Hitching Home
"You're not really hitch hiking all the way to Alaska!"
My girlfriend's words keep coming back to haunt me. What was I thinking! Here I am, standing on the shoulder of I-5 in central Washington with my thumb sticking out, getting soaked in a sudden downpour. And it's getting dark. I've been here for three hours and not a single car has even slowed down. Even though this is the Sixties, and everybody hitches these days. I've never had to wait this long for a ride. You'd think at least some guy would stop!
Could be I'm not wearing the right hitching outfit. Like one of those Mexican serapes everyone is wearing, or sandals, or tie dyed shirt with beads. Maybe I look too straight, or my hair's too short. Obviously nobody realizes I'm a girl. But nowadays it's hard to tell.
If my mom could see me now! What would she say? I did call her from a pay phone when I was passing through San Francisco last month.
"Hi mom, its me!"
"Oh my goodness. Is it really you sweetie? I haven't heard from you in 2 months! Where are you? Are you Ok?"
"Yes, mom, I'm fine. I'm hanging with friends over school break. Just thought I'd give you a ring."
"Are you coming home?"
"No, I'm going on a road trip. Just wanted to hear your voice, is all."
"Well, I've been worried about you dear. Don't wait another 2 months to call me! Just take care of yourself. There's a lot of strange people out there!"
"Thanks, mom. Gotta go. Love you lots. Bye!"
Strange people indeed! I guess I'd be one of them. Why else would I be standing here, waiting for a ride on a rainy spring night, when I could be back at the Reed College cafeteria, warm and dry, sipping hot coffee while discussing the meaning of life with my classmates till the wee hours of the morning.
Even my best friend Alice, a hippie from Berkeley, thought my plans were a bit over the top. "You're joking, right?" she said. "I mean, Alaska is a long ways off, like beyond the the end of nowhere! You could end up frozen to death, or eaten by grizzlies up there in the Yukon. I'd rather be picked up by some weirdo any day. Those things I can handle!"
What I keep trying to tell her is that its no big deal, I was BORN in Alaska! I know about grizzlies and freezing. I just want to get home and see my mom, and I don't have the $150 to fly up there, and besides - it will be an adventure. Which, for this 19 year old, is the meaning of life.
And so far its been quite the adventure.
I took off a few days ago, with just a backpack, and the little money I had left over from working all summer in the Kodiak crab canneries. I had planned to pay my own way through school, but got lucky and received a scholarship to this really far out college in
Portland. My mom thinks I'm still in school. But hard as I tried, somehow I just couldn't fit in. Call it culture shock. When I arrived, everybody looked at me like I was from another planet. Whereas to me they all seemed to be coming from a different solar system. Most of the students were preppies, rich kids from California or New York, on their way to becoming revolutionaries. They ran around barefoot on campus with flowers in their hair, wore beads, and said "wow!" and "far out" to everything.
Where I come from, "far out" is the Aleutian Islands.
My preppie pals at Reed probably don't even know where the Aleutians are. Not one of them ever pulled two shifts in a crab cannery in the middle of January just to earn their keep. Or had to wear a parka just to get to the outhouse. That is why they all think I'm really, really "far out!" To them, I'm a fascinating relic from a bygone era.
To be honest, I'm feeling pretty far out of my league right now. What do I know about hitching in a foreign country? Back in Alaska, practically everybody knows each other.
A car will stop for you even when you are walking on the wrong side of the road. Even the moose stop to greet you!
And now I'm here, in unknown territory, getting drenched, with no ride, no safe haven in sight. My confidence is crumbling.
I'm about to dive under the nearest dripping redwood tree for shelter, when an old pickup slows down and pulls up alongside me. I can make out the silhouette of a man wearing a cowboy hat. There's a big dog on the seat beside him. (My girl radar kicks in: guy with dog - not a bad combo.)
The headlights shimmer through the rain, as he walks around and actually opens the passenger door for me! Nice touch. Then again, maybe not so fast! I stand there wavering.
But its raining and cold, so I hop in. The dog - a big , smelly, shepherd type -- moves over politely. I stuff the wet backpack between my shivering knees.
The miles roll by, but the man says nothing even though I introduced myself with a big smile, which usually breaks the ice. Things are way too quiet, even the dog is silent, just staring straight ahead. I'm suddenly noticing there's a lot of empty rolling hills around here, dark deep woods, not much traffic. A girl could get waylaid and never be found. This isn't looking so good. My instincts tell me its time to make chit chat.
"Thanks for picking me up!" I say cheerily. "Sure nice of you. I was afraid nobody would EVER come along."
