The American Road trip, Part II

So, on the 31^st (of January), I left Katrina’s house in Baton Rouge, now prepared with clean clothes.  She dropped me off on Hwy 190 west, so I could keep a more or less linear path across Louisiana.  I had heard from one of my previous rides that Hwy 1, which cuts across Louisiana diagonally, from Grand Isle just south of new Orleans all the way to the northwest corner of the state was a really nice road to take, going along the river with many plantations and scenic views along the way.  After walking for a few miles, a big black SUV pulled alongside, and I hopped in.  The driver, Eric, was a Louisiana native who spoke with that southern drawl/Louisiana twang that I’d grown fond of in my time in New Orleans.  He was very friendly, and as we were listening to Bob Marley, told me about how beautiful the route along the false river was, and dropped me off in Livonia.  We had actually passed the intersection that lead to Hwy 1, it turned out he and I were talking about the same places, and I just hadn’t connected the dots.  I continued walking, and decided that I would cut upward at the next intersection that lead to it, so as to get to this road.  I walked quite a bit more, at least 3 miles, when a car finally pulled up.  It was a younger kid, and as I opened the door, he said:  Hey man, I’m going to Dallas…wanna go to Dallas?  The offer was just too good to refuse.  I decided to postpone my plan (for the return trip, maybe?) and catch this ride all the way to Dallas, TX.  His name was Jonathon, and he, like myself, had traveled Europe quite a bit, and hitchhiked for a decent bit of it, which caused him to pick me up.  He had lived in Prague, teaching English, and did some traveling across the continent while he was there.  It was really cool talking with another traveler, especially one close to my age.  “Damnit man, now I really want to go on a roadtrip, talking to you,” he said.  I could understand his envy; while I was working before this trip I was constantly thinking about travel.  Along the way, we passed through some storms that I was glad I missed, and we stopped at subway for lunch, giving me a chance to use one of the many gift cards I keep in my wallet ($10 subway, in this case.  I also have starbucks, AMC theaters, pizza hut, and TGI Friday)  I had him drop me off in Canton, Texas, so that I could cut around the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, as I wanted nothing to do with this massive clusterfuck of urban sprawl.  Not only do cities slow me down, but catch me in something of a bind if I get stuck in them at night.  Because of this, I usually choose to avoid them. 

I walked a mile or two out of the town, when a big black van pulled up.  It turned out to be a family of 9, the Daniels family, and were very kind.  They invited me to spend the night at their place, an offer which I gladly took up; I had lost my flashlight in New Orleans, so I didn’t much feel like hassling with setting up in the dark.  The parents, Dan and Vicky, homeschooled their kids, and had traveled quite a bit with them, having lived in southern France for 3 years, and gone to numerous places across the U.S. with them.  They fed me quite well, and later in the evening, I showed their older sons (whose room I was staying in) the realm of electronic dance music, and told them tales of the epic raves I went to in Europe.  I hope that won’t cause any damage in the future.  In the morning, I ate the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time:  oats, fruits, and honey in a bowl with cold milk, with a good cup of coffee to go with it.  Excellent.  Right after that, before they started their lessons, an young man who was staying at their house, Johnathon, dropped me off on Hwy 19, so I could cut my way around Dallas.  After walking for just a few minutes, a Gray Jeep Cherokee pulled up, with and older woman and what looked to be her daughter beside her.  The older one asked me, honestly and with a straight face, “you’re not going to kill us or anything, right?”  “No ma’am,” I answered, smiling because of how funny I found her question.  If I was, in fact, a cold-blooded killer, did she think that I would tell her?  Either way, it was funny.  She told me they were going to pick up her mother, and then would come back and pick me up, go to the bank, and then could drop me off in Athens.  When I got in, they asked, again with completely straight faces, “Do you have any guns or lethal weapons with you?”  What were they, cops?  After answering, the grandma announced, “I always carry a gun in my purse, just so you know.”  Ahh, Texans.  What a bunch.  They dropped me off in Athens, TX, and I walked maybe 2 or 3 miles when a kid in a white coupe stopped.  “Hey man, I can take you as far as Malakoff,” (the next town over) he told me.  This would work, I told him, and as I tell everyone who offers shorter rides, anything helps.  Leeroy, the driver, was quite interested in my trip, and asked lots of questions.  At the end of the ride, he asked, “Do you read much?” I told him yes, and he offered me his Bible.  I already had a bible, but took him up on his offer, trading mine for his, just for the spirit of the trade.  Just a minute or two later, a white pickup pulling out of a gas station offered to take me up to Trinidad, a quite small town that wasn’t listed on my map.  After dropping me off there and wishing me luck, the fellows left.  I walked on down a ways, maybe 3 miles or so, when a car finally pulled up.  The driver, Justin, was a really nice guy, who had traveled much in his youth, done his fair share of partying and roughhousing, but in the last decade or so had calmed down since marrying and having his daughter.  He was really nice, and bought me a really big lunch at a restaurant in Corsicana, the town where he dropped me off at.  We talked quite a bit, and he recommended several cities that were among his favorites (Austin, San Francisco, Eureka, LA) as well as telling me stories of some of the parties he had been to (back when bars sold ecstasy and LSD, legally).  He dropped me off about 6 miles out of town, for which I was grateful for, and as I was leaving, gave me a $20 bill!  After he left, as I was left out in the middle of the Texan plains, with the sun shining and the sky blue and clear, I felt as good as ever.  It’s times like that that I absolutely love what I’m doing, walking by myself on a beautiful day, in the middle of nowhere, on a long, stretching road before me, and nothing for miles.  Although it starts to lose its novelty after about 8 miles or so, I do love it. 

