Monday, October 27, 2008

Chattanooga TN to Atlanta GA (and 5 American Dreams)

It was tough going today, but the public came through, as they always do. God Bless America. Its quite a diverse place, the USA. And I guess I only get to see a small segment of it from the passenger seat of random automobiles. Who knows what goes on in the other cars. The families of Latinos, who are yet to squeeze me in amongst their batallions of kids. The middle-aged couples in the Mercedes and the Jeeps who seem to have plenty of room, but accelerate away and pretend they haven't seen me. I think Americans are on the whole a helpful people, but in such a place as this, with millions of strangers and daily news reports of the horrors they commit to one another, its impossible to know who you might be letting into your car. Its a gamble. So I'm incredibly thankful that there are enough punters out there to help me get around. Let me introduce you to today's gamblers:

The Father and Son
Dad was off to work in a satellite city of Charlottesville, just over the border into Georgia, with 10 year old son beside. It was a saturday morning, and he seemed to pick up work wherever he could. The windscreen was smashed and the car beat-up and old. You see a lot more beat-up cars in this country than in Europe. He told me that he had once tried to hitchhike down to Florida, ended up walking to Atlanta. When he wished me luck a couple of exits down, I felt he really meant it.

Ran away and joined the circus
Days before his 16th birthday, he'd fulfilled one of the coolest stereotypes of all time, by running away from home, and spending a year with a travelling circus. That was years ago. Now he was settled down, and off to see his eight-year-old son play football. His son was good, eight sacks for the season. He'd taught him to snap a ball using a soft-toy, and "boy could he snap a ball now." I saw the photo, a little beardless version of his dad, solidly built and strong.

A McCain/Palin Bumper Sticker
A couple of good-ol boys were off to watch college football on TV. They had a big white truck, comfortable. They were old mates, driving along, shooting the breeze, smoking cigarettes. They didn't seem too interested in politics, but I wondered about the sticker. "So you're a McCain supporter?" I asked. "Looks like it might be a tough road from here?"
"Oh, he probably won't win," he told me. "But I don't trust that Obama guy. I still remember what the terrorists said after 9/11. Not to worry about the borders, because the next attack was going to come from inside. I'll always remember that. And with Obama, you just never know..." They dropped me off and pointed out the bar where lots of girls, easy girls, could be found later that night if I was still around.

Joe the Carpenter
A real southerner, with accent and all picked me up. He was a great laugh, and lifted my spirits for the rest of the day. He showed me a photo of his four daughters, and his lady friend. He was a young grandpa. That daughters got three kids, and that one, she's got a couple of mixed-race chil'n. I couldn't understand him all that well. There were stories of love and divorce, that you got to provide for a woman, give her a bed, put food in her belly, and then there's all those nice clothes she wants too. And if you can't provide...
"I'm happy with my lot." he said. "People have been good to me, and I try to help out wherever I can. I mean, we all have our personal problems, but, I do what I can." And he did what he could. I was another 30 miles down the road with a smile on my face.

The Weezer Fans
A lad was celebrating his 25th birthday by going to see his favourite band, Weezer. For company he had his 15 year-old brother. I interupted 'Arrested Development' that they'd been watching on a portable DVD player as they rolled along. We chatted about rock 'n roll and he dreamed of getting on the stage with the band if he could. I wonder if he did.

I got dropped off at a bus stop on the outskirts of Atlanta. Caught a bus full of latinos and blacks. The bus had TVs, advertising some kind of success-guaranteed fitness system, all in Spanish. A post-office employee helped me with directions. We went through miles and miles of suburbs, that never seemed to end. I had arrived in a very big city again.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Knoxville to Chattanooga (with a song stuck in my head)

The city of hard-knocks had treated me well.  I wasn't the guy who got shot in the leg by a stray bullet on Tuesday night.  That was probably some crack-junkie.  The locals in front of the Old City Java laughed about it, pointing across the street to where it happened.  I sipped my bottomless cup of coffee, and we chatted about elections and baseball and the decriminalization of marijuana.  They made me feel at home.  And then, I left.  Again.

