep on the street that night, or at least not have to look for a place to sleep, especially when currently the alternative was a comfy couch.  

We ended up hitting up a bar after that, where Steph knew a kid that was playing that night.  After a filling amount of drinks and food (one of the guys we met ended up giving me half of an enormous sandwich he couldn’t finish) we headed home, with Steph’s roommate driving us back.   Back at the apartment, Steph’s roommate cooked food for everyone (even though it was almost one in the morning) so after eating my fill, I passed out on the fold-out couch/bed steph had set up for me.  In the morning, after eating a bit, she dropped me off back on front beach road on her way to work.  

So there I was again, back on the beach in search of new friends.  It was a sunny day, so my spirits were a bit better than the evening before (that’s almost always the case).  I found some guys playing frisby, and sat down and talked to them for a bit.  We ended up migrating to a beer pong table with some kids from North Carolina.  They were really nice, and I ended up hanging out there for quite a while (all day actually).  Rhyne, chris, and another guy (whose name I can’t remember) went to UNC chapel hill, a state school in central North Carolina.  I ended up talking with Rhyne quite a bit.  He was open-minded and kind, and invited me to crash on the floor of their hotel room.  Awesome!  This (to me) meant one thing: I could get trashed!  I don’t usually (actually almost never) drink much on the road, usually due to the precariousness of the sleeping arrangements and my desire not to get harrassed by the law or otherwise.  So, it’s only in certain situations that I’ll get good and hammered on the road, when I know where I’ll sleep.  They guys had told a bunch on people on the people (actually almost everyone they talked to) that they would have a party in their room, and for everyone to come, as it was there last night in PCB (Panama City Beach).  No one ended up coming, and we migrated around their hotel for awhile, banging on doors in search of some elusive brazilian girls (and angering some hotel guests), and talking with other kids staying at the same place.  Around one in the morning, I was getting pretty tired, and asked them if they would mind if I passed out.  They talked a bit, and decided that they wanted to go out to some clubs.  There were apparently police (or security, I can’t remember) outside, so if I went with them, there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to get back in, as I didn’t have an orange wristband, given by the hotel to its guests.  They didn’t want me sleeping in their hotel room by myself, which was perfectly understandable.  After all, I did only meet them earlier that day.  It was a shitty situation, but there was really nothing that could be done.  I walked out the back entrance the beach, and after saying goodbyes to Rhyne, who was apologizing about the situation, I drunkenly walked off in seach of a place to sleep.  

I awoke the next morning to the bright sunlight, and it took me a bit to think where I was.  I looked around, and discovered that I was in a small beach stand, and there were some people just on the other side of the wall, unaware of my being there!  shit!  I quickly packed up my sleeping mat and bag, and was on my way.  This was the first time I’d had a hangover in awhile, and I felt awful.  I couldn’t help but think that before my friend Nick came, that would likely be the situation again.  I felt awfully excluded from the spring break fun at that point.  Not having money to spend (I was saving it for when Nick came, as I knew that drinks would be expensive) nor a place to stay, I would always be an outsider here, especially having my pack to carry around.  After sitting on a bench and drinking water for awhile, I continued walking down the strip.  As I was walking, an enormous Ford F-250 pulled up to a nearby store.  I asked them if they could give me a lift, and the driver said that it would be fine.  So, there I was being offered more beer by the other occupants of the bed of this enormous truck, honking and revving the engine at cute girls we passed by.  One of the kids in the back seat was really enjoying himself.  The truck was a ‘Bama (alabama) truck, with a flag flying and everything, so he made sure to ridicule anyone we passed by in a smaller truck or from a different state.  As we passed by two buff guys with “Kentucky state” on their shirts (they could have taken this skinny southerner any day of the week were he on the ground) he yelled “Kentuck ain’t worth a SHIT!!!”  I was thoroughly amused, and laughed for quite awhile.  They dropped me off on the other end of the strip, about 5 miles away, and I made my way to the beach.  

Apparently, my friend Bill, from Lillian, Alabama was in town, or at least on his way.  He was originally from Panama City, and owned some property there.  While I was texting him, I made my way down to the beach, still having quite the headache.  As I was walking, a short, black-haired girl walked up to me.  “So where are you from?” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, clearly drunk.  I sat down and with her friends for a bit.  Can I just say how needed that was?  There’s nothing like a drunk girl to cheer up a shitty morning and a pesky hangover.  As I was talking to her friends, she wandered off to some guys in front of us, and I realized how drunk she really was.  Ahh, Panama City, what fun you are.  A few minutes later, I left and told them I would see them later that night (which I doubted, considering the sheer amount of people there) and met up with my friend Bill.  We drove up to his property and caught up on what each other had done; it had been quite a long time since I had last seen him.  After eating some lunch and dropping off my stuff, he dropped me off back at the beach.  The next 24 hours were filled with the usual Panama City Beach shenanigans, full of sun, beer pong, the “dizzy bat”, and new friends.  

The next day, after a long wait, I finally met up with Nick.  It was great to be with an old friend again, a familiar face that I knew I would have good fun with.  He was staying at a campsite a few miles down Front Beach road, and after helping him set up camp, we hit up the strip.  Now spring Break could properly begin.  By that time it was pretty dark, and after getting some food we decided we would try and get some liquor.  Us both being minors, this posed a bit of a problem, but given the circumstances, it was easily solved.  With the help of some strangers, we now had a handle of cheap vodka!  Add some orange juice and some water bottles to disguise the contents (poorly), and we hit the strip, looking for parties I had been told to hit up by people I had met earlier that day.  

They both ended up being let-downs, in the first group of guys, some cool black guys that went to Georgia southern, were really taking it easy, as a girl that was with them got alcohol poisoning and had to be rushed to the hospital.  In the second group, a group of maybe 20 kids renting one small beachfront cottage, we felt a bit unwelcome, and decided that instead we would walk along the strip, loaded, and catch up on old times.  This ended up being equally fun, and we made our timely way back to his campsite.  For the next two days, our schedule went as such:  Go to the beach, drink beer, enjoy the views, find cheap food, walk around idly along the incredibly crowded and trashed beachfront (in the more crowded patch of beaches, there were empty bottles just getting sucked in with the tide), repeat until nighttime.  God, it was good to relax with a friend.  On the third day, we took a drive to Perry to meet up with Nick’s friend Phil.  It was a sunny, beautiful day, and I enjoyed the mostly oceanside drive (even though I’d already seen it, twice)  We met Phil at a restaraunt, and drove back to Panama City.  After getting some food and beverages, we decided that it was high time to go to the beach.  Apparently when we had said “beach” Phil had had a different idea, perhaps of one more pristine, natural, clean, and less crowded.  This wasn’t the case at all, and Phil decided that he would clean up the patch of beach in front of use, giving him a clean view of the ocean.  I could have cared less either way, it was what it was, but I decided to help him anyways.  So, after cleaning up, we sat and relaxed on some empty beach chairs for awhile.  

On the day that Nick and Phil were going to head back north to get back to school, I had them drop me off in Tallahassee so that I could continue my way south towards Key West, without having to retrace my route along Hwy 98 AGAIN.  So, after a lunch at waffle house (thanks Phil!) and the gift of an enormous jar of peanut butter (thanks again Phil!) and several good-byes, I was on my way.  After trying a nearby on-ramp to I-10 for nearly an hour with no luck, I decided I would walk across town and try to find a busier on-ramp, or another highway.  I asked some people at a gas station, and after hearing 3 different answers I finally figured out which way I needed to go to hop onto U.S. highway 90.  As I was walking down the road with my thumb out, I heard a car honk at me from a nearby parking lot.  I walked over, to find an overweight old guy in a buick.  “Where are you headed?” he asked.  I told him that I was trying to get towards highway 90.  “What about after that?” he asked.  “Well, I’m gonna work my way down towards key west,” I replied.  “Well, what do you do for money?”  “Nothing really, just kind of pick up opportunities as they present themselves.”  “Well, would you be interested in earning some money?” he asked me.  “Doing what?” I said.  “Well, you know...” I knew exactly where this was going, and I didn’t like it at all.  In the end, he basically offered me $100 and a ride all the way to key west if I “took care of myself” in front of him.  This ride was done.  I had him let me off right then, and was glad to be out of the car.  I walked down tennessee avenue/Hwy 90 for maybe 3 miles before a car pulled over on a nearby sidestreet.  The driver, shaun, had apparently done a decent amount of hitchhiking in the immediate area, and was on his way to work.  He dropped me off at a spot he said he thought I should be able to get a ride onto the interstate at.  It was pretty dead, so I decided to just continue making my was across the highway, going from town to town.  I got fairly steady rides the whole way, and made it to Madison by nightfall, about 50 miles away.  I slept behind a shopping complex, and could hear quite clearly the workers in the kitchen of a chinese restaurant on the other side of the wall I was beside.  In fact, later on in the night, some workers went outside to take out the trash, and were jabbering away just 6 feet away from me, and never knew I was there (yay for convert sleeping places!) 

The next morning I woke up before the sun, and walked a bit around the town, which had a very old feeling about it, with a courthouse in the center of town, and lots of older, Victorian-style homes all around, with palm trees and mossy oaks in most yards.  I walked through the center of town and continued east, facing the rising sun with my thumb out.  A few miles down the road, a older man driving a small white pickup pulled over.  His name was Tom, and he asked me if I would mind doing some work.  I was a bit leerie from my last encounter, and asked him what exactly I would be doing.  I would be helping to clean up the front sidewalk of a church (it was Sunday, after all).  I told him I would be glad to, and swept off the front sidewalk and driveway of the church.  Afterwards, I ate a filling breakfast of donuts and juice.  Mike and some of the other people that had begun to gather before Sunday school tried to convince me to stay for Sunday school and the service afterwards, but I just couldn’t.  It was a sunny day, a beautiful morning, and it’s times like those where I would be hard pressed to do anything except be outside, sitting in the sun or hitchhiking.  So, I continued on my way.

