St. Louis to Colorado Springs

It came as no surprise that a full night’s sleep in the airport eluded me.  I found a niche in the corner where I could lay out my mattress bad – it was about 1am.  Every hour or so, someone would pass by with a wheeled bag, waking me from my slumber with the hard click-clack of plastic wheels meeting tiled floor.  Just about the time I was used to that noise, an earthquake arose from the other end of the hall.  The floor shook and my ears trembled at the drone from the floor buffer, as a gentleman systematically cleaned the entire baggage claim area, back and forth.  The process probably took about an hour, but in my half-dazed position on the floor, it was hard to judge the time.

I awoke at first light, feeling less than rested but ready to move on to another place.  I walked outside with all my things to have a look at my situation.  It was not good.  The merge ramp was too short, and there were two lanes merging into the merge lane which then had only about 100 yards of stopping opportunity before the highway began.  I passed this opportunity for later, and walked about a mile to the nearest gas station.  Here, I began my vigil by making a ‘KC’ sign, and smiling at those who came through.  After about 2 hours of this, I began approaching some drivers and asking them if they were headed west.  With few exceptions, every driver was just filling their rental with gas for the return next door.  This was not a good spot – but it was the only gas station around.  Just about the time I was losing hope, the gas station attendant sauntered out of his booth, out the front door, and right towards me. 

“I can’t have you doin’ this at my station, man.  You gotta move on”

And that was that – the merge ramp was now my only option.  About this time I decided to call a guy named Joe who had posted something on Craigslist about a ride West.  He answered, and assured me he would pass through St Louis at the end of the day – sometime around 7.  This was a relief – I had a backup plan.

I went to the merge ramp with my sign, and hitched with no luck for about 4 hours.  It was a wonder to see thousands of cars pass me without stopping.  Many people who passed me put their fingers in the air with their palms never leaving the safety of the top of the steering wheel.  I think this is people’s way of saying “sorry, I can’t help” – those who feel they should be doing something, but aren’t ready to face the truth that they simply won’t help. 

It was now about noon – I had been at it for 6 hours with no results, and a rainstorm was moving in.  I retreated to the airport to work on my thesis and gather my thoughts.  I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and the lack of sleep was catching up to me.  I was exhausted, lonely, and out of patience.  I didn’t want to be doing this anymore.

Looking around the airport in my depressed state, it was easy to picture myself as the wayfaring stranger, unable to relate with those around me – not part of their world.  And for some brief moments I felt alone, and hopeless, and wondered if I was the one whose worldview was distorted and misguided – maybe society had things right and I was just fighting against it too hard. 

Second-guessing myself and my worldviews is something I do often, but relenting my stance that American culture is disconnected and isolating is not.  I needed a change in morale.  I got some food, packed up again, and headed back to the merge ramp.  I waited another four hours – it was now about 5 pm.    Joe wasn’t answering his phone, and wasn’t returning my calls – my backup plan had failed.  I wondered how many nights I would be stuck here, how long it would take for the airport employees to catch on to my strategy, and when I would find my next full night’s sleep.  I had little hope of cars stopping now.  I can’t describe the feeling with a better word than ‘stuck’.  Figuratively, emotionally, geographically.  Stuck.

As the sun receded further into the horizon and my shadow stretched west towards the long, lonely road to Denver, I wondered what to do.  I tried to remember that getting ‘stuck’ has always been part of my hitchhiking experiences.  The funny thing is how easy it is to forget about being ‘stuck’ when things are going smoothly and rides are available. Traveling alone is a unique experience.  Exposed to the whims of strangers without control or comfort, the highs are higher, but the lows can leave you feeling naked, exposed, and isolated. This low was part of the journey.

About 5:30 a middle-aged guy in an orange SUV saw me and slammed on his breaks to maneuver to the side of the road.  I saw him rearranging a child seat in the back of his car – I was with this guy as far as he could take me.  He was from around the way, he said, but he offered to take me a few exits down the road.  I knew this would leave me with nowhere to sleep, but at this point, ‘anywhere but here’ was all I could muster for motivation.