In a good frame of mind, I waited patiently by the road in the southwest of town.  I hummed: "Pardon me boys, is that the...I've got my fare, and just a little to spare...".  It was maybe only the 100th car that stopped.  He was in the business of polished concrete floors and benches.  I was in the business of professional travel, today.  Sometimes I'm a musician.  Sometimes I'm on my gap year.  If you were the same person everyday, life would be a bit boring no?  

He dropped me at the recently developed outskirts of Knoxville.  I waited.  "Read a magazine and then you're in baltimore."

The second guy was into roughly the same thing as the first, except with marble instead of concrete.  He was a curious fellow, saw my guitar and figured what the hey.  He had lots of questions for me.  I was in the mood to talk so that was good.  He dropped me out past the 'split' where the 70 heads south to Chattanooga while the road continues on West to Nashville.

I'm yet to see another hitchhiker on these adventures.  But where he dropped me off, there was a note written by a guy who had stood on the same spot, about 4 years ago.  It was a slightly more detailed version of "I was here."  I liked that.  I waited  "...dinner in in a diner, nothing could be finer, than to have your ham and eggs in..."

I got hungry and bought fried chicken, potato and gravy with a biscuit.  A biscuit is a bread-roll i found out.  Good, because I didn't really want a biscuit.  The girl guessed I was Australian.  She had the sweetest smile.

I went back to the road, was just biting into my first bit of chicken when Taylor pulled up.  He was an environmental scientist on his way back home.  We cruised along.  He had great geographical knowledge, naming the rivers and the plateaus and explaining the local geology.  He was a smart guy, who wanted out of America for a while.  He was planning to go to Bali to live with his wife.  We used his phone to call ahead to my host, and we arranged to meet for a beer downtown.  We crossed the Tennessee River, did a loop passed the Aquarium, and then, "woo woo Chattanooga, there you are!"

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Blacksburg VA to Knoxville TN (and why cars run on gasoline)

Those who know me know I’m not the type to worry to much about anything. But all of us have our moments of panic. Today as the sun went down and I was left 40 miles from my destination, I thought it was finally time to sleep in a ditch and sink to my true level of seediness. But bless, once again I was saved by an incredibly friendly american, and my ‘everything will be alright’ attitude was vindicated once more.

My day started early, getting a lift from my lovely couch-surfing host to the bus to Roanoke. I got to fill out a survey on my feelings about the bus service:

Number of times a week you take this bus: 0
Location of bus stops: Reasonably good, I only got a little lost
Quality of service: Excellent, quality control measures on 100% of rides.

This took me back to the good ol’ 81, and I grabbed a couple of short rides. The first with a friendly working man in his comercial truck, and the second with an older gent on his way back from the hospital where he’d been having a blood test to make sure his blood was thin enough for his artifial valves to keep pumping blood through the system. Unfortunately this left me at a slightly awkward spot, with a cool breeze blowing. Gotta get south, I kept telling myself. Its not November yet, but it soon will be.

After waiting an hour or so, I caught my big ride. This was with an interesting couple. She was a veterinary technician on her way to a conference in Ashville, North Carolina, and her stoned-mason (excuse pun) boyfriend was coming along for the ride. He was an intriguing fellow, of the super-cynic view of the world. He’d spent a year in Iraq serving in the marines, an experience he described as “the best and worst days of my life.” He believed in all sorts of conspiracy theories, one which I hadn’t heard before. It involves gasoline and prohibition, that cars ran on alcohol in the beginning (a reasonably verifiable fact that I can’t be bothered verifying). This would mean that any hillbilly with a distiller could make his own fuel. So the prohibition movement was designed so that the oil industry could capture the market such that everyone would have to pay to run their cars. Dubious theories aside, these guys were tremendous, and merely cruising through the countryside they decided to change their route and take me all the way down the 81 to 40 miles from Knoxville.

I was so happy about making such great time that I decided to go for a walk into the wilderness and play my guitar and generally dick-about near the town of Newport. When I finally got back on the road, I realized I was actually in a terrible spot, with very little traffic going to Knoxville. So I stood at a lonely exit, thumbing hopefully at the cars that came past, maybe one every 10 minutes, but without luck. I’d been taught a little trick by my marine friend earlier, using fingers to gauge remaining hours of sunlight. I gauged I had less than an hour, and decided something needed to be done. I didn’t know what though, so I started walking when my latest saviour pulled up. He asked me where I was going, I told him my story, and he said he could get me back on track.