As I was walking down the sparsely trafficked road, I saw a truck pass me, and then U-turn back around towards me.  The occupants of the truck, an older couple, told me I could hop in the back if I wanted.  I was glad to take them up on the offer, and sat happily in the bed of the truck as we cruised towards Lakeshore, where they were going.  As I got out, the driver, Preston, said “We’d be glad to take you out for lunch, if you’d like.”  Despite the fact that I had just eaten, I accepted his offer without hesitation.  We ate Chinese food, and Preston and Emily (the couple) seemed to enjoy my company.  After lunch, Preston dropped me back off at highway 90.  As I was walking by a convenience store/gas station, I remembered what a guy had told me in Panama City, about washing his socks in a sink.  I thought to myself, “hell, why not?” and went inside and asked the clerk, a middle-aged Indian lady if I could use the bathroom.  She looked at me somewhat suspiciously and replied that yes, I could.  In the bathroom, I used some paper towels to clog the sink, and filled it up with soapy water.  Without thinking, I soaked 3 of my socks (I only have two pairs) so I just put all of them in.  I scrubbed the socks together for awhile, until I felt like they were clean.  Off to the side, there was a stack of 4 rolls of toilet paper.  I didn’t have any myself, and figured that it wouldn’t be a huge loss to the store if one went missing, so I put one of them in my pack.  After I had finished (probably about 15 or 20 minutes later) I emerged from the bathroom.  The clerk immediately entered the bathroom behind me.  “What have you done?!” she yelled, “what is this foul-smelling? And look, you have already used whole roll of toilet paper!!  This is not a public restroom, why did you do that?!” I told her that I had to clean my socks, and she didn’t seem the least bit enthused.  I ended up buying a candy bar, just for the sake of being a customer, although I didn’t feel the least bit bad about what I had “done.”  After all, my socks hadn’t been washed in weeks, and I really needed that roll of toilet paper!  Either way, I continued my way east. 

After walking maybe a mile in my flip-flops (All of my socks were hanging on the backside of my pack, drying) a guy driving a dodge minivan pulled over.  Marlin, the driver, was a nice guy who had had quite the street career as a kid.  When he was 14, he had been forced to go on his own.  He went up and down Florida, “ripping stores blind” for anything he needed, food, clothes, anything. I thought this was pretty amusing, and enjoyed his stories.  He gave me some advice (which I more or less already knew, from experience) telling me to always be clean, never looking homeless, so that people would never suspect anything.  He dropped me off at a pretty active on-ramp to I-10 in Lake City.  After waiting just a few minutes, a car pulled over a few feet down the ramp.  Inside were two girls in their mid 20s, Candace and Samantha, and a baby in the back.  They were headed towards Ocala, and were really nice.  I could tell by the way they talked that they had partied a lot as kids, and seen their fair share of the street.  Either way, I enjoyed their company, and on my way out, Candace gave me a bottle of Gatorade.  After leaving, I made my way towards the on-ramp across the street. 

I waited at the on-ramp for over 3 hours, from about 3 o’clock, until the sun went down, with no luck.  Frustrated and feeling a bit down, I went to a truck stop to charge my phone and talk to my family, and then resolved that I would walk out of this shitty town, if nothing else.  I spent the night in a field a few miles in the direction I wanted to go.

In the morning I woke up and walked my way to town, about 2 miles away, with no rides.  I ended up walking for 4 more hours, to the end of town, before I got a ride.  I was tired, hot, out of water, and tossing around the idea of turning around.  What was the point of hitchhiking if I never got any rides?  besides, there was about a zillion places in the US where I could be instead…. Finally, sometime between noon and one o’clock, a guy in a moving van pulled over for me.  “Man, you look like you really need a ride,” he told me.  He was damned right, and I told him how the last two days had been.  Chris, in his mid 30’s, was helping to move his parents from Louisiana to Florida.  Since he was the only one of his parents’ children without a job/family, he was chosen for the task.  He wasn’t going far,, only a few miles down the road to a place called The Villages, but I appreciate his help nonetheless.  He dropped me off at a convenience store, and bought me some trail mix and two liters of water as he left, wishing me well for my trip.  I walked down the road a ways, and realized the shittyness of the place where I was; “The villages” were a group of gated retirement communities, and the road that I was walking along had plenty of fast-moving traffic, with literally no shoulder, only a curb.  The sun was hot, and yet again I was in another less-than-ideal (to say the least) place to catch a ride. 

Fortunately, the day was about to take a turn for the better.  Just as I was passing by a Holiday Inn, a couple in a toyota sedan pulled over.  After hopping eagerly and thanking them, we set off.  “We’re not going far, but we figured we could give you a ride anyway,” the woman, Tami, told me.  This was perfectly ok with me, I told them, it was just good to get out of the sun.  “Listen, if you’d like to stop home for awhile and take a shower and wash your clothes, you’re more than welcome,” Tami told me.  Nice!!! This was looking up, a free shower (much needed) and a clothes washing (much more needed)!  As we continued driving, Clif, the guy (driving) told me “Listen man, we were planning on going boating after lunch, you’re welcome to come along if you’d like.”  BOOOM!! This mediocre day had just become amazing.  We stopped by Clif and Tami’s house for some lunch, and after a shower and putting my clothes in the washer machine, we were off.  According to the couple, we were apparently headed for a series of spring-fed creeks that ran through central florida.  From what they were telling me, this place sounded great!  The water, crystal clear and pure, was at a constant 74 degrees because it was spring fed.  The banks of the creeks were surrounded by cypress trees, giving a very swamp-like appearance, and according to them, there were monkeys in these forests!  Apparently, in the 50’s, the original “Tarzan of the Apes” was filmed here, and the makers brought monkeys onto the set.  When they left, they simply left the monkeys!  When we finally got to the water, I was ecstatic.  The water, between 12 and 15 feet deep, was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom, fish and everything!  As we got deeper and deeper into the creek system, the ride only became more interesting.  With alligators lying lazily on the banks or lurking in the water, loads of fish in the water, and tons of cypress and swamp cabbage lining the banks, with spanish moss(?) hanging from several of the trees, it was certainly surreal.  Sure enough, as we got deeper into the creek system, I saw a bunch of monkeys!  Never, in all of my trip, did I imagine I would be seeing a monkey in american woods!  We got up to a spot where Cliff said you could jump off a branch and into the water.  The branch was something like 40 feet up, big and thick, and the tree had several planks nailed into place as stairs to climb up.  I was leary at first, but after watching Cliff make the jump and not die, I decided I would give it a try.  So, up I climbed, all the way to the jumping branch.  When I looked down, I was a bit scared, especially because I could see straight down to the bottom.  But, “You only live once!” I thought to myself, and made the plunge.  What fun!  Life was good.  A beautifully hot day cooled off by some florida springs, and good company.  What a life, living on the road.  Just so damned crazy, I love every minute of it.

Something different to talk about, for once

You know, I've been thinking.  Lots of the people I talk to ask me, "so what do you want to do after this?" I'm sure that more than one person is wandering, so I figured I'd talk about that for a little bit.  A lot (and I mean a LOT) of people these days have these concepts, fundaments, of what people should do.  It usually goes highschool-college-job-house, or for the more "successful" people, "work your ass off in highschool to get the best grades possible in order to get into a nice school, probably for dental, med school, or law.  Study your young adult life away (8 years for a doctorate) and build up an enormous mortgage in doing so, and then be forced to get a job right off the bat in order to pay off the ENORMOUS sum of loans you've accumulated.  Then, by the time you're 30, you'll finally be free, have a big house, lots of money, and have a job doing what you only wanted to do for money in the first place!" 
      Why do people think this is such a good idea?  And with all that studying and working and paying and worrying, when do you get to really live?  So after I get back home in august, I'll start school.  Let me start by thanking my parents for being kind enough to have offered to pay for my tuition, as well as that of my other siblings as well.  Honestly, if they wouldn't have done that, then I probably wouldn't go to school at all, or at least not in the U.S.  Anyway, as I was doing some internet surfing this morning, I had a breakthrough- I found out what it is that I really want to do after 4 years of school!  Now, I'm well aware how subject things are to change, and how futile our attempts are to think that we know what will happen in the future, but as of right now, this is what I really want to do.  And the answer is......... Continue wandering!  Travel the world, see whatever I want to see, and do what I like (usually involving hitchhiking, dancing, being in the sun, etc.) 
      No career, you ask?  Well not yet, anyway.  Why the hell would I do something like that, if it involves working some bullshit job and not positively loving life?  Now sure, there will be time for that later, and that's the point!  I can do it later, like, whenever I want to.  But as for right now (or, the foreseeable future) the world is just too big and wonderful for me to think about staying in one place!  And whether it's translating, being a musician, tour guide, WHATEVER.  I don't care, and I feel like I'm far too young to worry about that.  So that's my two cents.

Surprise, chipped tooth! And a taste of Summer

So, the last I left off (nearly a month ago) I had just left my friend katrina's house, after dropping some weight off my pack in the form of cold weather gear.  It might not seem very important, but the weight of one's pack relates directly to how you feel while on the road.  With a big, heavy pack, you tend to feel more desperate about getting rides because of the weight of the pack, and a lot more limited as to what you can do, how far you can walk, etc.  With a light pack, your options are much more open.  Walk a 20 mile hike, hang out on the town, you name it, it isn't a problem.  On the flip side though, with less things you have to know what you're doing and what you'll run into more, so as not to be caught in some situation unprepared.

Anyway, Katrina was kind enough to drop me off about 30 miles east of baton rouge in Hamilton, where I figured I might be able to get a ride easier because of the intersection of two interstates there.  Ideally, I would catch a far ride fast, and head to florida as quick as I could.  After about 45 minutes of waiting on the on-ramp, I got a text from a previous ride name Jonathon, saying that if I wanted, I was welcome to hang out with him in New Orleans for the night.  I was hoping to get all the way to florida by the end of the day, so I wasn't really planning on it, but I kept it in the back of my mind.  After about 15 minutes more of waiting, a car finally pulled over, not from the on-ramp, but directly from the interstate, honking at me as he veered onto the shoulder.  I ran up to him and hopped in.  Ron, the driver, was headed to Slidell, a small town on the border of Louisiana and Mississippi.  He lectured me a good deal about God, the importance of faith, and a lot about his family.  I enjoy good conversation, but towards the end he began raising his voice quite a bit, and I was pretty much ready to leave the car.  

