You awake on the couch in your friend's living room (a place you had been renting a mere 3 weeks earlier) with the tinge of anxiety and uneasiness that accompanies all pre-adventure moments. After saying goodbye to Chris, and as nobody else is awake, you decide to strap on your pack and hit the road.
You know San Luis Obispo quite well, in fact you've lived, worked, and studied here for the majority of the past four years, and take the familiar route to the bus stop. Arriving with a half-hour to spare, you decide to check the train times. Your goal today is to make it to Union Station in Los Angeles but the self-imposed rules you've declared a few days earlier place your options within a specific game.
After speaking with a few inspiring souls who slept on that same couch from which you just awoke, you've often thought about following their example as hitchhikers and opportunity seekers embracing the uncertain roads and highways of the world. Yea, and you've just graduated, so what's to stop you now? Well, there's the entire suburban, yuppie mentality causing your comfort-zone gauge to ping and bounce to "sheltered and safe" rather than "freewheel n' jive". All that's ever been said about hitchhiking and the greasy-haired serial killer rapists (yea, they're that bad) is that these people won't hesitate to stick a screwdriver through your ear canal the first chance they get and throw your corpse in the nearest public bathroom….So you sit in front of the San Luis train station while the 2:00 p.m. ticket option blinks, waiting for you to slide your plastic, pay $31 and forget those romantic bohemian dreams of uncertainty. But not today, you hitch up your pack, walk outside, and catch the last SLO transit bus you'll be taking in a very long time.
20 minutes later you're standing in front of the place you've decided will be the best chance of getting picked up. You can stand on the sidewalk to take your ass out of legal culpability if some authority should see you soliciting on a roadway (see § 21957). Placing your pack down, you take a deep breath, this is your first step into vagabonditry, the universal expression, the thumb. Almost immediately you realize the effect it has upon motorists entering the 101 south on-ramp. You attempt to make eye contact and they avert their gaze, be it from awkwardness, guilt, or who knows what. Hell, not even your dread mullet garnered this much ostracization. The only ones who seem to look directly into your eyes, right into your retinas with the focused energy of a thousand suns, are the senior citizens of SLO. It's not long before you realize that holding out your arm in front of any Buick will simply be a waste of effort.
A half hour passes and it's 8:50 without so much as a bite on your hook, the intermittent flash of a peace sign has been the only sympathy. Then, as the next wave of cars float on by, a pickup with two guys about your age miraculously break off the assembly line and pull to a stop in front of your curb…HOLY SHIT! Did I just do…THAT?! The passenger opens the door and you ask, "Where are you headed?", "AG" they reply. Now you have a choice. Get 15 miles closer to your destination of Santa Barbara or Ventura, (you're not really sure which) or wait for a longer ride that may never materialize?
With a shake of the head, and doubting your decision simultaneously as you do, you thank them for such a generous offer but would like to wait for a longer ride. "Your choice dude. AG is still that much closer to Ventura!", and the truck returns to the sea of steel via osmosis. Another 20 minutes pass, but it's O.K. Somebody else is bound to show some compassion just as the first car had. Optimism is high and you care less about the way you perfectly mimic the same thumbing gesture seen in movies from the 1950s as cars head out west on the fabled 66, picking up Oakies as they went. Hell, you even give a weird but friendly sort of grin to the passerby and some amazingly smirk back in return! Your luck pulls through and a guy pulls over to your turf. After the standard exchange of questions he tells you his destination is also Arroyo Grande…Gadamnit. The same dilemma as before is served to you in the form of a Chevy HHR and a tile worker. Should you take the ride just to get moving and leave the comfort of this well-known area, or make yourself comfortable for another unknown number of minutes before a driver is willing to take you further down the road?
You place your stuff in the trunk, open the door, and buckle-up. The talk ranges from Tucson to Rush Limbaugh, and musical notation to smoking weed. Soon enough you're on Grand Avenue in Arroyo Grande sticking out your dedo gordo like it ain't no thang. It's about 9:20 and while you realize you won't beat the train to Ventura by 10, you dismiss that as a pretty far-fetched dream anyhow and feel good enough to even try a few dance moves as you stand in front of a mechanic's garage, the first guys in the pickup who offered you a ride passed by laughing and waved with a friendly smile… 2 hours later and you're starting to wonder why the FUCK so many goddamn old people live in this town! Where's the love?! As the situation begins to look futile and hardly anyone has acknowledged your presence, you toy with the idea of going north a bit just to change the scenery and hopefully a chance at catching a ride. This eventually becomes your plan of action.