He was a great guy, towing a four-wheel motorbike on a trailer behind, curious and open about my means of travel. In the end he got me more than just back on track, going out if his way (almost the opposite direction from where he was going, as far as I could tell) to take me all the way into Knoxville. And with the help of his GPS, right to where my new friend, and a fun filled night, awaited me at the Old City Java café.

Monday, October 20, 2008

UVA to VUT (in one fell swoop)

After my longest wait to date, I was picked up by a landscape-architect who took me all the way from Charlottesville (home of the Hoos) to another college town, Blacksburg. It was really quite lucky the way it happened.
The thing about hitchhiking is that you have to not only enjoy standing by the side of the road for extended periods of time, but also you have to enjoy sitting in cars for extended periods of time, next to strangers. My luck today was that the guy who picked me up seemed to enjoy sitting in cars himself, and had no particular destination in mind. He had finished his Sunday chores, and simply wanted to get out of the house. So he got in his car and took off.
Well, imagine his surprise when upon entering the highway he sees a guy standing with a backpack strumming a guitar. I cannot vouch for how silly I might have looked- bear in mind this was after a two hour wait. I was almost certainly being a little bit silly. But I caught his attention, and he decided to stop.

We struck up an easy conversation, smoked a few cigarettes and cruised passed signs that said "This is McCain country". These were the first real signs of republican support I'd seen since entering the country. Apparently I had entered the south. In the north-east I had started to think that the black-muslim-terrorist guy was the only candidate and his win an inevitability. But here, Virginia, tobaccolandia, is apparently 'maverick' terrain. Its a pretty green state, but apparently it might turn blue at the start of November. I'm a bit confused about it all, maybe it's global warming or something. Why would a land of frozen pizza turn blue?

It was nice to ponder this, next to a friendly guy who, like me, had nothing much to do. We talked about America, and other places he'd been, like Alaska, and places we'd both been, like Chile. We talked about Obama. There's a lot to like about that guy. The green hills rolled by and he decided to drive all the way to Blacksburg. We ran out of matches, got some more, smoked some more cigarettes and rolled into town. It was the long trip, but the time, like the miles, had slid by lazily and pleasantly. That's how Sundays should always be.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

2 hours is some time to wait.

The vast majority of passing drivers will steadfastly avoid communication with the hitchhiker. There are, however, a plethora of signals a passing driver will sometimes employ when he doesn't intend to stop. Unfortunately, we will never be sure of the exact meaning of these signals. Afterall, they are given by someone who we will never have a chance to ask. However, I will try to interpret one or two as I understand them.
A classic is the sideways finger-point. This means: "I would pick you up, but as I am turning just up ahead I'm afraid I cannot assist you."
Another is the shoulder shrug, especially popular amongst women drivers. This means: "I would pick you up, but let's face it, I don't know who you are and frankly I don't want to know."
Another is vocal, which is the mouthed 'sorry'. This means "I would pick you up, but the worlds is full of dangerous people you know, and I wish it wasn't so, but it is, so sorry."
One I very much enjoy is the good-ol' wave. This means: "Hello, I would pick you up, but...hey, who am I kidding, I'm not going to pick you up, but hello!" I like this one and I would encourage all motorists who pass hitchhikers by to try it.
Today, I experienced not once, but twice a completely new signal. This I shall call the 'no-way Jose'. It involves a shocked glare, followed by the raising of the index finger, and a shake of that finger from side to side. This seems to say "Not in a million years would I pick you up, no sir, no way Jose."
Its instinct I guess. Standing where I was today, there wasn't much time for the drivers to think of what they would do. I guess the NWJ was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction. I started to think what signal I instinctively give. Probably the shoulder shrug. If I had more time the wave I think. Hard to know, it's a tough decision. I think I'd just stop.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Washington DC to Charlottesville VA (with police escort)