        He dropped me off at a more or less dead exit, so I had to walk a few miles down the road to get to a better exit where hopefully I would get a quicker ride.  Suddenly, as I was waiting, it began to rain.  Not just a soft drizzle, but pouring buckets.  This isn't usually too much of a problem, but it was especially windy, and after being solidly rained out for about 30 minutes, I found out a few things:  First, that however waterproof my shoes are, if water is pouring down my leg it doesn't matter.  Second, that my rain coat isn't waterproof so much as water resistant, basically meaning that I still got really wet.  Also, somehow, about the top half of my pack got wet, something that frustrated me quite a bit.  When I finally caught a ride, it turned out that the guy was going to New Orleans, which wasn't in the direction I was going at all.  Hell, I thought, I might as well take Jonathon up on his offer.  So, after my ride, Glen, dropped me off (in a pretty shady part of town, although he did give me $20!) I met up with Jonathon.  
        It's always good to see friends again, and this was certainly the case with Jonathon.  He had his Aunt and Uncle's house to himself for the next 24 hours or so, and he had a dorm fridge full of beers that he had brewed himself, so the plans for the night were pretty much set.  Once I got a chance to sit down and take all my rain gear out, I realized the extent of the damage.  Most of the things in my pack were pretty damp, including my sleeping back.  My only guess is that because I had everything tightened down so much after dropping the weight at katrina's, my rain cover wasn't completely covering my back, and water had dripped in somehow.  It was pretty fortunate that Jon had offered me the place to stay for the night, because this gave me an opportunity to lay all my stuff out to dry.  Hanging out with Jon was cool, and as well as eating and drinking my fair share, we had some excellent conversations that only two travellers can share:  of rides, places we slept, people we met, and everything in between.  It was good to really relax, and know that I was welcome and not imposing at all.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for more than just that night, because Jon’s aunt and Uncle were coming back, and apparently his aunt was pretty obsessive about him having guests over, as well as the cleanliness of the house.  So, after spending the night munching on candy bars, drinking incredibly sweet beers, and eating lots of triscuits and summer sausage (We finally finished it, it had lasted all the way from Tucson!) we passed out, too tired to hit up the French Quarter.  

In the morning, after packing up all the clothes that I had dried, Jon took me back out to Slidell, where he was going rock climbing with a friend of his.  After waiting for nearly 2 hours unsuccessfully at the on-ramp, I decided that that clearly wasn’t the place to catch a ride, and took a walk.  

I walked for maybe 30 minutes before a friendly old man named Don in a gray pickup gave me a ride to Highway 90, which I would ride across the Gulf coast.  Don was a friendly man, glad to help me out, and apologized for not being able to take me further (people do this a lot, and as far as I’m concerned it’s unnecessary, I mean I already got a free ride, there’s really not much more a hitchhiker could ask for).  I walked just a few hundred yards on Highway 90 before a van pulled over.  The driver, a seemingly timid, middle-aged woman named Ray Lee was really hospitable.  “I’m on my way back from New Orleans, and I’m bringing some food back for my family.  Help yourself to a burger if you’d like!” I was happy to eat the delicious burger!  She dropped me off in Bay St. Louis, just across the bay, and wished me well as she drove off.   

Bay St. Louis is a beautiful town, with nice beaches and beautiful homes with yards full of mossy oaks, giving it a very “deep south” feel.  Because there wasn’t really a shoulder on the road, and a curb to keep out sand, the road wasn’t really ideal for catching rides, so I ended up walking a few miles before I got another ride.  As I was walking through town, a nissan pulled over, with two black guys inside.  “We can take you as far as Gulfport, brother,” they told me, and at that, we were off.  I didn’t really talk to them much, mostly because they were too busily talking with each other, which was alright with me.  They dropped me off right in the middle of Gulfport (Mississippi) and I walked some more.  The sky was pretty overcast, and it had been pretty much since Slidell.  It started to rain a little bit, but not too much.  Just as it was starting to get dark, an older woman pulled over.  

Mona, the driver, was a really nice lady, and had done her fair share of traveling back in the day: all over Mexico, Europe, Africa, just to name a few.  Either way, she seemed pretty enthused to have met me.  “Oh, I’m just so glad to see that there’s still kids out there seeing the world!” she told me.  Although she told me that she could take me to the other end of Gulf port, she ended up driving me all the way to Ocean Springs.  On the way there, Mona gave me a little tour of the towns, both Gulfport and Biloxi.  At some point in time, we veered off the main road (Hwy 90).  This would usually start me wondering, because I don’t know my way around mostly any of the towns I pass through, and it just complicates things to find my way back to whichever highway I’m biding by.  We ended up stopping by the bank, and Mona drew out some money.  Next thing I know, she’s handing me $100!  I’ve been handed a few bucks before, but never this much!  Flattered, I asked her if there was anything I could do, work or errands or anything, so that I would have at least done something to earn the money.  “No no, I want you to have that.  I know it’ll go towards a good cause, and it makes me happy to give it to you.”  I was rich!  She ended up dropping me off in ocean springs, and gave me a hug as I got out, as I thanked her profusely.  God bless people like Mona.  

I decided that I would eat and look for a place to sleep, instead of trying to get some more rides.  I was pretty tired, and if I went much further I’d probably be in a residential neighborhood, where it was be much harder to find a place to sleep.  After happily munching on some bread and peanut butter, I slept beside some office building in a spot away from the light of the road and cars.  

I woke up bright and early, with the sun, and began walking out of town.  As I was walking, I saw a sign on a tree that said “Real Americans defend Israel”.  I was REALLY tempted to leave a note under it, or tear it off, but decided that it wasn’t really worth it.  So, I continued walking.  A few minutes later, I got picked up by Sam, a guy driving a mechanic’s truck.  “You look pretty young, man, so I decided to pick you up,” he told me, in a latino accent.  Sam, a native Nicaraguan, has been living in the states for the last 16 years, and works on an oil rig, and was enjoying his week off, after working a series of 70-hour work weeks.  “Listen man,” he told me, “If you like traveling, you gotta go to Nicaragua.  Around this time of year, everybody’s out swimming.  And people give you rides all the time, it’s not like here.”  Sounds like Nicaragua might be the place for me...

He agreed to take me as far as Pascagoula.  On the way, we stopped at a convenience store, and Sam offered to buy me some coffee.  I felt bad accepting his offer, now actually having money and all, so I just decided to splurge and get a bottle of Yoohoo and a cinnamon roll.  Ahh, I was rich!  I could by breakfast without spending half of my money!  After Sam dropped me off, I walked quite a ways without getting any rides.  It’s times like these, especially in that country, the deep south, when I wish I knew the fine art of train hopping.  Such beautiful countryside, cool people, unfortunately slow hitchhiking, and I was walking right next to a freight line.  Woe is me....

As I was walking, a car honked at me.  I ran up to it, thinking I might be able to get a ride.  The driver, whom I couldn’t tell to be a man or woman, said “Come to the Miss-a-Bama salloon” I highly suspected them of being a gay guy, but decided, hell, when do I ever get offers to go to a salloon?! And with a name like that!  On the way, I remembered some good friends that lived in the area, Christian and Elliot, two kids a bit younger than me that had given me a ride and some shared good times in Grand Bay, so I decided to shoot them a text, see what they were up to.  It was still quite early, maybe around 7:30am, but I figured they would get the text eventually.  Anyway, after finally getting there, My suspicions were confirmed.  The guy was indeed gay, and was hoping I was too.  I told him the way it was (that I’m quite straight) but that if he was headed any further east and could give me a ride, that would be welcome indeed.  We went into the bar, and I chatted with his friends a bit.  They worked at Wal-Mart, and all hated their jobs with a passion, so (of course) I recommended that they hit the road, see the country, all that jazz.  They rejected the idea as most people do, but hey, to each his own.  After just a few minutes, I got a call back from Elliot.  “Dude! Ben! where are you?”  He asked, in the deep southern drawl that I loved about the area.  “Uhh, I’m in Pascagoula, in the Miss-a-bama saloon,” I told him.   “Sweet man, I know exactly where that is, Christian and I will be there as soon as we can.”  Badass!  After talking to my new friends for awhile, I saw Elliot’s head poke through the door, and I was off.  

“Dude, where’d you go?” I was asked as soon as I sat down in the car, and shook hands with everyone.  I told them briefly about my trip so far, as we were on our way to Christian’s house.  After hanging out for a bit there, listening to some music, and eating my bread and peanut butter, the two of them decided to go to a skatepark.  Although I knew I could make good time if I went my own way now, I decided to go with them and enjoy a day of taking it easy.  So that’s how the afternoon went by.  I mostly watched them skate, fooled around going up and down quarter pipes sitting on the skateboard, listened to some music, that sort of thing.  At some point or another Christian’s brother mentioned a spot where you could go swimming, right under a bridge that you could jump off of.  Awesome, this was just the sort of thing I was looking for!  

After stopping back at his house to change and deflecting a million of his mom’s warnings (“you better look in that water before you jump off that bridge, I don’t want none of y’all killed on some piece of metal in there or somethin!)  We were off.   When we finally got there, I was a bit leery about jumping at first.  the creek, maybe 30 feet across, stretched underneath the two-lane road bridge we were on, the water maybe 14 feet or so underneath the bridge.  The only thing that really got me was wandering whether or not the water was deep enough.  So, I let Elliot do the first jump, after we, being a bit psyched out by christian’s mom, checked out the depth of the water beforehand.  After seeing Elliot make the plunge, it was my turn.  I jumped.  The fall was every bit as far down as it looked, and just as the wind started rushing in my ears, BOOSHH!!!!  the water felt great at first, and then, after about two seconds I realized how cold it was!  I inhaled sharply, and my body cried “Land!  Land!  take me back to warm, dry land!”  After a few more times of the excitement, though, I decided it was time to step it up.  There was a rope swing upstream a little bit that someone else had put in awhile ago, and I decided it was time to put that baby to the test.  

The thing with the rope swing was that you had to climb up a tree with boards nailed on as steps, which the other guys were a little leary about.  After finally making my way up the tree, I had one of them toss me up the rope.  Making sure christian was ready with his video camera, I decided that it was the time.  I was perched up on a 2-by-4, seated, so all I had to do was fall off of it with a shove and let the rope do the rest.  I swung, and held on just long enough that I was higher than I wanted, and let go.  What fun!  The water, by this time, was refreshing from having been in it so long, and I urged my friends to try the rope swing, but they would have none of it.  To hell with it, I figured, I might as well do it again.  So again, the procedure was repeated, and after climbing up the tree I had Christian’s brother throw me up the rope.  Away I went, again.  This time, my body tumbled without my control, and I ended up landing smack on my chest.  I didn’t realize it until I was making my way back to land and felt the little bits in my mouth, but in the fall, my jaw had actually slammed shut on itself, and chipped my front tooth.  Damn!!! Once I got out and Christian and Elliot didn’t notice anything too bad, I thanked God that it wasn’t any worse.  That was the last thing I needed when I was trying to get rides, a big chip in my front tooth!  But since it clearly wasn’t too bad, I wasn’t too worried.  On the way back, we discovered that Elliot had left his shoes, so Christian and I made the run back to go get them.