Anyway, after a few miles, a white truck pulled up.  The driver, a middle-aged black woman, said “I’d let you sit in the front, but I just have so much garbage up here!”  This was perfectly alright with me; sitting in the bed of a pickup in that weather sounded excellent.  After about 20 miles, I decided that from all the pickup rides from there on out, I would sit facing the rear, with my back to the back window.  The wind was just two much after more than a few miles.  I had apparently gotten some sun on the walk, and all that wind didn’t help.  When I stepped out of the truck, my face felt really tired.  I stopped at a rest stop to use the bathroom, and then continued walking.  She had left me in Hillsboro, a small town with an almost city feel because of all the businesses that had been built there because of the highway that crossed it.  I walked through the town, and as I walked passed the police station, a trooper in an SUV pulled up.  “You just passing through town?” he asked.  “Yeah,” I told him.  “Well you better not stop anywhere, or they’ll call us.”  What the hell was that?  I almost felt inclined to stop somewhere and loiter after he left, just to see.  Ass.  After walking just a few more blocks, I saw a cruiser pull up about 10 feet behind me.  I turned around, and he didn’t say anything to me, just talked into his walkie-talkie.   “Is there a problem, officer?” I asked.  “Where are you headed?” he said, responding to my question with a question.  I told him the usual deal, that I was going towards the west coast, but with no real destination.  “Well, I can take you out of town,” he told me.  I knew that he was probably telling me this just so that I would be out of his town, and since it helped me anyway, I took him up on the offer.  Being my first ride on a trip in the back of a cop car, I was pretty amused.  Although it might seem like all these encounters with the police might be a drag, it’s actually pretty amusing to me; I’m not breaking any laws, and when an officer treats me like that it sort of adds an exhilarating edge to things, knowing that I’m doing something he things is wrong, or at least not right. 

