Part II

I stood outside the gas station door in Green River, Utah. My phone said it was 11pm but I wasn’t tired yet and I didn’t see a good place to camp. The cigarette trashcan next to me had something burning in it giving off noxious fumes, but the wind was blowing the smoke towards the only other spot to stand so I had to just deal with it. I decided that I’d take an hour and try to talk someone into picking up a stranger, if I came up empty handed I’d retire and try again in the morning.
I got a lot of filled cars, a lot of people going the wrong way, and a couple no’s. One guy was about to give me a ride but his girlfriend shot it down. He tried to give me money and when I turned it down he took my phone number and said they were getting a hotel for the night, but he’d call me in the morning and see if I was still stranded. I had about 20 minutes before my self-induced deadline when a man came out of the store and talked to me for a bit. He said he needed to ask his travel partner – as it were his mother in law – but that he could probably give me a ride. At just about midnight I scored a ride all the way to Vegas.
Big cities are not good places to hitch from. Most people aren’t going far, there’s no place to pull off, and there’s the “someone else will get him” mentality that never actually works out. It was 5am, I had barely slept, and I was dropped off in front of a casino. I walked to the nearest highway entrance but people were passing me too fast and there was nowhere to stand. I figured it was only going to get hotter as it got later so I set out walking towards a gas station on Tropicana Ave, about 2.5 miles down the highway.
Now walking down the highway is legal in parts of Colorado and Utah but it is not legal, as a Nevada State Trooper informed me, to do so in Las Vegas. I was pulled over (sort of, I was already on the shoulder) and greeted by an officer telling me how dangerous my actions were. He asked me where I was going and then why, starting to laugh when I told him I needed to make it to an interview in two days. When I gave him my passport as identification he wanted to know why I didn’t just show him my driver’s license. The real reason was I had left it in a pair of shorts at a friend’s house, but I elected not to share that. He looked at all the stamps, ran all my information, searched me, and then said he would give me a ride to the gas station. Chuckling to himself he told me that of all the cop work he’s done my stories were in the top two. A Vegas Cop thought I had some of the most interesting stories?!? Maybe it was his first day, but I took that as a huge compliment.
I sweet talked him into taking me all the way to the truck stop on the edge of town which I thought would be great, but instead it was deserted. A couple trucks and 3 cars in an hour as well as being on the wrong side of the highway made me nervous. Once again I walked out to the highway, but this time I stayed on the ramp.
Its difficult to describe how the road wears on people. The whole point of hitch hiking for me was to have an adventure – meet new people, hear new stories, get new perspectives on life. I find these things to be rejuvenating and exhilarating and the up-sides of adventure. However - lack of sleep, standing out on the street, not being able to ask for bathroom breaks or music choice or any creature comforts can be very draining. I hit my breaking point in the morning sun of Las Vegas as car after car passed me and I began to wonder if I would ever make it out of the concrete jungle. One girl tried to stop but almost got rear ended because there was nowhere to pull off. And then, finally, I got picked up.
I can’t explain the emotional leap between wondering if I’d wither away in the Las Vegas sun, and climbing into a car with air conditioning. My ride was provided by a guy we’ll call Victor and he was awesome. We chatted for a bit and then he put the air conditioning on for me and told me to adjust it however I wanted. Then he told me to go to sleep if I had a long night. He was so nice I almost got sketched out by it. I fell asleep for about a half hour, woke up refreshed, and talked with Victor for the remainder of the ride about cruises and the travel industry.
My subsequent rides came so quickly I couldn’t even get a layer of sunscreen on. Every time I would post up on an on-ramp and pull out the bottle, someone would stop. I got a ride from a dude in a huge lifted truck, a musician going to play at a church, and a Russian family who first tried to buy me a train ticket and then wanted to give me money but I turned down both.
My last ride was from a woman with her son. Their car was falling apart and they were loaded down with stuff, but of all the cars that passed me on a major highway ramp, they were the ones to stop. The woman told me she was dumpster diving for things to resell on Craigslist and picking bottles and cans out of the trash for the refunds, all to pay for rent and cloths etc for her son. Here was a woman who had almost nothing, but still went out of her way to help out a total stranger.
Meeting people and sharing stories is the reason why I hitch hike. It opens my eyes and re-grounds me in reality. Is selling bikes hard? It can be, unless it’s compared to coal mining. I start to think about my life choices when a police officer that probably sees drunks and gamblers and prostitutes all day tells me I have crazy stories. And no matter how down and out I’m feeling, I’m only supporting one person, not trying to raise a family. I am vulnerable and alone on a highway on-ramp, but every time someone picks me up it reinforces my faith in humanity.