When we got back to the spot, we discovered that Elliot’s shoes weren’t on the “shore” where he had left them.  Quite to the contrary, we spotted one of them floating upside down in the water.  Someone had clearly tossed them in, the bastards.  We had talked to some other kids on the way out, it must have been them.  I tried to reach across the water with a long branch, but as soon as I touched the shoe, it sunk.  Well, there went that idea.  The water was too deep and the visibility too low at the spot where the one shoe sank, and we had no idea where the other one was, so we decided to call it quits, and head back.  

Elliot was furious upon hearing the news.  In fact, he wanted to get some kids together to fight the ones who threw his shoes in the water.  After all, they were his skating shoes.  There didn’t end up being any fight, thankfully, and he stewed angrily on the way back, and for the rest of the day.  I ended up spending the night at christian’s again, which I thanked his family gratefully for.  That night, we listened to some more music (our varying tastes in dubstep, among other things) and munched out pretty much until we went to sleep.  In the morning, I left, having them drop me off at a gas station along the way that I was going.  After saying my good-byes, I was on the road again, bright and early.  

Sky-High checkpoints and lots of Burritos

Baton Rouge, LA March 1, 2011



So, when I left off a little over a week ago, I was in Phoenix, AZ, planning on heading for Mexico. On the last two days of my stay with Kevin, he tried very persistently to convince me not to go to Mexico. Getting robbed, killed, left for dead, etc, were among his arguments. Don’t get me wrong, many, many people have tried to convince me not to go to Mexico. But, none of those people were Kevin, probably very few had traveled as much as him, and probably very few knew as much as him. I know, his arguments may or may not have been unreasonable, but regardless, they got to my head. As I walked out of his door, I decided that I would instead change plans and cross the country again and head for Florida. Maybe there, I could catch a ferry or something to Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. Either way, I planned seriously on doing it. So, rather than heading to Gila Bend and then to Yuma like I was planning, I made my way to the southern side of Phoenix so I could catch a ride to Tucson and work my way back across the country to Florida on the 22^nd.

As I made my way walking along the street parallel to the interstate 10 as it cut through the city, a guy in his 20s driving a white truck pulled over. “Hop in the back man, I can take you as far as Sky Harbor,” he told me. I didn’t know where that was, but after confirming with him that that was in the direction I wanted to go (I had a sign that read “south” so he already knew it was in the direction I was going, but I didn’t) I headed out. He dropped me off just a few meters from the nearest on-ramp going in my direction, and was off.

After waiting for nearly an hour to no avail at that spot, I decided it was in my best interests to walk farther south to the next on-ramp. There, there might be a bigger focus of traffic, and I might have better odds of getting a ride out of the city. This was indeed the case, and after finally making my way to the ramp and waiting for just a few minutes, a green Toyota Prius “Discount Taxicab” pulled over. As soon as I opened the door, I told the driver that I didn’t have any money. “Yes yes, das okay, I onry take you tree mile,” the driver told me. Excellent! He apparently didn’t want to talk much, and acted a bit strange, just driving silently (this isn’t the first time an asian driver has acted as such upon picking me up, and I’m not sure why). He dropped me off where he said I would, and I made my way to the on-ramp leading back onto I-10. I waited there for quite a while, more than an hour I think, wishing for a ride, baking in the sun, counting cop cars, fast cars, and cars I thought would pick me up (these are usually the things I do/think about when I’m waiting for a ride) when finally a lady in a big black Toyota Tundra yelled from the stoplight, “Hop in the back, hurry!” I did just that, and hopped in the bed of the truck.

I was pretty cramped, and she actually had lots of stuff in there, something covered with a tarp and bungied down, leaving only a little hole for my pack and food bag; I had to sit on top of the tarp. As she started to accelerate, I thought to myself, “is this legal? It’s certainly not safe…” She went down the on-ramp a little bit, and then pulled over and stopped, getting out of the truck. “Sorry I had you stuffed in the back like that, I just didn’t want to hold up traffic. I can take you up to where I-10 meets I-20,” she told me as I sat in the front seat, everything finally situated. She said it as though it were only a few stops away, but the point she mentioned was east of El Paso, TX, nearly 600 miles away! Nice! Tina, the driver, was actually on her way to visit her husband in Huntsville, ALA, and in the cab of her truck she had 3 cats (caged), and two dogs (one of which was caged), so it was fun, fun. Tina had worked for Boeing before, but now was unable to work because of a car injury that had left her disabled, needing a cane to walk.

A little while after we had passed Tucson, my thoughts began returning to Mexico. Glancing at my map, seeing the country and Central America beneath it, beconing me, I thought “Damn, this is just too big to miss…” I had Tina drop my off on Hwy 191, that led straight to the border at Douglas, AZ. The road was pretty desolate, going straight in the horizon, with little traffic. Just me, the mountains in the distance, and the desert, with all of its spiky brush. I was happy.

After walking for maybe a half hour or so, a truck finally pulled over. Ralph, the driver, was heading to Sunsite, a town about 20 miles down the road. I was a little perturbed by the fact that Sunsite wasn’t on my map, leading me to wander how many more small towns like this stood between me and the border. Ralph was a pretty cool guy, and told me that Agua Prieta, the Mexican town that was on the other side of the border, was actually a city of about 300,000 people. This also irritated me; on my map, Agua Prieta was shown as just a dot with the smallest of print, just the same as numerous other small towns stateside that I had passed through that didn’t have more than a thousand inhabitants. Whatever, I thought, I’ll just try and book it through there. He dropped me off around dusk, at a small convenience store, and I continued making my way, walking down 191. After it was good and dark and I had long since made my way out of the city, an old chevy pickup pulled over. Terry, the driver, told me he could take me a few miles down the road, about 15 miles north of Elfrida. I didn’t get any more rides for a little while, and after walking a few more miles down the road, I decided that going to sleep was an excellent idea. I set up mini-camp (my sleeping mat, sleeping bag, pack, and food bag, with my shoes lying somewhere close by) beside a big bush, so that at least something was separating me from the road, in case I woke up after dawn. The sky was so big in that desert, and the stars were brilliant, giving me a clear view of the milky way stretching across the heavens. It was beautiful.

I’m not sure what the temperature was that night, but it was cold. When I woke up that night, all my stuff was covered in frost, and my bottles of water were half-frozen. I quickly packed up, shivering like a madman, and set out walking down the road.

Like most mornings, it was slow, and I walked at least 5 miles (there were markers to tell me this) before I got a ride. Rob, the driver, was heading to Elfrida. He was a pretty cool guy who looked like your typical modern-day cowboy, with his hat, boots, denim shirt and jeans, driving a muddy Dodge Ram. He dropped me off at the local convenience store/gas station, and after brushing my teeth, I was walking down the road again.

I walked just to the end of town (about 50 feet away) when a white VW pulled over. Inside were Adam and Mary, and they agreed to take me all the way to Douglas. Adam worked for Vision Quest, a company that worked helping wayward youths by doing several-week programs involving things like wagon trains, trail hikes, and other outdoor activities of the type. They were pretty interesting people to talk to, and when they dropped me off at the Wal-Mart in Douglas, Mary even gave me two chocolate-chip cookies! After I left, I went into the Wal-Mart and bought some bread with the change I had, since it wouldn’t be of much use to me in Mexico. After that, I walked across the border. As I was crossing through the american side, the Customs and Border Patrol agents told me how dangerous it was (the guy I was talking to had never actually been to Mexico) and how crazy I was to be going. Hearing this coming from them, I walked across the border with an even bigger smile on my face.



Mexico was pretty much how I imagined it to be. Dry and dusty as hell, a lot of kids and old guys just chillin’ in the street, guys trying to sell candy, lots of stores, and the usual border tourism. Still, I didn’t really feel comfortable hanging around in the border town, given all the advice I’d gotten from others, the news, the US department of state, etc. After confirming with some kids in which direction the highway leading out of town was, I headed in that direction, and stuck out my thumb. Once I actually got to the road and walked a few feet, a beat pickup truck with two guys pulled over. After telling them where I was going, they agreed to take me out of town, to a gas station where they figured it would be easy for me to hitchhike. Once we were there, I talked with them about each of the roads (I had two choices, Hwy 2 and 17) and which one they thought I would like the best. After deciding upon Highway 17, a two-lane road that passed through several small towns, I was on my way, and began walking in that direction. After walking for a few miles, a beat-looking Ford Bronco pulled over. Reynaldo, the driver, told me that he could only take me a little bit down the road, because he didn’t have enough gas. That was fine by me, I was getting pretty hot walking in that sun. While we were driving, Reynaldo said that if I liked, we could go to his house for a glass of water. Although it took some thought (I really wanted to just jet south, and get as far from the border as I could in a day) I decided that I would take Reynaldo up on his offer. Reynaldo had a ranch that he lived in by himself, and he worked training horses to do tricks for shows for a living.
Inside, Reynaldo’s house was pretty clean, and bare. Apart from a table and some chairs, the only other things that I saw in the small house was food. “Are you hungry? Do you want to eat anything?” Reynaldo asked, probably noticing me eying up the tortillas that were lying on the table. “Yeah, some food would be great” I told him. Although I wasn’t really too hungry, the fact that I didn’t have a single Mexican peso, and receiving some of the Mexican hospitality that I had read about made me say yes to the offer for food. Also, on the road, I can pretty much always eat, and a LOT. He whipped me up some tortillas with eggs and hot dog bits to go with them. I ate until I was full, and after talking with Reynaldo a bit more, I told him I figured I’d head on my way. He escorted me to where the road started, and after many good-byes and thank-you’s, I was off. After walking down the road for a half hour or so (the road didn’t have very much traffic at all, I think maybe 10 cars passed me in all that time) a white pickup pulled over. I jogged up to the truck, tossed my pack in the bed, and we were off.

Inside were Hector and Alexandro. They were both really cool, enthusiastic guys, and were very interested in my trip. “I tell you what man,” Hector said to Alexandro, “an American, traveling around the world like that, and even speaks Spanish….that’s pretty badass…” They were both really cool, and I enjoyed the ride a lot. They told me about the towns I would pass through on that road, all the cool places to see in Mexico. On the way to where they were going (I didn’t know) we stopped at what seemeed to be a convenience store. Inside was lots of groceries, some trinkets, cowboy boots, belts, and in the back a room where there were some ladies cooking. We went there, and Alexandro ordered some food, and gave me lots of burritos and tamales. What great people! After talking some more, Alexandro and Hector drove me down the road a decent ways more before dropping me off where they were going to turn (they were going to see some dinosaur fossils at a mine, they invited me to come with them, but I wanted to get as far as I could before dusk). I walked a little ways up the road, just a few feet, when another truck stopped for me. The driver, David, said he could take me as far as Nacozari (another town not on my map, which does Mexico no justice at all). He didn’t talk much, but he offered me some of the food he had. (so how about that? I enter Mexico with no money at all, and my stomach has been good and full for all of my time here!

