Humanity 101: Hitchhiking

This has been a long overdue post.  Every time Eva and I finish a trip, we marvel at the awesomeness of hitchhiking.  It really is an incredible way to meet people.

Brandon - 45 year old wine distributor.  Here was a guy in a pickup truck (with a washing machine in the back) who saw us trying to hitch down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) in Oregon.  He picked us up.  He was only going about a third of the way to where we needed to go.  As we drove along, he would stop at amazing vistas and give us some local pointers on cool stuff to see.  When we got to the town he needed to go to, he decided to keep on going.  He drove us the whole way.  Went about an hour and a half out of his way.  Pure kindness.

Pat - A 65 year old rancher driving a 25 year old Subaru with 220,000 miles on it. Hitching to Crater Lake, Pat picked us up.  He was only going about 6 miles, but every bit helps.  He was having such a good time talking with us, he drove us halfway to Crater Lake.  It was about 4 hours out of his way.  Here was a 'simple' man who bought a ranch when he was 23 years old.  He worked his ass off for 20 years and paid off the mortgage on it.  Now his kid runs it.  Because there is no mortgage on it, he has no problem making a living on it.  Then he bought an RV park and worked his ass off for another 15 years and paid off the mortgage on that.  Now his daughter runs that business while he bought another RV park and works at that one.  He spends his days working with long weekend trips riding his motorcycle up to the Yukon and Alaska.  Sounded like the happiest man alive.

Mike - hardcore redneck.  Pulls up in a beat up SUV with 'Fle Marcket' written on the side.  He can't afford to drive us anywhere, but if we pay for gas he'll take us anywhere.  His English wasn't too great and he had some weird ideas about stuff.  Seemed real tough and alluded to his record a couple of times.  But as we drove around the back roads, he kept pointing out all this obscure beauty.  Seems like whenever he could afford the gas, he would just drive around the county stopping at pretty trees/rivers/streams/rocks/hills.  After driving us he refused to take the money for the gas.

Ian - 20 year old punk rocker.  Ian picked us up around the Portland/Cali border.  We needed to get to Arcata, 50 miles south.  Had a blast talking with him.  We needed to get to a computer to find the address of where we were staying.  He pulled off for dinner at a place with wifi, so we can use his computer.  We find out that 1) our place to stay fell through and 2) the person who said they'd bring our stuff from the farm to Arcata (we were hiking and couldn't carry it all), left all of our stuff in Oregon.  Ian offered for us to come with him to Sacramento (300 miles away) and crash with him at his friends.  We ended crashing with him, Brittany and Dave for the night.  It was amazing.

Greg and Lulu - Great couple with Mel, the Dutch guy, in the car.  They managed to squeeze us into their little GTI.  So it was five not so small (with the exception of Eva) people in a sub-compact.  And a tiny dog.  They were only heading about 30 miles down the PCH (we needed to go 130 miles) for lunch at Nepenthe, a famous restaurant.  For the first time ever, Eva and I couldn't get a ride.  We waited outside the restaurant for a couple of hours to no avail.  We didn't have our camping gear on us (we were just going to a bonfire and were supposed to crash at someones place), so we couldn't just crash anywhere on our own.  Greg and Lulu finished their meal and we decided to hitch back to Monterey with them.  They owned a restaurant, and we all went there for dinner and drinks.  The conversations were great, the company invigorating and the food was delicious (Hula's Island Grill if you ever make it to Monterey).

Couchsurfing put me on a path towards restoring my faith in humanity.  It made me believe that people are inherently good and we shouldn't fear people just because they are different.  Hitchhiking magnified this idea.  While hitchhiking I couldn't look at their profiles, or read their references.  I just put my thumb out and hope there are people out there with as much faith in humanity as I do.

There are.  Plenty.