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.