As I was walking through the small town, a guy at a car mechanic beckoned me over. I walked over, and he offered me some water, and even gave me another empty bottle (500mL) to hold more water in! I thanked him profusely, and was on my way. The road was becoming extremely windy, dropping off a few hundred feet on one side and with towering peaks on the other. It was hilly, and the sun was hot, but it was beautiful. I walked for a few minutes, when what do you know, a white pickup pulls over! I don’t know the driver’s name, or even where he was going, but he took me pretty far down the road. He told me to be really careful in Mexico, that it was easy to have fun, but to watch my back. Duly noted. We stopped at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and he suggested that I might be able to find a ride inside (there was a parked semi outside). Usually, or at least in the U.S., although this would seem logical and many people think truckers give lots of rides, it’s actually not at all the case. Anyway, I went in to the restaurant, which felt more like a home. Inside were maybe 3 ladies, all cooking, and a guy sitting at a large table, the only one in the place. After finding out that he was the driver, I asked him if he’d be able to give me a ride south, towards Hermosillo. Sure enough, he said it would be fine. So, I sat down and relaxed for a bit while he ate. Lots of drivers came in and out of the little restaurant, and were curious as to what a white kid with an enormous backpack was doing there (“Does he speak Spanish?” “Can he understand us?”)

About 45 minutes later, we were off. The driver, Miguel, was a pretty quiet guy. He was very nice, and asked me about my family, if I kept in touch with them, and what my plans for my “adventure” were. I didn’t realize how far Hermosillo actually was from where we were (again, thanks a lot map) and we didn’t get there until around 9pm (we left the restaurant at around 4). Also, although getting a ride with a truck that was going so far seemed like a good idea at first, I realized my folly: we were going SO slow. The truck, which was hauling two huge tanks of corrosive material, crawled its way through the mountains, sometimes going as slow as 10 mph. Even on straight roads, we never went faster than 45 or 50 mph. Would I have stuck to cars, I probably would have made much better time. Still, I felt easy with Miguel’s company, which was important. That’s the only thing with Mexico: although the people were really nice and the hitchhiking was good, I never really had peace of mind, which is a damned important thing.

We stopped about 60 miles before Hermosillo so that Miguel could sleep some, and he arranged for another trucker to take me all the way to Hermosillo (again, this has literally never happened to me anywhere else). Once the truck arrived, I said my goodbyes to Miguel, and continued on my path south. My next driver, whose name I can’t recall, wasn’t quite as nice as Miguel, but I was okay with that, he had agreed to take me all the way to Hermosillo. This guy was a lot harder to understand than Miguel, and he didn’t seem terribly fond of repeating himself. He also made it clear that he was going out of his way to give me a ride, and although he was going farther (in the same direction I was going), he would only take me to Hermosillo. After driving for a bit, I noticed some movement from the back of the cab. I looked behind me, only to discover that there was a man sleeping there! All this time, and I hadn’t even noticed that there was another person in the truck! We stopped at a small town a few kilometers down the road so that they could switch places.

Luis, the second driver, was a bit warmer than his co-worker. He asked a lot about my trip, and seemed pretty cool. He told me that if I wanted, I was welcome to ride with him all the way to Guaymas, a ways farther down the coast. I would have loved to, but I was exhausted by that time, it wouldn’t be till around 11 that we would arrive in Hermosillo. So I told him that I’d be fine getting off at Hermosillo. We decided that he would let me off at a restaurant about 20 kilometers south of Hermosillo, out in the countryside, since I had zero desire to be dropped in the middle of a big city (Alexandro had told me Hermosillo was about half the size of Phoenix) in the middle of the night, especially in this country. After he dropped me off, I found a good place to sleep under a nearby bridge.

The next morning, I woke up thinking “I need to leave. Now.” I had to either jet south, or turn around and head back across the border. I can’t fully explain why I felt this way, though I really don’t need to. Although Mexico treated me excellently, I just didn’t feel comfortable, especially in cities. Something was telling me, urging me to leave, maybe it was God, maybe it was my instincts, who knows. Either way, I listened. I decided that I would head back north, and make a mad dash for the border. It was set.

I didn’t have to wait long on the pull-off opposite to the restaurant before a truck pulled over, a red Ford Ranger. Inside were two older guys, who were heading to Hermosillo. They were really cool, another set of guys enthused about seeing an American who spoke Spanish in Mexico. The driver had a son who loved traveling like I do, hitchhiking everywhere, and the passenger had a son who was living in Ottawa, studying and working. They dropped me off at the corner where they were turning off, and I headed into the city.

I hadn’t forgot what Alexandro had told me about the size of Hermosillo, but I suppose I just didn’t take a lot of thought to it when I was actually in the middle of the city. There were several signs that gave directions to Nogales (the border town south of Tucson), which is where I decided I would cross the border, since it was a straight shot on Highway 2 from Hermosillo to Nogales, albeit a far one. I walked, and walked, and walked. After walking for maybe an hour, a truck finally pulled over. I never caught the man’s name, but he was really quite nice. “Hey man, are you in a hurry?” he asked me. I told him no, I guess out of habit, although as soon as the word came out of my mouth I realized that I actually was in a hurry. “Well, if you’d like, I have some work I’d really like a hand with back at the house, if you helped me for an hour or two, I could pay you 100 pesos, breakfast, too.” This was an excellent offer, and under different circumstances, I definitely would have taken him up on it. But, due to my rush to get back stateside, I had to decline, and had him drop me off at his turnoff. I walked for several more hours, and the city seemed to stretch on forever. The trouble was, the way the road was built, hitchhiking was really difficult. There wasn’t really any shoulder at all, but rather sidewalk right alongside the road, that was raised up with the curb. This meant that it would be extremely difficult for anybody to stop and pull over, especially with all the fast-moving traffic. At somewhere around noon, a kid coming out of the University pulled over, thankfully. “Hey man, I saw you as I was on my way to the school, but I didn’t want to pick you up if I was just going to drop you off right after.” Sergio, just a year older than me, was on his way to a conference. Then came the question: “hey man do you like to smoke weed?” Ahh, the infamous question. I do, in fact, although seldom, almost never. I’m well aware of the legalities of this, but I’ll go out on that limb to give you readers a good story, and the fullest truth I’m willing to tell. As far as substances go, I’m generally not big on marijuana, how much it clouds up my mind, destroys my awareness to what’s outside of my direct attention, and makes any deeper though process more complicated. Generally, I find being sober to be much more rewarding than the effects of any drug or substance, and am quite against dependence on ANY substance. But that day, I was feeling very stressed and a little down, so I answered Sergio’s question. “Yeah man, for sure.” “Nice!” he exclaimed, “you wanna go back to my place and smoke? I can drop you off afterwards.” “Sure, sounds good man,” I told him.

Sergio lived in what appeared to be a pretty nice apartment complex. It was gated, and the buildings were all nice and clean. Inside, Sergio’s apartment was pretty bare. Apart from a couch and the table, the only other thing that I noticed was the bong sitting on the table. We sat down, and I guzzled several glasses of water as we talked. Sergio was a really cool kid, pretty enthusiastic, open minded, and like most of the people I meet, curious about my trip. “So what do you do for food, man? Where do you sleep?” he asked me as he prepared the bong. We each took a hit, and a few minutes later, boom. I immediately regretted the decision. I felt lethargic as hell, and just wanted to rest for awhile on Sergio’s couch. This wasn’t possible, since he had to leave soon for his conference, and I needed to get across the border as soon as I could. Whatever, the deed was done. Sergio and I had some fun laughs, and then he dropped me off about 20 kms outside of town, which was great. As I was walking, my head still deep in a cloud, I thought to myself “Hell, this isn’t bad at all…” The weed definitely helped take the edge off of the sun’s heat, and my pack didn’t feel quite as heavy. Plus, I wasn’t fretting out so much about leaving. Well there you go, medical marijuana at its finest!

I walked for a ways until I came to a gas station/mini fair/motel, where I walked through the parking lot. A few meters away, a vender yelled to me asking if I was hungry. “Yeah, but I don’t have any money!” I told him. “No problem man, for you, it’s free!” he yelled back. Excellent! I walked up, panting perhaps unnecessarily. “Thank you so much! It’s so hot out…” I told him, trying my best to sound like a weary traveler who needed the food. “No problem, it’s free!” he said, and handed me 5 burritos, wrapped in cellophane. Hell yeah! I thanked him some more, and was off. After walking a ways, I realized that it would be more advantageous to just stand at the exit of the place. There, cars were coming out of the place, driving slowly, and they could see me clearly.

In probably less than a minute, a white van pulled over to pick me up. The driver’s name was Francisco, and his van was full of cell phones. Because of this, I had to fit all of my stuff up front. He was a really fun guy, and I enjoyed talking and joking with him. The ride seemed to last for quite a long time, either from the weed or from the actual distance, or both. On the way we came across a checkpoint. Here, the Policia Federal asked Francisco what was in the back, looked through it, and after some small talk (apparently Francisco made this run so often that he knew the guards by name) we were back on our way. Francisco told me that there would be six (!) more checkpoints until he reached his destination in Puerto Penasco.

At the second checkpoint, I was asked to get out, and put my backs through an x-ray scanner. Although I had nothing to hide, I was a bit nervous, still being completely blazed from Sergio. After scanning my belongings closely, the guard let me off, wishing me a “buen viaje!” So, I got back in Sergio’s van, and we were off. We zipped through the next check point, and before long we were in Santa Ana, where Sergio would let me off. “Common man, come with me to Puerto Penasco! You’ll love it!” Sergio offered. A few days in the little town on the coast of the Baja Peninsula, surely couldn’t be a bad idea….Still, something in me made me refuse the offer, I just had to get across the border. Another time, another day. Mexico would always be there. I walked through the small town of Santa Ana, trying unsuccessfully to hitchhike straight out of the town. So, I just kept walking, out of the town, and into the mountains. Before long, another big white van pulled over. When the van pulled over, I could see at least 4 people inside, and wandered how much room there could be. Once I got inside, I saw that there were already 7 people inside! Still, it was a pretty big van, and there was room for me. The people inside were from the Hermosillo Church of God, and after preaching to me a bit (most Christians do, but I enjoy seeing the presence of God on the road, I find it comforting) they offered me some food, more burritos! What a country, Mexico. It turned out that they were going to Agua Prieta, which was perfect, because I could cross the border there. They took me all the way to the border fence, and after many thank-you’s and God-blesses, I was off, and eagerly made my way toward the border.

