The disappearing hitchhiker is not a very good endorsement, but
So I thought I'd make it known that I am alive.
you'll be pleased to know there were some wild rides through northern california including singing with a troupe of Mexican musicians. A hard working man took me through the cold mountains in the December night. We transported his ridiculously large load through the streets of downtown Portland so he could drop me off at a good spot.
My last leg was Portland to Seattle. i walked a way out of portland until some college kids took me across the border into Washington. I was shunted slowly north, but i was too far north too late in the year. it was getting dark and i didn't have my ride to seattle. I hung out at a gas station for an hour or two, got very good value for my $1 coffee, and finally the nth person I approached was a ukranian who was going to Tecoma, we listened to ukranian pop from the 80s, songs like yeah" let's all rock the ussr tonight!" catchy number.
In Tecoma I realized it was still some miles to seattle, and being within a cities limits was not giving me much good hitchhiking vibes. I decided to try the bus. the bus was useless so i hung out and an old man who'd taken himself out to dinner took me and his doggie to a gas station where I made my last attempt at getting a ride. I approached a guy but he shouted at me because he thought i was coming with a gun (what with it being cold and me with me hands in me jacket) I gave up, and called my friend to come and get me.
its always nice to have a friend to call. so that was it, hitchhiking the usa. over
I made it home, via an aeroplane, and last summer (while driving in my 84 Volvo 240) of I took a enthusiastic french youth to Benalla he thought there might be work.
Other than that, I haven't really been hitching for a while.
but not so long ago I had occasion to do give it one more go,
to live the romance that is the side of the american road.
F**king Amtrak
I was back in america and trying to get from Chicago to Springfield. Since it looked way too hard to hitchhike out of Chicago, the 6am train for $27 was appealing. Woke at 4.30 and jumped on the first bus and asked how to get to Union Station. The bus driver was most helpful and soon I was being whizzed into the city with the workers. The CTA is a fine system and we were expressing. At 5.20 we were downtown, but there was a bit of a tortuously slow trip up the street to the station. I arrived in the station about 5.45 and walked in to get my ticket. I queued up and there were two people working in a chilled out way, and i was pretty chilled. The couple in front of me not being particularly in a hurry but me neither what with 11 minutes until the train. I was a patient Australian. eventually it was my turn and I said I'd like to buy a ticket for the 6am service to springfield.
He said "I'm very sorry sir, but I cannot sell you a ticket for that service." He pointed to a sign which said, "We do not sell tickets 10 minutes before the service" he was quite right it was precisely 5.50.
So you
really can't sell me a ticket.
No sir.
And the next service? 8.32 sir, and the price? $49 sir,
A hitchhiker again, but not a good one.
I found a map on the wall, and devised a way to get to the I37 that involved a train and a bus,
I asked the man in the booth for a ticket to a park n ride on the interstate but he didn't know about the connecting buses. He directed me to an ancient red telephone. I took the receiver out of the cradle put it to my ear and was asked how I could be assisted,
Press 1 for tickets, the voice told me, 2 for complaints.
I only had one button without a number.
Eventually a woman came on speaking very quickly. I didn't really understand anything she said. I decided to just jump on a train on that line I'd seen in the picture and hope for the best.
I was trying to work out which platform I wanted to be on, but every time I got close to one, a river of people would come in the opposite direction, and I, once more in the possession of a backpack guitar combo, was swept away.
the platforms all talked psychotically,
"platform 4, platform 4, Platform 4, Platform 4" says platform 4
"platform 12?" asks platform 12, "platform 11?" replies "platform 11".
I eventually got on a train and dumped my stuff everywhere and the train was perfectly nice, interestingly sparse, not a single advertisement in site (could this really be America?)
I was going out west with a few sporadic workers and an old man,
scores of people waited on the other side to be taken to work in the city.
I got off the train, and skipped across the tracks. In the station I found out that the bus was leaving in 1 minute!
I ran with my awkward satchel guitar combo and sure enough, there it was and I signalled it down. I put two green dollars into the machine and looked to the lady for my 50c change but she gave me the look that confirmed that the machine had eaten my change. I was one of three people on the bus that ran once every 2 hours.