About 5 miles down he dropped me at a gas station in the town of St. Charles.  Most people passing through were local, and the sun was starting to sink low.  I stood behind the ice machine, set my things down, and donned my sign ‘KC’.  After about 30 minutes a black guy in his mid-twenties driving a Honda Accord with rim and exhaust modifications pulled up.  He strode towards me after leaving the convenience store, and greeted me with a warm smile.  He introduced himself as Darren. We had the basic conversation – where I was headed, why I didn’t take another form of transportation, what my deal was.

“Well, I wish I could give you a ride man but I live just down the block.  But here, I am blessed to offer you this.  It should help you along the way, you’ll need it to get where you’re goin.”

He shook my hand and held my eye, and I could feel the stale crunch of money between our hands.  I felt more than one bill, which was a relief for me because I figured Washington was the only dead president I would be seeing.  I tried to refuse, but he was persistent.

“I am blessed enough to offer you this, please take it.”

And so I took it, and thanked him profusely, and slid it into my pocket without looking.  As he drove off, I checked my pocket to see how blessed Darren really was.  I found 3 dead Lincolns staring back at me…  60 bucks!  I tried to chase him down to offer it back – this was certainly too much.  Again the guilt of being just too lucky, and too priveledged, started overwhelming me again.  60 dollars!

I decided that this money was a sign – I would distribute it the same way I had done with my last donation.  I was just a middle man between those who needed to offer help, and those who were too in need to receive it.  At least, this is what I told myself.  Its amazing how easily our minds can be quieted through half-hearted self-justification.  I was just like all those people who wouldn’t take their hands of the steering wheel.

Still, my luck had swung, and like a poker player with all his money in the pot and two outs in the deck, I could feel the luck coming.  Two cars pulled up, and rolled to the corner of the station to inflate their tires.  I was feeling lucky, and began asking some people if they were headed West.  The first few were local.  I approached the two cars filling their tires.

“Y’all heading West?”

A heavy-set, middle-aged gentleman with kind blue eyes looked at his companion, and back at me, and wavered.  Someone was heading west.

“I am headin West, but I don’t give rides to hitchhikers” was the response from the younger man, who had been silently pressured into answering by the older gentleman.  I told him that I understood, and did not want to pressure him or make him uncomfortable, but that I was harmless.  He should think it over.

I returned to my spot, and as I did so the attendant emerged from the store.  Great.  She smiled as she approached, and simply asked that I no longer approach customers.  If I agreed, I could stay.  Seemed pretty fair to me, but I knew that without asking people my chances of getting a ride this evening were pretty slim.

After about 10 minutes, the gentleman had filled his tires and approached me confidently. 

“Lets go!” he commanded.  I was in.  I had no idea how far west he was headed, or how long he’d be driving, but I was getting out of St. Louis…

Lets call my new friend Bill – I never did get his name.  Bill was a retired army corporal who drove a semi for a living and lived in Oregon.  He was on his way back there, through Colorado Springs, in the family sedan in which we were now riding.  This was the best news I could have hoped for – I just had to keep him talking until we made it 15 hours West. 

It turns out that Bill and I have pretty opposite worldviews.  And Bill sure liked to express his.  I was glad he didn’t want to hear much about mine.  He told me about farming in Oregon, his family and his kids, his time in the military, his childhood.  We discussed student loans, the Occupy movement, debt, banks, etc.  I chimed in on the occasions we did agree, and mentally noted my counter-points when we did not.  This was no time to be adversarial.

A few hours into the ride, as the sun sank and my Euphoria wore off, I began dozing.  Bill pulled into a motel about 1 in the morning, explaining that he wanted to sleep and was getting a room.  I was welcome to sleep in the car or on the floor, he said.  I chose the floor, where I laid out my ground pad and was asleep in seconds.  We woke at 6 and headed West again.  I began calling my friends, setting my plans.  I had almost made it!

Hours later, Bill dropped me at the front door of my old friend Jess in the suburbs of Colorado Springs.  I would stay here one night, and then make it to Denver the next day. I gave Bill 40 of the 60 dollars passed to me by Darren, vowing to myself that the other twenty would go to someone more in need than either of us.  I wished him luck on his journeys, and he rode off.