No answer. He keeps his eyes on the road ahead. I'd say he's about 50, maybe some teeth missing, but hard to tell in the dark.
"Nice dog. What's his name?"
Nothing.
"I had a dog once. Jessie. A collie. Got run over by a truck. Felt like I lost my best friend." I try to look sad.
Meanwhile my mind is racing. How many miles to the next town? I'm guessing around 30, assuming we stay on this road. (If I even get there at all.)
Suddenly, he pulls over to the side, stops the car, pulls a flashlight and a writing pad out of his pocket. Squinting hard, he writes something in big letters, and hands me the paper.
"Can't talk. Sorry. I'm Wally. My dog = Ben. Sorry about Jessie. Where you going?"
Relieved, I write: "Alaska"
He stares at me for a moment, then shakes his head in disbelief. Or could be he thinks I'm nuts. After a minute he writes: "Worked there once. Salmon cannery. Can take you to Tumwater."
"Thanks!!!" I scribble back. I could have spoken, but somehow that seems out of place right now.
We drive on for hours in silence, while the windshield wipers slap back and forth, keeping time, like in the song, "Me and Bobby McGhee." Wally, my fellow Alaskan cannery worker, drops me off at the Tumwater Texaco, tips his hat, and drives off in the rain. I wave goodbye, feeling suddenly homesick .
Lucky for me, this Texaco is definitely hitcher friendly. For folks like us, a filling station is like an oasis in the desert. It's a place to warm up, use the pay phone, grab a cup of hot black coffee and a Twinkie, while killing time and waiting for the right car to pull up. After freshening up in the bathroom, (a quick wash up with the free soap and paper towels, maybe grab a few lengths of t.p. -- just in case I get stuck in the middle of nowhere), I'm ready to roll again.
There is a definite art to hitchhiking. All my friends have their unique style. We share our best strategies for getting a good ride, where to find the friendliest stops, what to watch out for, what to definitely avoid. Everyone has at least one story about that really scary time when you had to extricate yourself from some creep. Or the one where you ended up staying for a week with some really cool people and it changed your life. (Someday I'll write a book based on all my girlfriends' hitching adventures called: "A Girl's Guide to Hitch Hiking - 101 Ways to Get There Alive")
All rides are interesting, which is why I like to hitch. You never know what will happen next, what characters you'll meet, or just where you will end up. Like my first ride out of Portland yesterday. I was standing on an entrance on Interstate 5, when a green Ford Falcon came to a slow sputtering halt next to me. An old lady peered out from under her pink hat through large round spectacles, and beckoned me over.
"Where are you headed, honey?" Her voice was high and crackly, her hands on the wheel shaking slightly.
"Home," I told her. "I need to see my mom."
"Well, isn't that just sweet! But what's a nice girl like you doing out on the road alone like this, running around with all these weird hippies. Don't you have someone who can get you? Here, I'll make some space." She reached over and began tossing assorted clothes, shoes, books, and groceries onto the mountain of stuff filling the entire back seat. Her cat, which had been sleeping underneath all that clutter, jumped up and yowled in alarm. So that's what I was smelling.
"Don't worry, honey," cooed the old lady, as I squeezed into the front seat, "she won't scratch. Nice kitty, kitty!"
Her name was Grandma Benson, on her way home to Castle Rock from visiting her grandkids in Portland. My mom would have loved her. For the next several hours she shared with me everything I didn't need to know about life in her hometown. I smiled politely as she rattled on about her precious grandkids, her late husband, her many health problems, the stupid male doctors, the snoopy neighbors, those cheating store clerks ("rob an old woman any chance they get, know what I mean?") Then she went on about Eric her no good son who had dropped out of the Navy, was now wearing a ponytail, and had a dragon tattooed on his left arm. ("I bet he even smokes dope!")
At the outskirts of Castle Rock we pulled up to a very dilapidated old house engulfed in a tangle of blackberry vines. I helped carry her bags inside through the tumbled down porch. "Why don't you just spend the night here, dear," she offered kindly. "That way I know you are safe till morning. Help me get this stuff into the back room, wont you?
Eric should stop by any minute to check on me. Don't worry, he's really quite harmless."
After some warm tea and and Ritz crackers, I fell asleep on a heap of musty old clothes in the corner of the cluttered back room, with kitty curled up beside me, purring.
Through the night I kept waking up to the loud sounds of arguing, accompanied by the clanging of kitchen utensils, and the slamming of doors. Evidently Eric had dropped by late to visit, and left after drinking a six pack of beer. I never got a chance to see his tattoos.