The Highway
I was a little nervous, but excited, my first hitch in a while, and in Illinois.
I saw the interstate and I knew what to do.
I headed towards the safe spot, where the cars could stop
and it started to rain. Big drops but just a little. But then a lot
I was standing by the road for at least an hour and a half,
but it was only raining for about a third of the time and pouring for one third of the time.
the rain had stopped but things like my guitar in its softcase were a little soggy when a guy stopped! He skidded to a stop 50 yards down the road and then came reversing at speed. he was quite skilled because he skidded to a stop as his window was just inches from my face. it turned out he was taking the wrong highway too soon, and we decided I should stay where I was.
I was encouraged, but I was also wet. it was quite a while longer when i finally nabbed one. he was a carpented. he told me he "wouldn't normally pick up hitchhikers but his son was a musician" and when he saw my guitar he just stopped. It turned out he was lying, his son was a drummer. bdum ching
This kind man was the one who solidified for me my favourite american expression of the trip which is
"there ya go." as in ...could you take me to a gas station where people might be stopping to get gas before they drive further south down the interstate? and he said "there ya go."
Slight poor planning perhaps. I kind of ended up at a gas station on the wrong side of the interstate, but there I was able to get a dunkin donut breakfast burrito for a buck (+8c taxes)
I asked a few people for an optimistic lift to springfield, and they all said: "I would take you, but I'm not going that way..." I gave up and did a dangerous walk across the bridge that had no provision whatsoever for pedestrians (but then why would one walk to a gas station?)
There was lots of traffic. There were learners coming past. And the trucks. They all seemed to be endlessly for the one company. A company you've never heard of, a nice local company, a nice local company with three trucks, Four trucks! FIVE trucks! a lot of trucks.
At that point, due in part to my early start and in part to my earlier Amtrak tirade
I started to feel really sleepy.
I just wanted to lie down, i couldn't handle it anymore: smiling in the face of the people's confusion
Luckily I was prepared with a big Sharpie and a piece of cardboard I'd stolen from Target.
I left my sign visible and tried to recline on my soggy backpack. It wasn't comfortable, so I sat down and played my soggy guitar a while,
well, it was probably only half a song before I am interupted by a young man who has stopped for me and says he can take me to blah blah, which as it turned out was exactly where I was going. I jumped up and clumsily threw my guitar and gear in his open cab (the rain had abated). He seemed a nice fellow who was taking his first hitchhiking experience very seriously. We shook hands and introduced ourselves, and worked out that he couldn't get me all the way to Springfield but to Bloomington which I knew from previous research was a good way towards Springfield. He asked me how it was usually done, this thing when you offer a stranger a ride, how did it usually work , he wanted to know.
Well, that required a story or two, and then we both grew comfortable with the idea of spending an hour together, so we talked about politics and military life (he was an ex marine) and as we were driving past a field of windmills he revealed that he had once investigated buying a windmill, but aparently the upfront capital for those big white things was a bit too much. He asked me: "Do you have racism in Australia?" And I said, no, we eradicated it in 1973. I didn't say that. I'm too earnest in conversation: rather I told him our famous racist stories, and he did have a vague recollection of Cronulla when I mentioned it.
By the time we got to Bloomington, the rain was nowhere in sight and it was roasting.
He dropped me off in the centre of Normal, which I found out was the twin town of B.
I inquired at the station, and amtrak was only $12 the rest of the way, (which was more my speed than $49) if I waited til the evening service.
Perfect, so now I can hang out a few hours in Normal Il.
I took refuge a while in an air-conditioned eco-cafe where I ate organic yummies
I tried not to drink booze (again) for at least a while. two hours,
then gave up and went to a bar,
where finally the reason for carrying around that clunking bit of box hill wood came good
we sang american classics with gusto and they plastered me with vodka and jager bombs and pints of delicious american beer
and by the time i got on the train station i must have been a slobbering mess,
but that was perfect, because by the time I woke up in Springfield, 45 minutes later, I was ready to go again.