Starting is always the hardest bit. I caught the metro from downtown DC out to the famous Route 66 at Falls Church Station. On google maps it looked like an ideal location to start, and indeed when I arrived the station was right in the middle of the highway. Unfortunately I was hedged in by a railway yard and a carpark, but after attempting to traverse a Virginian jungle, I eventually found the way through the carpark and passed the high-school (with kids playing on the gridiron pitch, another just-like-in-the-movies moment) to an onramp of the 66. After only a few minutes of standing at a rather awkward spot, I flashed my thumb unenthusiastically at a dark car, which promptly flashed some worrying blue lights at me.
“Do you think it’s a good idea hitchhiking a police car,” the very tall trooper asked me leaning out the window
“Umm.”
“Do you think you should be doing this here?”
“Umm. Well…I was under the impression that I wasn’t to hitch on the interstate, but that the onramp was ok.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” she said. “You shouldn’t walk on the highway.”
“Yes maam.”
At this stage she started shuffling around things in her car and I was waiting for the ticket she would issue that I wasn’t going to pay. But, it turned out that she was actually clearing the seat for me. What a great start, a ride in a police car 20 miles down the road to a great rest-area. Lovely.
From there I didn’t have to wait long before a convoy of cars going to a Nascar-meet offered me a lift. I was in the enormous Dodge truck driven by Kevin, with his son Kevin Jr. in the passenger seat. They were a great bunch of football throwing larikins off for a weekend away together, including Kevin Jr.’s pregnant girlfriend and a bunch of other guys who liked to compare the size of their fuel tanks and gas mileage. I was a bit sorry when they dropped me off after a great 100 mile cruise through the Appalachian Mountains along highway 89.
This left me in a slightly chilly Staunton, where I didn’t have to wait too long before an environmental-scientist went way out of her way to take me to the very top of the mountain range where the Appalachian walking trail crosses the highway. A few spits of rain at this stage might have helped my cause. A 17-year-old high school senior, on the way to his girlfriend’s house, took pity on me. He too went a bit out of his way and dropped me off right in downtown Charlottesville.
Back on track, and faith in American people renewed. Virginia: tick.

Bad hitching day (with drugs, knives, and the murder capital of the world)

Made a snap decision not to catch the chinatown bus from Philadelphia and instead caught the metro south and stood by the freeway for a while before a little guy in one of those new old-style cars (are they chevrolets?) stopped and took me just down the road. He was a guy who liked knives, pulling out an enormous blade from under the seat which he said he needed for protection. He was on his way back from picking up a few little bags of weed. He said he didn’t have any of this to give me but he did have a knife for me, and also gave me a ball that proved to be endless entertainment for the rest of the day.
I waited for quite a while maybe an hour bouncing the ball when finally a guy who used to be a roadie for the grateful dead, a young guy with a whole lot of cocaine that he and his friend were going to try before they went a fishing. He only took me a couple of exits down the highway but assured me I’d be in a great spot to get a ride into DC.
I got bored at his spot because there wasn’t much traffic afterall, sitting on the safety barrier strumming my guitar when a black guy in a beat-up sedan leaned over with a puzzled look and asked if he could assist me. He could. We were cruising down the highway before long and he had a beer next to him. He offered me a busch from the cooler that I had buried underneath my guitar, and being quite thirsty I undid my seatbelt and got me a beer. He was on his way to the racetrack, apparently the only place in the state of Delaware for slot machines. He was keeping busy in his unemployment “giving back” the $1000 he had won there the day before. He dropped me off another 20 miles along.
From here I had to jump some barriers and things in order to get to the onramp, where I waited some more time before a guy in a big black ute (or truck I think they call them) pulled over and offered me a lift a little further down the road, to a very pleasant spot with nice autumnal leaves, green grass and 6 different roaring highways intersecting in an appealing spaghetti type fashion. There wasn’t much traffic at this entrance, and so the wait wasn’t quite so disheartening, but equally long.
Finally a Bolivian delivering tropical fish to pet stores picked me up and gave me a decent lift to the outskirts of Baltimore. I ate some McDonalds (being hungry by this stage some 7 hours after breakfast) and decided to press on.
I didn’t have to wait too long on a very busy road for a baltimore local to pick me up and take me “through the tunnel”. I didn’t know what that meant, but it turned out it meant the tunnel under the harbour. He was an Amtrak employee who gave me a great tour of all the local railway yards in Baltimore. He also gave me quite a scare, telling me that Baltimore was the murder capital of the world (incidentally the unemployed gambler had told me the same about DC earlier that day). He showed me the cuts in his lip and eye where he’d had run-ins with the gangs of dissaffected youth in this town of 60,000 heroin addicts. I had to see this, I decided, and besides, after so much waiting during the day it was a bit late to get to DC. He dropped me off in the south of town and I caught a bus full of black guys who all seemed to be high-fiving each other, talking just like urban black people do in the movies and in hip-hop songs. Thankfully they ignored me and my tell-tale backpack (and lucky for them cos I had that knife handy!) It turned out that all the hotels in B-more (Be more Careful) were booked out. So the hitchhiker turned regular commuter, and caught a $7 train to DC where the possibility of a bed was better.

