Nobody HitchHikes Anymore

May 18, 2018   A Little Help From My Friends   When you’re at the edge of Omaha watching the parade of cars go by or standing by the ramp in Peoria as a thunderstorm approaches, you realize something. You were dumped here by chance. In those towns where I had friends, I had an advantage. Not just a warm shower and a cold beer, but knowledge of the territory. In Buffalo, in Cleveland, Lexington, and now in Fort Collins, I’m able to rely on friends or family who can get me from the highway when I arrive and drop me off at a good hitching location when it’s time…

May 31, 2018 One way to look at this day is to say that I covered 41.7 miles from the time I woke up in Steamboat Springs at 4:30 AM until the time I gave up on the side of the road on Rt. 40 West, in Craig, CO, a coal and ranching community of about 8900 souls, and called it a night. I’m still 120 miles from Vernal, Utah, which is 172 miles east of Salt Lake City. Once I reach Salt Lake I’d kinda like to truck on to San Francisco, a mere 735 miles further along. And I’ve got a sunburn. And I ate potato chips and…

And that was my wife speaking! Thanks to Sean Martinelli of Channel 9for this recap of  #NobodyHitchHikesAnymore.com Channel 9 Story 061018

Whoever it was that called Colorado the easiest state for hitchhiking has never been to Craig. Craig, I was told by a fellow in Steamboat, is down on its luck. It’s coal country and proud of it. The local paper had a story this morning about a budget crisis in Moffat County. Craig is that county’s seat. Funding for the Museum of Northwest Colorado may be on the chopping block. The largest source of funding comes from the mineral leases that the Museum owns and sublets to what they refer to here as “extractive industries”. So if your Eastern ears reflexively shut down and dismiss concerns of people who make…

Rob, Kim, Mark, Rick, Steve, Dave, Rogo, Sean, John, Portia, Karl, Jim, Gordon, Lydia and the kids, Morgan, Mike and Nancy, Pat, Karin, John, Ricardo, Deb, TJ, James, Steve, Adam, Scott, Rob, Rick, Danica, Ron, Officer Mejias-Stevens, Naz, Jamie, Richard, Val, and Casey, Tom, Jeff, Will, Tara Lee and Jesse. Thank you. I didn’t set out for California. I didn’t set out to prove anything. I just set out to find you, and I did. So I thank you. And to my constant companion on the road, Caroline. I couldn’t have done it without you. I’m flying home today. I promised someone a new lawnmower. And I have to honor these people by telling their…

Yesterday started and ended beautifully. My morning began in Fort Collins, the lovely college town on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains where my son Rob has been working on his PhD in plant physiology for the past four years. He studies the impact of drought and changes in precipitation patterns on different species of grasses. In between publishing articles with titles like, “Trait selection and community weighting are key to understanding ecosystem responses to changing precipitation regimes”, in the journal “Functional Ecology,” Rob finds time to hike and camp and rock climb, and has a number of very cool friends. He also lives in a home with a…

That is the most commonly asked question. There is an alternate phrasing, usually posed to Ellen – how can you let him do this? Her answer – do you think I could stop him? And then there are those people who ask straight up if my wife thinks I am crazy, to which I reply, as does she, that this has been known for quite some  time. I’ve been talking about this trip forever. Any time Joe comes to visit or we see him for any reason references to the summer of ’78 come up. It was an opening up to the world for both of us.  And as I’ve…

In my pack I carry raisins, a chunk of summer sausage, and dozens of wild cherry Life Savers. In a side pouch I have a 1.5 liter unbreakable water bottle that my friend William gave me as a parting gift. There have been a few times when nibbling on the sausage has kept hunger at bay. For everything else, there’s McDonald’s. Yes,  I know that I can find healthier food, and I should support local restaurants, but thus far none of those healthy locavores have set up any place near the ramps and roadways that I’ve been practically living on the past two weeks. Right now I am sitting with…

It’s part of the deal. “You don’t catch a ride with your thumb,” says Juan Villarino, who has hitched more than 100,000 miles, “You catch it with a smile.” Villarino was profiled in this New York Times story earlier this year World’s Greatest Hitch Hiker and while I agree with his notion of the importance of smiling, I disagree with the Times’ headline – his girlfriend Laura Lazzarino seems to me much more deserving of that title. You can catch her adventures on her blog ViajesDeNena So much in this journey is out of my control. When I spent two days stuck on the side of the road in Omaha,…

Peoria Video   I decamped from the food court in Peoria’s Northwoods Mall to find the parking lot soaked and still draining from a heavy rain. Toying with the idea of walking up the ramp closer to the highway, I was looking for a way through a fence when the sky lit up. More lightning. It did not seem wise to climb a metal fence in order to stand on the side of a highway where the tallest object in sight would be me. Instead I stepped into the lobby of a roadside Marriot, where the kind lady at the desk let me sit for a bit while I called…