The customs agent seemed pretty amused that I come all the way from Hermosillo, hitchhiking. I enjoy talking to the Law about my trip, maybe because so few of them would ever do anything of the type, and I guess their different opinions add some color to the whole thing. After telling him that I had just clothes and food in my bag, I was out! Success!!!!

It was a great relief to be back across the border, especially before dusk. I felt like I could relax and really breathe again. I got a ride in just a few minutes, from a white-haired man driving a minibus. When I went to get in the passenger seat, the front door was locked. “You can just get in the back,” he told me. Fair enough. So I sat in the incredibly spacious back of the van. “I hope you have time to stop by the little town of Bisbee,” he told me. I’d never heard of the place, and didn’t really have much of a schedule, so, off to Bisbee!

“It’s a really neat little arts town,” Michael began, telling me a little about the town. “It started out as a mining town, in the 1970’s and ‘80’s, a lot of hippies moved in from California. Now, a lot of traveling people come through here. I think you’ll really like it.” Michael continued, “So do you speak Spanish?” I told him I did, and he lit up. “Oh, how interesting! I tell you what Ben, I’ll give you my card.” Michael also ran a non-profit education organization teaching impoverished kids and the poor, many of which were Mexican, how to use the internet, among other things. “If you ever want something to do, just give me a call,” he told me. Good offer, I like things like that. As we were cruising through the town, I noticed some tents set up, perched up on a hill right in the middle of town. “See, there’s a little camping spot you could use up there,” Michael told me. “Is it free?” I asked. “Oh, yeah, nobody will mind,” he said. I was beginning to like this town already! He left me on the main street of Bisbee, and went on his way. The town looked pretty interesting, with very old, old-west looking buildings built on a hill, with all sorts of posters all over the place, advertising music, art shows, political opinions, and things of the like. I sat down on a bench to eat the burritos I still had from Mexico for dinner.

After I finished eating, I took a look around the small town of about 5,000 people (just my size!). As I was walking past, I saw a little restaurant with a “HELP WANTED” sign on the window. I went inside, and asked who I could talk to about the sign. The waitress directed me to David, who was apparently the manager. He should my hand and introduced himself. “David, nice to meet you. I saw your sign outside, and was wandering if I might be able to do some dishes or something for a cup of coffee?” I asked. “Well, I’ll tell you what, Ben,” he continued. “I think I can spare you a cup of coffee.” Excellent! I took a seat and relaxed, taking in the atmosphere of the restaurant and studying my road atlas, deciding where I would head to next. As I was sitting, absentmindedly listening to a guy at the bar talking to a couple with a baby. “So do you have a baby?” He asked jokingly, turning to me. “Nope, just my house,” I told him. “Excellent,” he said, chuckling, “I’ll be over to talk with you in a minute.” He went back to his conversation, and I looked back to my map. As the waitress brought over my coffee, I thanked her, and sipped it for a few minutes, now having moved on to reading some out of my Bible. “Excuse me sir, how old are you?” The guy with the baby asked me, and I turned to him. “21,” I said, “for all intents and purposes.” “For all intents and purposes?” he asked, continuing: “Well, if you have ID to prove it, I’d love to buy you a beer.” I obviously didn’t, and we talked for a little bit. I told him about my trip, and that I had just come from Mexico less than an hour ago. “Well, are you hungry?” he asked. I told him sure I was, that I always was. “Well, pick yourself out something from the menu, it’s on me.” I thanked him profusely. “No, no, it’s no problem. I saw you sitting with your pack, and figured you could use something to eat.” Well I’ll be damned, this was turning out to be quite the nice little town! I talked with him for a few more minutes, until he, his wife and child eventually left.

Once I was the only customer in the restaurant, the waitress asked me, “Do you still want to do some dishes?” I told her I did. “We’re really short-staffed,” she continued, “and the cook and I have to do all the dishes. If you do tonight’s dishes, I could pay you.” Hell yeah! I finished eating my sandwich that the guy and bought me. “Take your time,” she told me. “Drink some more coffee, relax. Whenever you’re ready, you can start on the dishes, Mike will show you what to do.” So I did just that. Bursting full of food from my two dinners and the cups of coffee, I followed Mike, the cook, into the back. There wasn’t too much dishes, and in an hour or two, I had them finished. Mike gave me $10 for my work, and after that, I hung out beside the bar for awhile, talking with the manager. “Listen, man,” David told me, “I want you to pick out something from the menu. Anything you’d like.” I told him I had just eaten quite a bit. “No, you so you can pack it up, for later.” Fair enough. A half hour or so later, I walked out of the restaurant, chicken-bacon sandwich and Caesar salad in hand, happy as could be.

I talked for a little bit with a guy outside of a bar who saw my pack. He said he knew some people in the “little Mexican town of Nacozari” (where I had just passed through the day before) who could hook me up with a place to stay. I wasn’t really interested in the offer, good though it was, having just high-tailed it out of there a few hours ago. We talked for a little while more, and I decided that I would go check out those tents that I had seen on the way into town, they were just a few buildings away.

There, I found a guy who was apparently staying there. After talking with him, he told me it would be perfectly fine if I camped out there. As it turned out, the tents were there for an “Occupy” movement. This humored me quite a bit, as Bisbee seemed to be pretty much the most liberal, far-out small town in the state of Arizona. Either way, I’m all for the Occupy movements, and in this case, it suited my purposes (free camping) perfectly. There was even a fire to warm up by! The guy, who after giving up selling drugs couldn’t find a way to pay off his house mortgage, was now living out of a tent. Personally, I think this might have been the reason he set up this “Occupy chapter.” Either way, it was fine by me, and apparently the Bisbee town council as well. I talked with him for quite a while, until almost midnight, when we both decided we would hit the sack.

I woke up with the sun the following morning. Not really feeling like waiting for him (he said he would show me around the town, where I could get some meals and clean up if I liked) I decided that I was going to leave the town of Bisbee for another day, and walked out of the town. As I was making my way towards Hwy 80, I saw a sign that read “NO HITCH HIKING” at the end of town. Huh. This lightened my mood up a bit, and I continued walking towards the highway where I planned on hitching a ride out of town.

One thing that I hadn’t taken much thought to upon leaving was the fact that I was quite low on water, having only about half a quart remaining. This wasn’t a dire problem, but it could be 10 miles down the road, and I decided that if I didn’t get a ride in 2 hours, I would turn around, and refill back in Bisbee. This wasn’t the case, and after walking maybe a mile or two down the road, a yellow pickup pulled over. When I walked up to it, I saw that there was a family of 4 inside, so I sat in the bed. After a minute or so, we stopped, and the mother got out of the passenger seat. “Honey, you don’t have to sit back there if you don’t want to. I’d be glad to sit with the kids in the back so that you can sit up front.” I told her that she didn’t have to, that I was alright in the back, but she insisted, so I sat up front. The couple’s names were Larry and Tracy, and they were heading to Sierra Vista, where they could drop me off at near the gas station, on the corner with Hwy 90, where I would continue making my way towards the interstate.

After brushing my teeth and filling my water bottles, I headed out along Hwy 90. In just a few minutes, a white Chevy avalanche pulled over. “We’re headed for Tucson,” Theresa, sitting in the passenger seat beside her mother, Judy, who was driving, told me. I told them that I’d just get off at the interstate, since I was headed in the other direction. They left me at a Love’s right near the intersection where I was going to try and get a ride. After saying their goodbyes, I headed out. As I was walking down the parking lot towards the road, I heard, “Where are you going?” I turned to see a girl who was maybe in her early 20’s, sitting next to a beat pickup with a cardboard sign on it that said “OUT OF GAS.” “Towards Florida,” I told her. “Oh yeah? We’re going the other way, we’re from Mobile [Alabama].” She continued, “We’re doing the same thing you are, but we have a truck. Well, good luck!” I wished her the same, and walked out to the on-ramp. I always enjoy seeing kids traveling, and it reminds me that there’s plenty more like me across the country.

I waited for nearly an hour at the on-ramp before a Buick Riviera pulled over. The driver got out to open the trunk for me to put my pack in. “Where are you headed?” he asked me. “Florida,” I answered. “Well you’re in luck, my friend,” he continued, “take a look at the plates.” I did just that, seeing that they read “NORTH CAROLINA.” Fuck yeah! I got in, and we were off. Bill, the driver, was a really cool guy. Now in his 50’s, he had been in the military for most of his life, and traveled much of Europe and the far east through it. Now, he worked for IBM. We were cruising down the highway at 85 mph, and sharing travel stories, when I told him about Mexico, about high-tailing out, hitchhiking and going through all those checkpoints blazed the day before. “Check it out, man,” he told me, “I have a joint in the back for us before we cross the Texas border. You in?” Hmm….Long ride through the boring, stretching desert of southern New Mexico and Texas….why not make things a little more interesting? I accepted the offer. We stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico for lunch (I finished the salad that I had gotten the day before) and continued on our way. Bill was a really fun guy to talk to, and I think I couldn’t have had much better company for the ride. He would stop in Bryan, TX for the night at a friend’s place for the night, and then leave for North Carolina in the morning. He agreed that he would drop me off there, in Bryan.

As we were driving, we began to discuss the border patrol checkpoints in Texas. “Yeah man, I was originally going to bring a serious chunk of grass for my friend in Bryan,” he told me. “I was talking about it with a buddy of mine on the phone when he told me, ‘don’t do it dude! There’s some rough checkpoints in Texas, you’d be better off just to bring a joint and smoke it in New Mexico, so it’ll last you through like half the state of Texas.’ So, I did just that. I mean, worst case scenario, we have a little weed left as we come up to the checkpoint. I’ll just swallow the joint, and wash it down with some Pepsi. ‘Hello officer, how are you today?’” He said, impersonating the border patrol agent. I found this to be INCREDIBLY funny, and was laughing for a solid 20 minutes. We go back to talking again about other things, and sure enough, a few miles after we pass the New Mexico/Texas border, here comes the checkpoint, and we still have a little roach left. I can’t stop laughing. As we get closer, just as he said he would, Bill takes a swig of Pepsi, pops the roach in his mouth, and washes it down with some more soda. I just couldn’t stop laughing, this was by far the funniest thing I’d seen in ages! I did my best to stop laughing as we approached the officer, and after answering some routine questions (where are you going, why, where are you coming from, can I look in the back?) we were on our way. The whole thing was just too much. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe, for a steady 10 minutes, at least. We continued on our merry way through the state of Texas. I dozed off a few times, and didn’t even notice it, waking up quite a few times with an hour or two missing from the time.