Providence RI to NYC with a piece of cardboard

My lovely couchsurfing host dropped me off at the highway, and I decided it was time to try an old hitchhiking trick, the sign. I had tried this one before going from Bristol with a sign that said simply “London” and the young removalist who picked me up, and indeed took me to London, told me it was a great sign. But I was a bit worried that writing New York would deter people who could at least get me on the way. Instead I tried one that gave the highway and the direction, “95s”. I had plenty of time to colour this in, because everybody was ignoring the sign. By the end it was a masterpiece but I’m still not sure of its success.
Eventually a guy heading just out of town did pick me up, a very nice carpenter who not only dropped me at the outskirts of Providence, but also offered me a place to stay if I got stuck. Where he dropped me, however, was a bit of an ordinary place: lots of traffic, but very little going down the ramp, and no safe place to stand on the ramp itself. I threw quite a lot of rocks. Finally a minister of some denomination unknown to me kindly stopped, gave me a lift, and told me my sign was no good. “You need one that says NYC. Its simple, just three letters.” But of course! And I was thinking of writing 7 letters with a space. Ridiculous.
So he dropped me off and I got to work. I was only a few minutes into perfecting my NYC sign when a college student stopped and picked me up. He couldn’t get me to New York but he did get me to the border of Connecticut and a lovely safe spot to continue on.
Here my NYC sign got me a great lift after 20 minutes or so, with a trucker. My first trucker! He turned out to be another minister in his spare time, and for the umpteenth time on my travels, I had to confess having heard of Hillsong but never having heard Hillsong. Well, they’re great apparently, maybe the most famous thing aussie there is. Note to self: listen to hillsong for making intelligent christian conversation. He was a nice fellah, divorced, estranged from wife and kids down in Lousiana, waiting for god to find a way for them to be together again. He was going through to New Jersey, and was concerned I wouldn’t be able to get off the highway anywhere, so he dropped me off at the last food and gas stop on the highway.
After filling myself up, I wandered casually towards the re-entry to the highway, where without even putting my thumb out, a couple of mexican guys heading back into NYC in a truck stopped. We flew through the last bit of Connecticut and then the Bronx began. They pointed out the left-hand-side where the poor blacks lived and the opposite side where the wealthy whites resided. They told me I didn’t need to worry about the Bronx, despite its reputation, but kindly showed me the drug-problem area that was permanently manned by police where I could safely whack out my laptop, get some wifi, make plans and begin to be amazed by the hispanic world that surrounded me.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Burlington to Boston (inc. gold-dome, homebrew, puff of pipe, and biscuits). Free.