That night, Jess and I relaxed over some Nshima, recounted our times in Peace Corps, and discussed her life’s path – now entwined in ecopsychology.  We commiserated about the consumer disconnection and the isolation that our culture offers as its reward. Once again I was with someone who understood my worldview.  And as the ‘mainstream’ regained its disorderly and unnatural place at the back of my mind and the roots of my perception, my world made sense again.

Lexington to St. Louis

I awoke this morning dreaming of a life I hardly knew in a place I had just arrived.  Yet like most travelers, the newness of the place clung to my soul, and I fell in love with the fantasy of living the rest of my days here.  My mind raced as I followed the small speck of experience that formed my perception of Lexington, Kentucky, and for the briefest of moments that is all I had or would ever need.  The place, and the future which it held for me.  Yet I suppose, as a committed traveler, I had felt this way about many places at one time or another. Often I find myself living out each experience to its logical conclusion in my mind – toying with the idea of growing old and painting a picture of life in a location tailored to the specific things about the place which seem most appealing.  The difficulty comes not in envisioning it, but rather, like an artist who has made many masterpieces, deciding in the end which painting I will actually choose to display.

I left about 10:30 in the morning with a ride from a wonderful, energetic guy named Doug.  We chatted about travel, and his energy – too much if it had hinted towards negative, but all the more encouraging because of its relentless positivity – reinvigorated me.  It was time to get back on the road.  He dropped me at the side of the highway, and I stood alone again, with a clear mind ready for another canvas to paint.

I waited 2 hours on the merge ramp west, singing tunes and pacing, splitting grass, thinking of my new life in Lexington if I couldn’t hitch a ride.  A car stopped short – a shirtless man with a strained look, a burger in one hand, and  a cloth wrapped around his other.  He didn’t roll the window down like most people as I strode to his passenger side, but instead unwrapped the cloth slowly from his hand, which was sitting in his lap.  The word ‘creeper’ came to mind, and I new that no matter where this guy was headed, I was not.  He got out, strode compulsively towards me, and stuck out his newly unwrapped hand.

I shook it, trying not to wince as thoughts of roadway masturbation clanged noisily in my mind.  He made me uncomfortable, and I was glad when he told me he was headed North – not West.  He hopped back in the car and squealed off down the highway.  Back to his burgers and hand cloths.

My next visitor came about 45 minutes later in the form of blue and red flashing lights.  I waved to the officer as the car pulled to a stop.  A short, built, fairly attractive woman with short hair and a stern face reflecting years of taking herself too seriously stepped out of the car.  She asked me what I was doing and where I was headed.  I explained the details. 

“You know you’re committing a crime sir.  I could lock you up for this”

Something about her emphasis told me I had nothing to worry about, so I explained that I was unaware of the illegality of my seemingly harmless activity.  I handed her my ID when prompted, and she strode back to the safety of her automobile.  After about 15 minutes, she emerged from the care, assuring me that I could go free, but would have to relocate and try a new ‘less obvious’ place.  Then she said:

“I gotta ask, person to person, out of my own curiosity – why are you doing this?  You seem of able body and mental faculties.”

I thanked her, although I was not sure if it was a compliment, and wondered about her normal conversations throughout the day which were, apparently, not person to person but something else entirely.  I explained that I was low on cash, and that I was on a mission to explore the United States in a unique way, meeting people I would not otherwise encounter – like herself. And until later in my trip, I believed that story.  For the time, she seemed to buy it. She shrugged, wished me luck, and drove off.

I relocated to a gas station where I perched out of view of the counter behind some shrubs and branded my ST LOUIS sign.  I waved to everyone entering and exiting to create good will, and give myself something to do.  I was offered a water – which I took – and some money – which I kindly refused.

I moved to another gas station down the road after about an hour.  I relocated to another gas station where I set down my bag and bought some bread.  I texted my friends in Lexington to secure another night if things fell through.  I guess part of me was still hoping they would.