At around 2am, we arrived in Bryan. “Here we are, my friend,” he told me. He took me a ways out of town so I could find a good spot to crash. “Hey, thank you so much Bill, I really appreciate it!” I told him, and I meant every word. “My pleasure, Ben!” We said our goodbyes, and after he left I found a nice dark spot out of the wind behind a church. It was Sunday morning, so I hoped that I would still get up with the sun so that I would be up and out long before people started coming for the 10am service.

That was indeed the case, and as I got up, I was reminded that I was no longer in the dry southwest: All of my stuff that had been on the ground (I slept on a cement outcropping) was covered in grass clippings. Hell, at least I was back in green country. I packed up, and made my way down the highway. There wasn’t much traffic, but after maybe 30 minutes or so, a big dump truck pulled over(!). I saw that it already had two occupants, so I wasn’t sure how it would work out. When I climbed up, I found that there was quite a bit of space between the two people, and used my pack as a seat. The driver, Sergio, and passenger, Henrique, were on their way to a job in Madisonville. Sergio was pretty interested in my travels in Europe, and wanted to know how the girls were. A pretty funny question, I recommended eastern Europe. They dropped me off at the corner in Madisonville, and were off.

I had some of my summer sausage and bread for breakfast, and after I finished eating, hit the road. After walking a little bit out of town, a grey pickup pulled over. “You can jist toss yer pack in the back, Charlie, the driver, told me in a Texas twang. I did just that, and after getting situated, we were off. Charlie and Mitchell, the passenger, were really nice guys, and definitely great examples of southern hospitality. I’m not sure exactly what line of work they were in, but I’m guessing it involved construction, because there was tons of stuff all through the truck for everything from yard work to painting. Charlie and Mitchel were both conservatives (of which, according to them there aren’t enough of in this country) and were big opposers of the Occupy movements (“If you want something, you’ve gotta work for it, not just stand around with signs and wait for something to happen”) and had lots to say about the government, God, the outdoors, and lots of questions about my trip. They were really kind, and gave me a burrito as we were talking. I enjoyed hearing what they had to say, it was just so different than most of the opinions of the people I met in New Mexico and Arizona. They dropped me off in Crocket, and as I was getting out of the car, Charlie gave me a $20 bill. Now that’s what I call southern hospitality! I thanked them, and continued on my way. I walked a few hundred meters with my thumb out, when a car that was coming out of a nearby church pulled off to the side.

“I can take you to the end of town, if you’d like,” the driver told me. Donita, the driver, was a woman who appeared to be in her late 60’s or 70s. “I saw you walking when I was dropping off my husband, he teaches Sunday school,” she told me, “and I thought to myself, I think I’ll give this young man a ride.” The town of Crockett has a circuit road that runs a loop around the town. Donita took me to a spot just outside this road, and dropped me off on Hwy 7, where I would continue south. I thanked her, and went on my way.

The day was beautiful. It was sunny, with a clear sky. I passed by green fields that turned into forest, and enjoyed the walk, which lasted for a little over an hour, when a truck pulled over. Ron, the driver, said “I’m headed to Rusk.” He was a pretty quiet guy, who appeared to be in his late 50s. When I told him about my trip, he said, “Well…I think it’s pretty dangerous. There‘s a lot of crazy people out there.” I hear this from probably at least 40% of the people I meet, outside of hitchhiking (the people who pick me up obviously usually feel different about hitchhiking, if they’re picking up one). I like hearing things like that, and although I take no mind to it at all, it does add some color to the big picture. It just wouldn’t be nearly as fun if everybody though it was ok. The occasional scorn of the law, the long walks and waits, the freezing nights, the rains, they all add some very necessary spice to the trip.

Ron dropped me off at a convenience store on the corner of his turn off. “Be safe!” he told me as he was leaving. At the convenience store, I decided to buy a cinnamon roll. Although its nutritional value is nil, I do enjoy my sweet foods on the road. Also, the thing had like 460 calories, so I suppose that’s good. I sat in some high grass beside the road to eat some lunch, consisting of my burrito from Charlie and Mitchell and the cinnamon roll. Almost directly after I stood up, a big gray pickup pulled over. The driver was a black guy with a big smile. “I can a few miles off your walk,” he told me. “You mind if I hop in the back?” I asked him. The weather was just beautiful, and there’s no better way to enjoy a sunny day than cruising in the bed of a pickup truck. “Sure, whatever you’d like,” he told me, “Hop in!” And we were off. Sure enough, he took me a few miles down the road, and let me off at an intersection. I walked just a few feet down the road when a Latino couple in a small pickup pulled over. The guy said something that I didn’t hear, and I hopped in. He took me a couple miles down the road, and dropped me off.

I walked for probably around an hour before another car pulled over. The road was so sparsely trafficked, though, that I had more or less expected this to happen. Eventually, a yellow and black Scion tC pulled over. I had remembered seeing the car because I like the model, and the driver had actually passed me by, and then turned around to come back and pick me up. Ryan, the driver, was a kid in his mid 20s who was in the Air Force. He was headed to Shreveport, which was great for me because it would mean that I crossed the state of Texas in less than 24 hours! He was a pretty cool guy, mellow, and really liked what I was doing. I asked him what he thought of the Service (because I would never even consider joining myself, I’m always interested in hearing the other side of the story). “It’s treated me pretty nice, man,” he told me. “I never have to worry about food or money, so I guess it’s pretty cool. I like it.” I had him drop me off on a side road where I could make my way in a straighter path to Mannsfield, where I would head east across the Red River(?) to highway 1, where I would cut through the state. This ended up being a shitty idea, and after walking down the road for about 20 minutes and being getting the finger not once, but twice, I decided it was a good idea to turn around. A few minutes later, I got a ride from Bill, a nice guy driving a pickup. Bill took me to I-20, where I decided I would try to get a ride to Shreveport.

After waiting for almost an hour at the on-ramp with no luck, I couldn’t help but think with frustration that I could’ve just taken the ride from Ryan all the way to Shreveport, and been there by this time. Still, regretting serves no purpose, and I was where I was, nothing would change that (except a ride!). After waiting a little longer, I decided that I would go down to the Sonic down the road, get a milkshake, and call my family. I did just that, and devoured my large strawberry milkshake and Oreo blast (I saw that one on the menu and couldn’t resist. It was nice to talk to my family, it always warms me up a bit if I’m feeling down to know there’s lots of love on the other end of the line. Around dusk, I headed out. As I was walking, not even sticking my thumb out, a bit white van pulled up. “Hey man, where you headed?” asked the driver. I told him I was headed to the southeast. “Well, we’re headed to downtown Shreveport, we’d be happy to take you. I took him up on the offer, and off we went. Inside the van were 3 guys covered in tattoos and scars, who belonged to a church mission whose name I don’t recall. They really recommended that I go to the Shreveport mission, where I could get a hot shower, meal, and rest for the night, but I really wasn’t feeling it. I just wanted to get out of the city and into good hitchhiking territory. They dropped me off on Hwy 171 just off of the interstate, and after asking around for highway 1 (which no f**king person could tell me the whereabouts of, not the guys in the van, not the clerk at the gas station, and not the bystander. What the hell, people?) I saw where I was on my map, and realized that I could just take that road to walk straight out of town. I walked for 2 or 3 hours, and was still in town, but away from most of the residences. By this time it was dark, and my thoughts were directed towards finding a place to sleep. I found a badass spot, a piece of land that was for sale which had been cleared but was unoccupied, and covered on all sides by trees. I laid down with the peace of mind that no one would find me, plugged in the earphones of my iPod, and drifted peacefully to sleep….

The next morning, I walked for a couple hours before I got a ride. I was still well in town, and after walking for a good ways, a red Dodge ram pulled over. The driver’s name was Paul, and he took me to Grand Cane, about 10 miles north of Mannsfield. “Hey man, if I was you, I wouldn’t go anywhere south of Mansfield.” He continued, “I don’t even like to go there…those back-ass country folks, they just drink so damn much, and then you never know what the hell’s gonna happen.” Duly noted. I kept that in mind as walked down Hwy 171 in Grand Cane, where he had let me off. As I was walking down the road, A guy that pulled up to the highway motioned to me, saying that he had water if I wanted it. So I went up to him, and we started talking. His name was Sam, and he worked as a paramedic (he didn’t tell me, but he was wearing the uniform) My travels interested him so much (he had always yearned to do something of the type himself, but having a wife, was never really able) that he decided he would take me all the way to Highway 1, just so that he could talk to me a bit, find out about my trip. He asked me all sorts of questions, what I did for money, what kind of time I made, what inspired me to start traveling, the interesting places I had been to, what my plans for the future were, everything. I’m glad to answer questions like this, and I love meeting people who are really curious, because I myself am one of those people. He had always wanted to do a really long biking trip across the country, having been inspired by meeting several people doing that very thing. Sam bought me some McDonald’s, and as we were nearing my stop, I wrote down my name and email so that he could check out my stories, and he gave me $3. After saying our goodbyes, I continued down the road, and Sam went back to his home.

It was another beautiful day outside, and I was happy to walk along the beautiful road. The sky was blue, having cleared up from the gray overcast of the morning, and the sun was shining. The road ran parallel to the railroad tracks, and had a watery canal on the other, followed by fields of green. Off in the distance, there was the hum of machinery digging up the earth for some reason or another. I was glad to be where I was. I walked for a few miles down the road, when a gray van with a young lady driving it pulled over. Her name was April, and she seemed a bit stressed. “I don’t usually do things like this, and I hope you know that I’m not a bad person,” she told me hurriedly as I sat in the car. I was all smiles, and told her sure, thanked her for picking me up, that it was pretty hot out. She seemed relieved, and told me that it had been a rough day. April was very nice, although she definitely had a different view on humanity than myself. Sheasked me if I was ever scared, because of all the bad people. When I told her I thought that most of the people in the world were good, she said “But…it seems like for every 1 good person, theres 10 bad ones…” I think that these kind of views come from watching the news, honestly. If you don’t get out much because of fear, then you’re seriously mislead, and are missing out on SO much. It was good talking to April, and she insisted on buying me some food before she dropped me off. “It’s the least I can do, I’ll feel better knowing I could do something for you,” she told me. Not being one to turn down food, I told her sure, Sonic sounded great. After we ate and talked some more, she dropped me off on Highway 1 about a mile north of Cloutiersville, a tiny town that looked like it had a population of less than 500.