Right as officer C. Vaughn dropped me off, there was a truck pulled off to the side of the road in front of us.  As I got out of the cruiser, the driver signaled me.  Awesome!  This was officially the quickest ride of the trip, walking out of one “ride” and right into the next, just 10 feet later.  Todd, the driver, took me to a junction in the middle of nowhere where a road lead off of Rt. 22 (my road) into Clifton.  I was yet again dropped off in the middle of nowhere, this time REALLY out there, with about 13 miles between me and any town.  This time, I walked quite a bit, for several hours, before the next ride stopped, a big white Yukon with chrome rims.  I was really glad that someone had finally stopped, because the sun was REALLY starting to wear me out, and my feet were getting pretty tired.  The driver and her boyfriend asked, this time a with a little more jest than the last, if I was a “serial killer or anything” and were pretty shocked that I had come all the way from northwest PA.  They dropped me off in Meridian, and as I was walking away, the boyfriend said “It’s a damn steep hill ahead, real long, but I’m sure you can do it, if you’ve walked this far.”  The hill was really big, as it turned out, and after walking at least a mile uphill, I was pretty out of breath.  I was hungry, so I decided to eat the Snickers bar Jonathon had bought me back in Canton.  I walked for another several hours, until around dusk, when to my relief a little pickup stopped.  By this point my right shin was hurting, and my thoughts had been leaning towards setting up camp.  The driver, Tim, took me to Hamilton, a town about 30 minutes away by car.  Once in Hamilton, Tim told me there was a pretty good burger joint I could eat at.  Being frugal as I am, I had no plans of doing any such thing, but as I was leaving he gave me $7, saying “here, get yourself something good.”  What a wonderful day, such kind people!  I went in, and happily ate me a good burger.  I wasn’t actually too hungry, and didn’t want to eat too much because of the knots my stomach was in from walking hungry for so long, but hell, you only live once, I figured.  As I was leaving, a the father of a family leaving a minivan asked me, “Didi you get enough to eat?”  I told him yes, and although I could have probably eaten two more burgers, I was planning on looking for a place to sleep soon and turn down the offer.  I just love it so much when people are so generous.  After wearily walking for another mile or so, the same family pulled up and asked if there was anything they could do, or if I wanted anything.  I told them that it would be just lovely if they took me a few miles out of town so I could find a good place to sleep, and they did just that.  Good people.  That night, with the big Texas sky over my head, with a bright moon and an infinity of stars, I went to sleep at peace, happy with where I was.  The night was cold, and although I wasn’t freezing, it was just at the point of uncomfort, and I woke up at around 5:00, and decided I should pack up and leave.  I think I was sleeping on ranch property, and could hear the sounds of a farm waking up in the not-too-far distance.  Once the sun came up, the morning was thick with fog, and there was only about 50 feet of visibility in any direction.  At around 8:30, after walking for 3 hours in the fog, a car finally pulled up, a silver Toyota sedan.  Mark, an older man in his mid 50s, was heading all the way to Breckenridge, Colorado, to visit his daughter for a skiing trip.  He was a really nice man, and a newfound Christian, who was listening to bible talks on tape on his way there.  We had quite a few good talks, and around 11 he bought me lunch at McDonalds, as well as buying himself a pillow and blanket set (there was apparently no more beds at his daughter’s house).  We decided that he would drop me off in Tahoka, TX, as I didn’t want to go any further north so that I wouldn’t get caught in any cold weather (there was so in Santa Fe, where he was planning on stopping for the night). 

Tahoka was a tiny town, in the middle of endlessly flat, windy plains.  I walked out of it, along Hwy 87 south.  The weather was surprisingly cold, in the mid fifties, with a pretty solid amount of constant wind.  As I was walking, I notice something blowing by, along the road.  It was a tumbleweed!  How badass was that!  After walking for maybe 20 minutes, a white chevy jimmy pulled off to the side.  Joey, a pretty obese younger guy with Hispanic descent (I saw the tattoos along his arm and neck and asked him about it) took me to Lamesa, another small town in the middle of nowhere, this one even more so than the last one.  While walking through town with my thumb out, I noticed a guy with an ENORMOUS cowboy hat, thinking to myself, “damn, that’s a 10-gallon hat if I ever saw one.”  As it turned out, he pulled over to give me a ride.  His name was Pete, and he was a farmer who grew up in Lamesa and lived there his entire life.  What I really liked about Pete was his love for the land, and his very open, understanding personality.  I really enjoy meeting people who take pride in where they’re from.  Pete gave me a little tour of his farm, driving me through 144-acre fields of red, dusty, cultivated dirt and huge farm equipment, owned by him, his brother, and father.  When I asked him if he’d ever thought about travel, he replied:  “I just wouldn’t feel right leaving here.  I feel like I belong to this land, but the land doesn’t belong to me.”  I found that really interesting.  Pete dropped me off at another middle-of-nowhere junction, between Lamesa and Seminole.  As I was walking along, with the 30-mph wind blowing dust in my face, I couldn’t help but recall Johnny cash’s words:  “he asked me if I’d seen a road with such dust and sand and I said, listen, I’ve traveled every road in this here land…”  and thinking, here I am in western Texas, so fucking cool!  One of the things that I love about the west, is that there are such long stretches between places, and when walking in the middle of those stretches, you just feel such a profoundness, with such a big sky and huge, beautiful, pure spaces around you.  Definitely good road trip material.  In about a half hour of walking, only about 4 cars had passed me.  The fifth one, as it happened, gave me a ride.  Darrell, driving a black rental Pontiac G6, was a very fast driver.  When I glanced over at the speedometer and noticed that we were going just under 100mph, he said, “I’m in a hurry.”  Hey, whatever floats his boat; I liked the speed, it’s probably exactly what I would do if I were driving on a completely flat, straight, 12-mile stretch of road.