After a bit of food, I began searching the lot for Missouri plates.  Nothing.  Then I spotted a friendly-looking guy of about 35 with a clean-cut appearance sporting a St. Louis Cardinals shirt.  He was chatting familiarly with another gentleman across the pump, who was filling a passenger van which had the words ‘Paris, Kentucky, and Bible’ written with some other less important words on the side.  This might be it…

I approached them, and asked the Cardinals guy if he was heading to St. Louis.  He was, he assured me, and introduced himself as James.  I asked if he had room for another, but he looked at his friend and shrugged.  They had no room, they assured me.  They were so apologetic and genuinely guilty about it that I believed them – although I wasn’t too worried about their motivations.  It was their right to say no, for any reason at all.

I searched the rest of the station with no luck, but upon circling back James caught me, and told me that the 3^rd vehicle in their party could fit me.  After some shuffling and traversing, my stuff was with James and his family, and I was in a car full of Christian youth, telling stories about my recent stay in a commune in the most toned-down manner possible.  After a short while, I was again shuffled – this time into a car of three 60-somethings.  The whole party was from Paris, Kentucky – a small town about 15 miles north of Lexington.  During the ride, I told some stories to Bill, Judy, and Linda, my new companions.  They were ridiculously friendly and kind, and even when talking about other people in their community, had only good things to say.  They were polite, spoke with slight southern drawls, and lavished me with blessing about my journeys.  We covered many topics, and it struck me that this was the America I was searching for – at least, the disparity between where I was coming from and where I was now.  And I wondered how the differences between these disparate cultures could be reconciled.

We reached St Louis after about 5 hours of pleasant chatting, and despite my lack of response to Judy’s repetitious assurances that God had a plan, and that Jesus was our savior, I could tell that the group liked me.  They had warmed up, and I really felt welcomed.  This was exactly the type of experience I could not explain to people abroad when they asked about the US.  These wonderful, kind, caring, and totally selfless strangers had whisked me up from a gas station, drove me 1/5 of the way across the country, and even took me out to dinner with them when we arrived. They prayed for me, and took me in as a member of their family.  And for a brief moment, I was caught up in the fantasy of being born again into their loving, trusting, unquestioning world. I still don’t know how to explain it to those who have not experienced it: no matter how terrible US foreign policy is, no matter how directly our way of life is predicated upon exploitation and war beyond site or mind, so many of the people within this sheltered, idyllic world are wonderful, and want nothing more than happiness for others.

I took my leave from the group after eating dinner with the whole mission, kids and all, at a brewery - which was the only restaurant open that could facilitate the size of our party.  They wondered where I would sleep.  I did as well, but I had hatched a plan, and needed to part – they had given me enough already, and I was starting to feel like a weight.  I had a place to stay, I assured them, which I could get to by the Metro.  In my head I knew I would head to the airport, where I would sleep the night and then hitch again in the morning.

I found the nearest metro station and checked to make sure a route ran to the airport (and that the airport was west, and along the highway – both nice setups for my next day).  Upon walking to the metro, bags in back and hand, I passed bars where drunk upper-class whites bobbed and weaved through the sidewalks.  I walked behind a couple who was clearly intrigued by my presence.  After a short while, the man turned to me and asked me where I was coming from.  He was about my height, stocky, with a belly and a mustache and the cocky heir of a man who had figured everything out, and had been waiting impatiently for years for the world to catch up.  His girlfriend was more slight, and more attractive (as is often the case for rich, cocky men).  I told them my story, and the man was excited because he was from Virginia, where I started.  He was also feeling pretty good. 

He whipped out a twenty and handed it to me as if it were a piece of scrap paper from his pocket.  He offered it with the arrogance of a man who didn’t care about it, but would still somehow be insulted if I didn’t accept it.  So I did.  They wished me luck as I walked away, and the 20 in my pocket felt dirty.  And so did I.

Why would this man give me money? Why did it feel so utterly wrong, when the kindness of my previous hosts, which I had earnestly accepted, had far outweighed the generosity of this guy and his cash?  It occurred to me that once again, I was receiving things I did not need.  I was loitering in the gluttony of people inclined to help those who they saw as similar to themselves.  The man even admitted to me that he wished he had had the balls to do what I was doing when he was young.  So here was some money… because what I was doing was so ‘cool’.