Meanwhile, back here at the Tumwater Texaco: Alaska suddenly seems like a long ways off. I'm having serious doubts about my travels plans.
I'm sitting on the curb, trying to decide whether to head for the nearest freeway entrance and try my luck once more, when a green van decorated with purple hearts and yellow flowers pulls in. A hippie couple wearing headbands, sandals, and dark glasses step out slowly and look around. The guy spreads his arms out wide, as if to hug the sky:
"Wow! Dig that sun, man!"
While they're inside the Quicky Mart buying granola bars and fruit juice, I peer into the back of the van. There's sleeping bags, gardening tools, seed catalogs, and organic gardening books strewn on the back seat. Plus a couple of strange looking pipes, and some herbs in a plastic bag.
The hippie lady comes dancing and twirling out of the store, almost tripping over her long skirt. When she sees me there with my backpack, she comes skipping over.
"You look like you need a hug little sister," she says, proceeding to hug me. Her partner who reeks of patchouli, walks over and throws his arms around me.
"Sister, this is, like, so far out! It's like something just pulled us over, you know? And here you are! It's cosmic, man." He turns to his lady. "Don't you feel it too, Charity?"
Charity nods enthusiastically and hugs me once more. "I get this really groovy vibe from you honey, like you're meant to hang with us!" She jumps up and down for joy.
"Oh Jed! Our prayers are answered! The plants are just gonna love her!"
I figure I can hang with them and be an answer to their prayers, whatever they are, if it's going to get me a few miles closer to Alaska.
The van smells strongly of incense and other strange smoke as we putter northward along the side roads leading to somewhere in the northern Washington countryside.
Whatever Charity and her man are smoking, its making me sleepy and giggly at the same time, and before long, I doze off. When I wake up, we're parked in front of a large, ramshackle farmhouse surrounded by goats and chickens. One goat comes over and bleats at me through in the window. Behind the broken down fence I spy some hippies working in a garden and naked children running around. A young bearded man is sitting under a tree strumming a guitar.
Charity soon appears and sweetly asks me if I will join their Family in breaking the evening bread. "You are our family too, now" she smiles. "It is all God's plan. He sent you to help us with our organic garden, I just know it!" She bends over to whisper in my ear. "I'll show you the greenhouse later! The plants will love you!"
I decide to accept their dinner invitation before I have to give them the bad news.
The Family consists of Jeremiah, Jedediah, Emanuel, Vision, Charity, Sanity and an assortment of children - (I'm not sure who belongs to whom). We all sit down before a bowl of homegrown veggies and a slice of crusty dark bread, join hands and bow our heads. Emanuel thanks the Great Spirit for our meal, for the garden, and for sending the Family a groovy new Sister.
Later Charity takes me by the hand and gives me the greenhouse tour. We walk down the rows of tomato plants, and then past more plants that look a lot like tomatoes but are way taller and lack fruit. Charity notes the puzzled look on my face. "They will be harvested later, " she explains hastily. "It's a groovy new variety. All organic, by the way."
She points to a mat in the corner. "You can sleep here for now, close to the plants.
They love company. Do you know that they grow better with music? Every morning, Brother Jeremy comes in and plays the guitar for them".
Before dawn, I pack up my stuff, sneak out of the greenhouse, and am back on the road. The song birds are starting up with their morning chorus, calling from the woods and meadows. Some of them could be on their way to Alaska, might even get there before me! I walk for several miles with my thumb out until my prayers are answered in the form of an old farmer driving a pickup. He just gives me strange looks without saying anything, then drops me off at a gas station on the freeway north of Bellingham.
It's still early, not much traffic going by. I feel suddenly lonely, and a long ways from home. Maybe I should have hung out with the Family a couple more days. Then a huge double Semi rolls up to the diesel pumps, air brakes hissing, country music blasting out from the rolled down windows. The driver jumps down from the cab. He looks like a good old boy: cowboy shirt, big belt buckle, cigarette hanging on his lower lip. I overhear him joking and talking with the attendant at the pump, something about a run up to Dawson Creek way up on the Alcan Highway.
There's a nickname for truckers driving the Alcan; "The Knights of the Road." The Knights have a reputation to uphold. If your car breaks down a hundred miles from nowhere they are bound to stop and lend a helping hand, especially if you are a damsel in distress. I'm not on the Alcan yet, but maybe I'll take a chance, since he seems friendly enough. What could go wrong? Truckers have places to go, deadlines to meet. No time for hanky-panky, I figure.
Several hours and many miles later I'm sitting high up in the cozy cab of a Jimmy, with Chester Muldoon, headed into British Columbia. We cross the border no problem; Chester flashes his smile, hands over some papers, the border guard (a pal no doubt) takes a quick peek in the back, and we are northward bound. Nobody even bothers to ask about me.