He dropped me off in Seminole, and while walking through the town, a lady pulled beside me and asked if I would like a ride out of town.  Almost always wanting that very thing, I gladly accepted the offer.  Casey, an attractive, younger lady who looked like a teacher and was on her way home from work, was very concerned for my safety.  “You just look so young…I just don’t want anything to happen to you…I’m sorry I couldn’t help anymore,” she said, giving me a $10 bill.  Such a nice lady!! It really surprises me sometimes how generous and good the people I meet are.  Whatever anyone says, I’m firmly convinced that the majority of people in this world are good.  I’ve met my fair share of them, and seldom see a bad person.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re certainly out there, but it’s just unreasonable for people to live in fear of others.  A few minutes later, I got a ride from some Mexican construction workers to Hobbs, New Mexico.  Yes!  I had crossed the great state of Texas, almost 1000 miles, in just 2 and a half days! 

In Hobbs, the place where they dropped me off, I was getting kind of a bad vibe about the place.  The people passing me by looked at me in a way I hadn’t seen in awhile, a kind of targeting glare that made me want to get out of the city as quickly as I could.  After maybe 2 or 3 minutes of walking, a big SUV with 3 guys in it picked me up.  Inside were Raymond, Alfredo, and Alex, and the 3 of them spoke straight “spanglish”, intermingling the two languages at least once per sentence.  “Hey man, you wanna party with us tonight?” Raymond asked me.  Not being one two turn down offers like this, even though I really didn’t feel up to it at that very moment, I accepted the offer.  The rest of the day, we spent with Alfredo filling out forms to rent a computer to do online school, Alex picking up some “cute girls” to party with (they turned out to be pretty fat and ugly, every one of them, which pissed off Ray pretty well, he ended up telling Alex that he didn’t want them in his house) and going to the grocery store to get food and drinks.  The night was spent drinking, talking, and watching TV, with different guys coming in and out of the house every hour, pretty relaxed all in all.  I didn’t drink very much though, because I planned on leaving the next morning, despite Ray’s offers to let me stay for the next couple days.  He was a really nice guy, but I just wanted to move too much.  “Common man, just stay for a few days and relax.  I’m going to my place in Juarez in a couple of days, you should come, it’ll be fun, man!” But I had to refuse.  I just get that itch to move, especially out here in the west, where there’s so much to see.

 In the morning, Ray bought me breakfast, and dropped me off at the end of town on Hwy 82 west.  I walked down the road for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, when a truck full of construction workers stopped on the side of the road.  I told them where I was headed, and although they weren’t going in the same direction, they dropped me off at the 82w/529w junction in the middle of the desert.  I walked for maybe 2 or 3 miles, when a clean silver sedan pulled over.  “How’s it going man?” Ronnie, the driver, asked.  Ronnie, 30 and balding, was a firefighter on his way to Albuquerque for a company meeting.  He was a really cool guy who had lots of questions about my trip, and we talked for quite a while on the drive.  I had him drop me off in Artesia, just 60 miles up the road, because yet again, I didn’t want to get caught in the snow that hit the northern half of the state.  While walking through town, a kid in a green car pulled up, seeing my sign that said “west,” asked “how far west you going, man?”  I told him that I was headed to the west coast.  “Well…I can take you to 26^th street, if you want” Joey, a darker skinned boy of mixed heritage, ended up taking me about 2 miles outside of Artesia, which turned out to be much bigger than I had expected it to be. 

Yet again, there I was, on a desolate damn road, in the middle of the desert (high desert, to be exact, because of the altitude) with cars coming only once every 10 minutes or so.  After maybe 30 or 40 minutes of walking, a big Suburban stopped.  Inside were Robert and Robert Junior, both who had grown up on the open, rolling desert hills of this part of New Mexico.  They were going all the way to Alamogordo, which was just great, it being all the way past the large mountain range that I wasn’t looking forward to having the possibility of getting caught in the middle of.  I really enjoyed listening to them talk about the land, having been there more or less their entire lives.  The ride to Alamogordo was stunning.  We passed by enormous, beautiful landscapes of rolling hills, flat plains, cliffs and canyons, and the mountains, which were full of pine forests, snow, cold winds, and beautiful views.  They dropped me off in Alamogordo, A small city that stretches on for several miles, visible from far up in the mountains.  After walking down the road for a few minutes, an old yellow pickup with two older guys, hippies by the sound and looks of them.  They offered to take me to Tularosa, the next town along the road. 

They dropped me off past a rail bridge outside of town, and I walked there for quite awhile, enjoying the heat and the beautiful view.  The dirt here had a kind of orangish hue, and the train tracks running alongside it, along with the mountains far off to both the North and South, made for a beautiful view.  After several miles of walking, someone finally stopped, this time an older ford ranger. 