And who am I to judge that… I began to question what I had told the officer earlier.  I mean, really – was I so short on the money that I couldn’t afford another method of travel?  Was I really so interested in meeting lots of new people?  Or did I just want to have a cool story to tell about the time I hitched across the country?  Did I want to ensure that I could feel secure and relish the adventure that was my youth, when I am old and dry and have sucked all of the advantage out of my looks and youth and wit?  After all, I could get out of this mess anytime.  I could get a job, be well paid, where suits, join the system. I chose this way, and that makes me somehow more …. But more what? I was reminded of the man stuck at the gas station….  How those who really needed things were passed by in disgust, while I was given rides and dinner and 20 dollars for nothing at all.

I approached the next homeless man I saw – sitting on a park bench.  I said hello.  He pretended he couldn’t see me, ignored me, as if I was there to harass or bother him like so many others before me.  I handed him the twenty dollars.  His eyes lit up with a gleam of a soul that knew what true need really was.  ‘Hey, thanks man!’.  The words were so genuine that it cleansed the dirtiness of that twenty from my hand.  The money.  The unencumbered exchange of value.  I asked him to spend it on something good.  I didn’t care what that meant.

I rode to the airport, pondering this society.  How can we who have so much let others go in need without offering a helping hand?  Is it because we isolate ourselves from that need, or because we just don’t know how to help?  Maybe some just don’t care.  But in the end that same isolation kills each one of us inside, while it is literally killing others. I have lived in places where there is much less, and people are truly poor, where no one would tolerate allowing another person to starve.  Yet here, many sit freezing and abandoned on the cold concrete that forms our ‘civilization’.

At the airport I laid out my air mattress and rested for the evening – preparing to start another day on the road.  One which I would choose in lieu of a flight I could probably afford.  I was grateful for choice. I knew that the man on the park bench would get kicked out of this airport if he tried to sleep here, but that I would be allowed to stay.  I wondered how things could be so unfair, so backwards.  And to this day, I’m shaken with the thought that it took me choosing to take the hard road to realize that, even when I try, I cannot shake the advantages of my life. I did little to earn them, and I probably deserve them less than those who truly need them.  Yet somehow, I can’t transfer them.

Thus ended another day of me pretending to live free of my privilege.

Louisa to Lexington

Hitch Hike Diaries

June 8^th

I left Twin Oaks in the same way as I began.  A wily, flamboyant Wizard with curly white hair and a beard to match, dressed in a brightly colored short sleeve top and jean shorts, drove me to Charlottesville.  As we rode, I reflected on the three weeks I spent at Twin Oaks, which ought to be detailed in some fashion in another entry, and all that the experience had taught me.  Wizard filled me in on the gossip and goings-on, and we chatted pleasantly until we reached the Western outskirts of town, where he dropped me.

I exploded my things and myself out of the car on the shoulder, and before I had even looked up after collecting myself, a green SUV had pulled over.  I hadn’t even put my thumb up, or written on my sign!  I jogged to the car, backpack still on my back, and found a middle-aged man awaiting my arrival.  “You goin’ to the trail? He asked eagerly?”  I was so taken aback by his earnest excitement about the nearby Appalachian Trail that I regretted having to answer that ‘No, actually I’m headed to Denver eventually.  But for now, West in general”.  He offered to take me 30 miles West, but I declined – I like the hitching spot, and wanted to test my luck a bit further there.  He smiled and wished me luck, and drove off.

Another car stopped after about 20 minutes, but she was headed south.  That was bad news, since my sign had Charleston written on it, which should have indicated I was heading south – a hint that the sign wasn’t readable…  So I flipped it over, and found that amidst the black print of the box I could just manage a big arrow pointing to the direction I was heading.  I thought this might help…

Another 15 minutes passed before a semi with an empty flatbead maneauvered to the shoulder.  I saw Kentucky written on the side of his truck – a good sign for my westward journey. I climbed up to meet the open window, and the driver – another middle-aged man with 3 days stubble and a buzz cut with a friendly, disarming smile and a belly that  I suspected – and soon confirmed- came from drinking beer and eating barbeque. 

“Wheyre ya headed?”

“Goin’ West as far as you can take me.  Denver eventually.”