After she dropped me off, I walked down the road quite a ways, around 6 or 7 miles I think. Either way, I walked for several hours before a gray Chevy silverado with a trailer full of construction equipment finally pulled over. When I walked up to the truck, which already had 4 guys in it, the driver said “I can’t take you far, but I’ll take a few miles out of your trip.” He knew exactly where I was coming from, and I happily got in. The guys seemed pretty amused by the fact that I had come all the way from Pennsylvania. “Well, what the hell brought you down here?” one of them asked, laughing. I told him I was visiting a friend in Baton Rouge, and then heading further east to florida. They dropped me off at a convenience store seemingly in the middle of nowhere. “I-49 is right over there, and if you walk down the road a few miles, you’ll reach Boyce,” the guy told me. Fair enough.

As I was walking away, I saw two kids just across the intersection, who looked like they lived on the road. It was a couple, both with packs on their backs, the guy carrying an instrument and walking a dog in front of him. “Where are you coming from?” I yelled to them, making my way over. “New Orleans, we were there for Mardi Gras,” the girl told me. “It’s gonna rain in an hour, so we’re gonna go set up our tarp in the woods,” the guy told me. “Alright, I think I’m gonna go try and catch a ride south,” I told them. “Well, just in case, you know where to find us!” the guy told me, and we parted ways.

I didn’t have much luck on the on-ramp, traffic was just too sparse. After 20 minutes or so, A police cruiser came rolling down, and stopped in front of me. These days, when cops pass, I keep my thumb out anyway, because hell, there’s nothing wrong with getting a ride (although it’s incredibly unlikely) from a cop. The guy rolled down his window. “So where’s the rest of your party?” He asked me. “What?” I replied. “Your friends, that you were talking to earlier.” Apparently he had saw me talking to the couple a few minutes ago. “I’m not sure, I’m not with them. They headed in the other direction when I left,” I told him, pointing in the general direction to where there was an intersection leading in 3 different directions, trying to be of little help as possible.” “Well, I didn’t see them, they must have hid in the woods,” he told me. After he ran my ID and asked A) why I had a junior’s license B) what I was doing and C) not once, not twice, but three times if I was wanted for anything, to all of which I responded “No sir,” with a huge grin on my face, he finally drove off, after making sure that I knew that I wasn’t permitted to go on the interstate. Ahh, cops. They make me smile.

After waiting for another half hour or so, I was sick of the bugs, and decided to go in search of my new friends. I walked a little ways down Highway one, when finally I saw what I hoped to be a blue tarp a ways into the woods. I walked in a little ways, and sure enough, there there stuff was, but not them. I figured they went to go get stuff from the store or something, so I hung out there for a little bit. After a few minutes, I saw them approaching from a distance. “Mind if I hang out here?” I asked. “Feel free,” Stephen told me. “Do you play magic?” Lauren asked me. Did I play Magic? Alas, the question I’ve been subconsciously waiting to hear since I hit the road! Magic the Gathering is a card game that I got really into when I was in high school, but had stopped pursuing the game when I started playing electric guitar and travelling. Still, I loved the game. I told them I LOVED to play magic, although I didn’t have a deck on me. “Oh, it’s cool, we have some extra decks,” she told me. How insanely lucky was this!! Here I am, chillin with some traveling kids I met in passing, and they play magic! We get to playing and talking, and they offer me some of the beer they just bought (Milwalkee’s Best Ice in 32 oz. cans). Both of them have been on the road for years, and they use freight trains as their method of transportation. This has always interested me, and someday soon I’d really love to try it. They’re really great to talk to, they have lots of stories and advice on living on the road. Stephen plays the banjo and Lauren paints, and they both use that to make money on the street, sometimes earning hundreds of dollars a day. Another thing that they recommend is food stamps. With no income and very little money in the bank, it turns out that I could get like $200 a month for food money! Now that’s what I call living! We play magic and talk well into the night, munching on some cookies and crackers that they have, and the summer sausage that I still have at least two pounds of from Tucson. Probably around midnight, we go to sleep. It never did end up raining.

In the morning, we share contact information, and they plan on visiting me in Charleston in the fall. After packing up, we head our separate ways. While I was with them, I couldn’t help but notice how damned light their packs were. They couldn’t have been carrying more than 50 pounds between the two of them, and I carried the same amount by myself, between my food and map bag (15 lbs) and my pack (about 35 lbs) This gave me serious food for thought, and as I made my way towards Boyce, I told myself that I had to get the amount of weight that I carried down.

I walked about 2 miles before a silver VW bug pulled over. The driver, Bob, was an older guy who offered to take me to the end of town, where he was going to drop off some mail. He was really cool, and had recently come back from a trip to Haiti. He had also been to Peru and ecuador, which I thought was pretty cool, to be travelling like that at his age. After he dropped me off, I walked for several weary miles before the next ride. As I was walking down the almost dead road, I finally got a ride from an old GMC pickup that pulled over. Red, the driver, had done his fair of hitchhiking back in the day, having gone all across the eastern seaboard. “But you just don’t get rides anymore,” he told me, telling tales of averaging 50 miles per hour on his trip from georgia to Oklahoma. We made several stops before he dropped me off at the on ramp, and on one of those he gave me $10. “Here, go get yourself some food,” he told me. How kind! I went to McDonalds, and got myself a bag full of 3 chicken sandwiches and a cookie, with $6 to spare. Afterwards he dropped me off on an on-ramp at the end of town, between Hwy 71 south and I-49. I waited at the on-ramp for about15 minutes, and after deciding that a ride would be a long time in coming, I made the choice to walk down 71 south.

I walked for maybe a mile or two, when a big black SUV finally pulled over. As soon as I got in the car, the driver reached out his hand and introduced himself. “That’s AJ, he said, pointing to a sleeping boy in the seat behind us, “and I’m Tony. Tony Groove.” Tony, as it turns out, is a radio DJ. He was a really nice guy, and had a lot to say about the church of Christ, and seemed to enjoy talking to me; I was always questioning the things he said. Tony was headed to Bunkie, where he was taking his son to social therapy sessions. I generally like talking to people that like talking to me, and it was no different in Tony’s case. Also, the fact that he was a successful radio DJ added a nice touch to things, I think it’s always valuable to talk to people who don’t have any problems in the financial department.

As we were driving out of town after dropping off AJ, there was a black guy in ragged clothes on the side of the road who flagged us down. He didn’t have his thumb out, but rather just waived one arm up and down, with his hat in his hand. “Where are you headed?” Tony asked the man.” Lebeau,” he said hurriedly, “Yessuh, I’m goin ta Lebeau, in by far the thickest, fastest, Louisiana accent I’d ever heard. “Wus yo name?” the man asked Tony, “I’m Arthur.” “Tony Groove,” Tony told the man. “Tony Groove? Like da radio host?” Arthur asked. “That’s me,” replied Tony. “Izzat right??” he said, asking Tony, and then turning to me, asking the same question. “Who is dis guy?” “That’s Tony Groove,” I told him. “And whoozzis? Arthur asked Tony, motioning to me. “That’s my friend, Ben,” he said. Now, I don’t know what all they talked about for the rest of the ride, I understood everything Tony said, of course, but I don’t know how in the hell he could understand this crazy man sitting behind us. Because of this, I can’t write down all the conversation, because I didn’t understand most of rushed jibberish that came out of that man‘s mouth, but I’m pretty sure they mostly just talked about people they both knew from the town of Lebeau. “Well, I tell you wut, Tony,” Arthur said, “I’m tryinna git me twiiny dolla, so I can go up to du sto and buy me some beer anna pack uh cigarettes. Canya gimme twinny dolla, Tony?” He asked, speaking at 90 mph. “No, I’m afraid I can’t, Arthur, you’ll have to get that 20 dollars yourself.” For the rest of the ride, Arthur was trying to haggle the $20 out of Tony, but to no avail. Tony dropped him off near a bar in the beginning of town, and drove me a few more miles down the road. As I got out of the car, Tony gave me his card. “Listen man,” he told me, “Give me a call sometime. Wherever you are, just to say, ‘hey Tony, what’s happenin?’ I’d love to hear from you somewhere else down the line.” And with that, he was off, and I continued my walk down the road. In the next hour and a half or so, I got 2 rides in the backs of pickups, each just a few miles down the road.

Just as I was walking through a tiny little town about 10 miles north of Hwy 190, I turned around just quick enough not to miss a guy, quick to stick out my thumb. Usually this almost never works, but in this case, it did the trick. Shane, who was driving his company car, was on his way to Baton Rouge. This was just great for me, because that’s just where I was headed, to visit my friend Katrina to wash my clothes (and my body, I hadn’t had a shower in 6 days, since Phoenix), and work on lightening up my pack. During the summers, Shane worked at Yellowstone National Park, a job which he absolutely loved. In fact, it had taken him 7 years to finish college, because he kept going back and forth, to visit Yellowstone. Now, he worked as a car salesman, a job which confined him a lot more than he had wanted. “I just can’t stand doing the same thing, every day,” he told me. I totally understood, that was one of the bigger reasons why I was on the road. Me being me, I told him he should ditch his job, and hit the road as fast as he could. “Dude, you gotta get out there,” I told him. “The world is a huge, beautiful place!” “I know, but I have a house, and a lease now…” He said, with a sigh. Regardless, I don’t thing it’ll be long before Shane gets to traveling. Someone who was so much curiosity and interest in the outdoors, and who has seen already what it’s like, I’m sure it won’t be long before the temptation becomes too strong. He had lots of stories about all the cool, crazy, and interesting hitchhikers he had picked up in the West, and he told them with a deeply conveyed interest. I could tell the force was strong in this one. Shane ended up taking me all the way to Katrina’s apartment, which saved me lots of time and walking, and reminded me why I love hitchhiking so much. I gave him my name and email, and told him to let me know if he ever hit the road. While I’ve been here at Katrina’s, I’ve taken off at least 10 lbs from my pack, and while this may be meaningless to some of you, those who have had a backpack for a house will know that a lighter pack is a bigger freedom. For the near future, I’m planning on heading to southern florida to meet up with some friends I met in Tucson who are traveling in a converted van. After that, maybe the Florida keys, maybe Puerto Rico, maybe the Dominican Republic, who knows? I sure as hell don’t.