The day started off kind a slow, getting up off the couch of my new college-town friends wasn’t that easy. But by about 11.30am I was on the road standing on the on-ramp of the 89. It took a while to get a lift, and a guy took me just down the road to they tiny town of Richmond. I seemed to be at some kind of park-and –ride facility and the flashy cars were driving past eyeing me a bit strange. But luckily my saviour came, she was Kalita and picked me up and took me to Montpelier, specifically to her friends' house where the guys seemed to be celebrating the recent harvest. They were wonderful, and I got to try their home-brew (excellent) and enjoy some of their harvest. It was good stuff (and evidently the source of their wealth). Ah Vermont! When I got dropped off back in town, I was feeling a bit funny and decided that it was time for a tour of the gold-domed state house, where they let me be the embarassing Australian on tour (Executive Branch? Is that where rich guys do their banking?) By the time that was done, I realized it was late and I had to keep moving.
So I wandered down the road and got a lift half a mile with some guys in a hippified Volvo station wagon going in the wrong direction, but they took me to the intersection and saved me a 15 minute walk. I stood throwing rocks for quite some time before a guy took me down a couple of exits and dropped me off under a bridge where I could shelter from the rain which had just started to fall. Finally, a middle-classed woman picked me up. She drove well past, but as an after-though decided to pick me up. It turned out her daughter had gone hitchhiking earlier that day and despite me being a bloke and her a woman (a dangerous combo so I’m told) she very kindly took me 20 miles down the road and wished me luck. By then the sun was out again but getting low. I looked at the map and realized I was still a good 150 miles from Boston and no real hope of reaching my destination. I was pondering how it was that I had actually started to think in miles not kilometres, when...
A miracle! A Chinese-Malay businessman who owned a tech company had been visiting his client, IBM, and was now on his way back to Boston airport. We flew down the highway as darkness fell, and chatted about the economic crisis, I nibbled on his biscuits and before I knew it we were in Boston. He dropped me off just a few blocks walk from my friend's flat. I even made it in time for pizza. Beginning to feel lucky.

Montreal to Burlington VT for less than $25 (Taxes and Vodka included!)

TAKE A BUS to the metro. When you board the bus try to give the driver the money ($2.75) you have correctly counted out. She will point you to the machine: feed the coins in one as a time, as directed, and the ticket will also work on the metro.

TAKE THE METRO to Bonaventure

TAKE THE 45 BUS from Bonaventure to Panama ($3.25)

WALK towards highway 10. After relieving yourself under the bridge proceed on to the petrol station. There, an asian gentleman will make you realize you’ve gone too far. Walk back to the “on-ramp” and find an appropriate spot to stick out your thumb. You will soon realize that you are in completely the wrong place. Continue standing with your thumb out anyway. When a car stops, pick up your bags and move briskly down the road. The more awkward you are with this, the more kicks the guy gets when he drives off. Change sides of the road, where your first chauffeur will be

A GUY WITH A CHAIR.
He is a nice guy, he don’t speak english so well, he loves it when you try your French on him. He’s on his way back from Montreal where he’s bought a lazy boy. He will drop you off at the onramp of the 35

A CIVIL SERVANT
will take you from there to the border. He symphatises with you because he once waited 30 hours for a lift in Saskatchawan, surviving only on a jar of peanut butter. He will also point you in the direction of the

DUTY FREE Vodka ($12 .95)

“WARNING WARNING US HOMELAND SECURITY!” I jibed as I approached the desk. The officer looked up suddenly, looked around at his colleagues, and then back at my big smile.
“You some kinda wise guy eh?”
“Naa Mate,” I said, “Aussie.”
“You know here in The United States we take the security of our country very seriously indeed, and if you are going to joke about it, well… I’m just gonna be upset that’s all. And when I’m upset, I don’t like letting people into my country.”
“Officer,” I said, “With all due respect, I was only making a little joke, making light, if you will, of the reputation that US Homeland Security enjoys in the world. You know, all the stupid questions. The lack of a sense of humour. You know?” ($6)

A BUSINESSMAN
will introduce you the United States, and show you 20 Miles of the vermont he loves.

A MYSTERIOUS MAN
will pull up at the motorway entrance and say he only has room in the back of his truck. Enjoy the wind in your hair as darkness, like the inevitable approach of winter, like the change of the autumnal leaves, envelopes all, leaving only the blinding headlights trailing behind. The man will drop you off in his frontyard in Burlington South.

A RECOVERING ALCOHOLIC DOG (and her owner)
will notice your guitar, and shout, “Bill.” She will give you a lift to your destination in Burlington, even though your name isn’t Bill.

$24.95