Chester is a nice guy, even turns the music on his tape deck down for me. It's my very first time riding in a big Semi, and it sure feels like you own the road from way up here!
What fun looking down on all those little frightened cars on the road below, as we barrel up behind them at 70 miles an hour! Each time Chester careens around the curves, especially in the mountains with the thousand foot drip offs, he looks over at me slyly, grinning. I pretend I'm not scared, but I know he's having fun with me. The truck just roars along like a rampaging monster that is bent on flattening everything in its path.
Around a big curve in the mountains near Kamloops a big tanker comes barreling towards us, and the CB radio starts to crackle.
"Wild Eddie here. Yo, Chet! Anything new? Over."
They chat back and forth about truck stuff - vital info about cops, speed traps, roadblocks, weather, news of other truckers up and down the line; cryptic messages, in a language comprehensible only to truckers. The conversation is crackly and static filled, punctuated with words like "over" and "ten four."
Late that night, at the St. George truck stop, Chester offers to buy me dinner. There's a half dozen truckers already chowing down in the smoky diner, their big rigs idling outside.
He orders the standard fare - potatoes, steak and gallons of coffee. All the guys seem to know each other. Big haired waitresses run from table to table, flirting and joking, coffee pots in hand. A country song is playing on the jukebox. Some of the guys look over at Chester and me, and smirk.
Chester leans towards me. "Never mind them," he grins. "It's nice to have some female company. It gets lonely on the road with just guys to talk to. Besides" - he stops to light his umpteenth cigarette - "you are a nice kid." Apparently he's taking me under his wing.
He pulls some photos of the wife and kids out of his wallet, and shows them to me.
"Two weeks on the road already. Another week and I'm back home in Seattle." He smiles wistfully.
We head back on the highway and soon run smack into a surprise snowstorm. The road turns slick, the windshield icy. After awhile the CB crackles. More code words, more trucker news. Then something about Mick not making it through the pass.
Chester turns pale, and falls silent. His hands begin to tremble.
At the next wide spot some miles down the road, he pulls the rig to a stop. He lowers his head in his shaking hands, bangs on the dashboard, and lets loose a string of curses.
Carefully, slowly, I place one comforting arm around Chester. He just continues to sit there motionless, wordless. The snow keeps falling, the CB keeps crackling, begging for a reply. But Chester's mind is on his good old buddy Mick. Seems he skidded out of control on a patch of black ice and missed a curve somewhere up in the foggy mountain pass. They found his rig smashed at the bottom of a cliff, in the icy river below.
The rest of the trip is passed in gloom, as we wind on through the snowstorm and the mountains. There's nothing I can do to cheer up Chester. Each country tune brings up another memory. When Tammy Wynette starts singing he turns up the radio. "This here is another one of Mick's favorites," he informs me sadly. "Back when we drove the Alcan together. Man, those were some good times."
When we finally get to Dawson Creek he drops me off at the local greasy spoon and we exchange goodbyes. "Take care now," he says, fatherly like, "not every guy is as nice as me." As his truck roars away, I find myself worrying about him. I just hope he slows down going back through those icy passes.
I'm wondering what to do next when a dust covered chevy with three guys in it comes screeching to a stop right in front of me. One man jumps out and dashes into the cafe.
Meanwhile the driver scrambles into the back seat. They seem impatient. "Where you headed?" I ask through the rolled down window. It never hurts to make conversation, just in case.
"Alaska," they both say at once, then cast a nervous glance toward the cafe. "What's keeping Jim so long anyhow?"
"Just so happens I'm headed up there myself," I say brightly. "You wouldn't have room for an extra person?"
They exchange glances. "Uhhh, hmmm, well, you see, we're kind of in a hurry," replies the driver. "This is no sightseeing trip, and - uh - well, you probably wouldn't be very comfortable. In a car with three guys, I mean" Jim is still inside ordering burgers, so Sarge and Winston take turns explaining. Their boss gave the entire office two weeks' vacation, and whoever can prove they drove the farthest in that time wins a brand new motorcycle. (My girl radar kicks in: slim chance of being molested here - not with a bike at stake!)
"Well, don't let me hold you back," I reply, nonchalantly. "I'll find my way home somehow.
Besides, I'd hate for you to lose that bike on account of me."
The guys shrug, look at each other and grin. "What the heck," says Winston, "you might bring us luck if you're from Alaska. Anyway - it will make for a good story, eh?
But it's gonna be tight in here!" He nudges Sarge and winks.