Jay, a middle-aged man with graying long hair and sunglasses, and his dog Chance, were just riding around, looking for a good place for Chance to run around for a little while in the desert.  We finally found a good place, on a dirt road a few miles off of the main road, Hwy 54N.  As Chance was stretching his legs, Jay and I each had a beer, and he told me about his travels in the navy, around the world, and his various trips around the country.  Ray was a really cool guy, very informational, who sort of reminded me of my Uncle Bill in the way he talked and what he had to say.  Jay offered to take me all the way to Socorro, which was great for me; this would mean that I wouldn’t have to mess with the interstate that cut from San Antonio to Socorro.  We stopped several times along the way for scenic views and piss breaks, each time Ray offering me another beer, and drinking one himself.  After the first beer, I declined the rest, because I was in no need for a buzz, and the beer would only dehydrate me and make me have to piss lots on down the road.  On down the road, on the way from Carrizoso to San Antonio, awhile after dusk we saw police lights down the road. “There’re my brothers” Ray said, about 5 beers in.  As we got closer, the dread set in, and was confirmed only after it was too late.  We saw a sign saying “DWI ENFORCEMENT CHECKPOINT.”  “Shit!” Jay muttered, “I’m fucked…”  It turned out that that was indeed the case.  As soon as he rolled down his window, the police officer that asked him for his documents asked him to pull off the road.  He was taken out of the car and tested for at least 20 minutes, while I waited.  Next thing I knew, I saw Jay driving away in the back seat of a police cruiser with its lights flashing.  I felt really bad, he had gone out of his way to get me this far, only to get a DWI, something devastating for one’s record.  The policemen were pretty nice to me, and accommodating, after I had given them my ID and confirmed that I had not, in fact, drank anything while I was with Jay (ha ha, yeah I know).  They had a heater where I could warm up my hands, and I talked with them for a bit until the tow truck came to take away Jay’s truck.  I ended up getting a ride with the tow truck driver to Socorro (oh, the irony!), and he helped me find a spot near the highway where I could sleep.  I ended up sleeping between a big pile of dirt laid down by NMDOT and a big ridge, protected from the wind coming from the east and north. 

I was still very cold that night, and didn’t sleep very well.  I ended up waking up at about 3:45 in the morning, and although I was still kind of tired, I got up because I was so cold and just wanted to warm up.  I walked to the town of Socorro (obviously dead at that hour) and looked around, trying to find a place to warm up and charge my phone, which had gone dead in the night.  I ended up plugging it into an outlet on the outside wall of a convenience store, and sat there in the dark for 45 minutes or so while it charged.  When police cruisers started to patrol the town, I decided it was high time to leave, and make my way to Hwy 60 west, where I wanted to get to so I could get all the way to Arizona. 

On my way a few miles outside of town, I decided to go underneath a highway bridge out of the wind and finally try out the camp stove I had made at home out of two soda cans; I could sure use some hot food to warm my bones on that cold morning.  I heated up a can of spaghetti-Oh’s that my mother had packed me when I left home.  The stove worked great, albeit a bit more fiery than when I had tested it at home.  Regardless, it heated the can of spaghetti-oh’s excellently, and I enjoyed the meal very much.  I finished up around 6:30, just as the sun was beginning to shine its light on the land, and began walking again.  The road had almost no traffic, and luckily after just 3 or 4 cars one stopped, a small black Honda civic packed full of stuff.  Josephine, a middle-aged woman with dark, frizzy hair, was headed to visit her daughters after leaving her boyfriend with whom she had been having some troubles.  Josephine was good conversation company, very interesting and kind to talk with on the long drive.  She was headed to Reserve, a tiny town about 170 miles from Socorro.  On the way, we passed VLA, a field of radar-looking dishes that turned to follow the sun, featured in many a Sci-Fi movie (Contact, encounters of the third kind, etc.)  Once we got to her daughter’s house, we sat for awhile and watched TV, talking.  After about 30 minutes or so, Josephine took me back on the road, and dropped me off at a “Y” between Hwy 12W and 180N, about 7 miles out of town.  I walked for a few miles up the mountain road, which was a positively beautiful road, winding, with pines, reddish-tan dirt, and a beautiful view of the snowy mountains ahead.  Although that was on Feb. 4 and today is the 5^th, I simply must end this piece here for now, I’m simply too tired to write more and I have to get up early (5am) tomorrow to get dropped off by the man whose house I’m staying at right now.  So, readers, until next time.