“WHEEEW! Denver.  Thats a looong way.  I can take ye as fars Lexingtin, Kintuckee”

So I grabbed my gear, hauled it up the stairs, and tossed it on my new friends Chuck’s bed.  We had a nice ride for about 300 miles, chattin everthang from footbawl ta truck driiiivin.  Chuck told me some stories from the road, and taught me about the transmission system of his semi truck – the first one I’d ever ridden in.

About 100 miles east of Lexington, Chuck dropped me at a truck stop, where he turned north.  The stop was not ideal – there was no room on the merge ramp for people to stop, and the gas station had 3 exits so that not everyone could see me.  I grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Subway (my resistance to corporate consumption waning after 3 weeks of veggies and 5 hours of a grumbling stomach).  After lunch, I picked up some new cardboard from a box in the dumpster behind the restaurant, and fashioned a sign that read ‘St. Louis”. 

I found myself a spot between two exits at the gas station, held up my sign with some thumbing motions, and tried to smile at everyone who entered or exited.  After about 30 minutes, I was getting the feeling this was not a great approach.  At about that time, an older man with a bald head, white frayed mustache, and strung-out eyes approached me.  He looked antsy, and I sensed something odd about his demeanor.

“You come here with those other 2 boys from the highway?”

“No, I’m by myself.  Why?”

“Oh just wonderin – this heres a bad place, I been waitin three days for a ride.  Three Days!”

“Yea, that is a long time.  Have you tried the asking people, or a sign?”

“Tried everything. Only tryin to git to Lexingtin.”

“Oh, sorry.  That’s not good news. What about those three boys, they must have gotten a ride.”

“Not from here, this here is a bad spot.”

Great, I thought as he stroad away.  Three days… Maybe if I am more active with my sign, I’ll have a chance.  Not much else to do.  Certainly pacing around the place anxiously – as this guy was trying – was not succeeding.

After another 20 minutes, I got a smile from a thin, young guy in his early 20’s dressed in a synthetic dry fit shirt, soccer shorts, socks, and Addidas sandals.  I had a good feeling.  After filling up, he approached me sheepishly.  We exchanged some pleasantries and then he asked me where I was headed.  I said Denver eventually, and he told me that he could get me as far as Lexington.  I had an instant twang of guilt.

I took the ride.  I thought about asking my new friend, Thadius, about giving a ride to the other hitch hiker as well.  He was still strolling about the rest stop, and no doubt had seen that I was in luck.  As I grabbed my bags the man gave me a glance that said he knew it all, and watched as I tossed my belongings into the back of the car.  I wanted to help him, but I felt handcuffed.

Thadius told me it was his first time picking up a hitch hiker, and he was hesitant.  If I asked him to include this other guy, and he declined, he would have to turn me down too.  Plus, I had gotten a strange vibe from the other hitcher, and I felt it would be outside of my rights to push Thadius into taking someone into his car that was potentially dangerous.  We pulled away, and my mind began to race.

What if I were someone that was dangerous, wasn’t he already taking that risk?  And who was I to make such a decision.  I felt that I was acting upon the same stereotypes about hitchhikers that I was specifically trying to avoid and show were largely false.  Could there really have been any danger from trying to help this other guy?  But my instincts – which I trust – gave me an off feeling…

It reminded for the first time in a long time of how it feels to know that I’m taking advantage of my age, my friendly, disarming looks, my position in life… It was the first time since Zambia I had seen such a priveledged contrast between me and another person.  It made me feel dirty, and I promised myself to do better the next time by asking the clerk to corroborate the mans story, or any number of alternative scenarios that ran through my head.

 I tried to let it go as best I could and enjoy the cool breeze and the knowledge that I would get to spend the night in Lexington on a couch, with another stranger, in the privileged little world I have built for myself as a young, uninhibited traveler. 

I wish that hitch hiker the best, and hope that he can find his destination.  While I may have squandered a chance to help him reach Lexington, his journey and mine were not entangled, and the long journey is a lonely one.  I let the lonesome road separate our paths.  But I wish him luck, and hope that I learned from him an important lesson – others need help more than I do, most times.  It is often those without the need, in our society, who receive.  There are times when I should recognize my opportunities, take them, and be thankful.  There are others when I should share my good fortune with those more in need.  I am still not sure which this instance was…