Jim finally emerges from the cafe, arms piled high with at least a weeks' worth of fast food. He shoves it all through the car window, then pops into the driver's seat.
Next thing you know, I'm in a chevy with 3 guys that are hell bent for Alaska and sharing their burgers and fries with me. I fill them in on everything they might ever have wanted to know about my home state. Except they could care less. They have only one thing on their minds: putting in as many road miles as you can in the space of two weeks.
They drive day and night, taking turns at the wheel while the others doze in their seats.
We stop only to fill up on gas, to grab a coffee, or to make a quick dash into the bushes while the car keeps on running.
Several days pass this way, in a sort of blur. I'm alternately dozing off against someone's shoulder or staring out the window at the never ending, monotonous landscape: mile after mile of scraggly trees, mosquito infested bogs and lonely hills rolling off beyond the horizon. The bumpy, gravelly "highway" keeps leading us northward on its zig zag course through Canada: along rivers, over tundra, around lakes, up mountains, and through canyons. Every hundred miles or so we pass a human settlement huddled along the road. Gas stations and coffee refills are few an far between. Big trucks hurrying to Alaska pass us at breakneck speed, spewing gravel on the windshield, and engulfing us in a whirlwind of dust. l try to focus my eyes on the snowy peaks of Alaska looming far off in the distance, but they never seem to get any closer.
At Watson Lake we make a quick stop in front of the famed "signpost forest" - a colorful collection of hundreds of road signs from all over the globe (most of them stolen, no doubt). There are signs pointing to far away cities like Los Angeles to Tokyo. Sarge snaps a photo of his car in front of a hand painted sign that says: New York--> 3567 miles. Then it's on to Whitehorse (for the usual intake of gas and fast food). And after that - Alaska!
By the time we've crossed the Border, and head south on the long, last leg from Tok Junction down to Anchorage, we are one dusty, smelly, sleep deprived bunch. But the guys don't seem to care. Every mile is bringing them closer to victory and they are ecstatic.
Me, I can't wait to get out out of this car and stretch my legs.
At last we arrive in the big city of Anchorage. I offer to buy everyone a real dinner, maybe show them around town a bit. It's the least I can do since they've paid for everything else along the way. But they refuse: "Thanks, but no thanks! We've barely got time to turn around and get back to New York."
Then I have an idea. "Listen boys. Are you really sure you've got all the miles you need?" They look at each other, uncertain.
"Why not drive as far as it's possible to drive in North America? Think about it - if you take me to Homer, you can tell everybody you made it to the absolute end of the North American highway system! You're practically there - and it's only a couple more hours!
In fact," I add helpfully, "right at the very end is where my folks' driveway starts. This will give you an extra mile and a half. Plus you'll be taking me right to my front door!
How is that for a story!"
The guys decide they have just enough time left to add another record to their resume.
Besides which, they hate to leave me just standing there all alone.
Five hours later, we have raced through Homer and are on East End Road, just minutes from home! I proudly point out the incredible views, the mountains and glaciers, all the tourist attractions, but their eyes are fixed on the clock.
We reach the end of the road and Sarge leaps out of the car to shoot a picture of the dirt encrusted chevy, parked in the turnaround where the North American highway ends and the roadless wilderness begins. Then we turn off into the woods, and down the bumpy, rutted dirt road leading into my family's homestead. At last the old gray cabin with the sod roof rolls into view! I'm so excited to be home, after all these miles!
I can't wait to hug mom, to see the look on her face! I leap out of the car, and holler back at the guys: "Come in and meet my family!"
At first they seem hesitant, but then again - it would sure make a good ending for their story! They take another photo of their car parked in front of a genuine Alaska pioneer log cabin! ("Wait till the guys back at the office see this!")
Mom can't believe her eyes. Nor her ears.
"You didn't hitch all the way up the Alaska Highway by yourself?" she gasps, clutching her chest.
After we're done hugging and laughing, mom insists the boys stay for lunch. Jim, Sarge, and Winston have no choice but to politely accept the genuine Alaska goodies my mom has laid before them: home baked bread, moose burgers, and a salad made from freshly picked dandelions. This is as far from New York City as you can get.
But now it's time to go. We exchange hurried hugs. I thank them for bringing me safely all the way to Homer. So does my mom - over and over again.
"Thanks for everything!" Sarge smiles, bowing to my mom. He gives me a friendly squeeze and climbs into the driver's seat. "This is one trip I won't forget!"
"We did it! We did it!" Shouts Winston through the window. Jim flashes the victory sign. We all wave goodbye as the chevy roars to life and speeds away in a cloud of dust.