20 minutes after changing to the north entrance, another guy about your age comes to the rescue in a red Nissan pickup, brand spankin' new. He says his name is Casey (yet for some reason in your mind your think K.C., perhaps it's the dehydration kicking in) and he mentions it's his mother's new truck he's just picked up and is driving home. Come again? This car hasn't even seen it's true owner and you get the luxury of polypropelene new-car-smell blasted into the nostrils as a scalawag hitchhiker? This must be the end of days… and your ride ends a mile later at the 4 cities bridge. You head down to the southbound entrance, which is looking much more promising already, but while your eyes wander at the crosswalk you see a sign pointing in the direction of the train station. Well, you knew eventually you'd have to take the train into Union Station because Mother would keel over and die 100 times over if she ever found out you were trying your luck on the road, and once again you're presented with the dilemma of heading toward the station at X number of minutes walking or attempting to get another ride.
You figure that you'll get to the station to see just how much time you have before the last train out of Grover Beach and you're forced to call reinforcements to get you out. Of. There. 40 minutes later the sun strikes noon and you've reached the Amtrak outpost, $33 to Union Station, a $2 increase from SLO, and you only have 2 hours minus 40 minutes to see if you can hit up any more rides. Your finger rests on the purchase button…
And you succumb to the forces of "cutting-it-close-and-playing-it-safe". Almost immediately after you've purchased the ticket it feels as though you've sold out and try to assuage your guilt by telling yourself that hitchhiking incognito to the parents' is like waiting for the impending law of Murphy to kick your ass to Everything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong, a lovely place indeed… it only makes you feel a little better. Heading back to the 7eleven you decide to make things interesting anyhow and buy yourself a drink. You have 22s of Coors, Bud, Chelada, Blue Moon, Sierra Nevada and 40s of Pabst, Steel Reserve, and Mickey's to choose from. Deciding to go authentic you take the Mickey's and head toward the beach.
Before you are able to exit the parking lot a few transients and local degenerates call out to you and endearingly invite you to join them in a free lunch. At first you attempt to talk your way out of if but figure this is just a perfect opportunity to make your day that much more interesting…right? As you follow and chat with the newfound compatriots you realize your destination is behind a warehouse through a fence flanked by other untouchables and you finger the knife in your pocket. Things aren't really sketchy yet but by no means let your guard down…for this is bat country. A few more steps into the compound and you realize it's nothing more than a community lunch provided by some Christians, almost an exact carbon-copy of the volunteering you experienced back in SLO, but this time you're on the other side of the isle. You almost feel guilty taking some of this food and opt out of the shepherd's pie, sticking to the cheaper and much more plentiful salad, raisin bread, half a cupcake, and cup of strawberry milk.
Striking up a conversation with your table-mates they ask you where you're coming from. Spitting out "Big Sur" seems to feel more satisfying than San Luis Obispo as if you've actually completed some decent hitching mileage. "LA" is your destination and the guy you're talking to begins going off on the dangers of the city for a naive wayward soul packing it down the coast. "They'll kill ya dude. Cuz maaaaaan they don giva fuck….you should geta gun you know. Like they'll all come up t'you an say 'give me yo wallet' and thenya say 'sure' and pull out this pistol and shoot the assholes man… man thas wha'd I do." "Well, Ok man, but I've got family down there so things shouldn't be too bad…" "Yea but fuck, they don' care 'bout nothin' man". He then ignores you and turns to his other Latino friends and jokes with them "Oye, guey. Ella es tanta fea. Deja la pinchaaa."
Deciding to practice a bit of your Spanish before the trip to Chile you'll be taking in a few weeks time, you turn to the man who wears a "Yes on Q" hat, stained with sweat but it hasn't discolored the pride in which he wears it. You ask him what the hat refers to and are given the answer "Es para los rancheros", not necessarily the most enlightening but you roll with it. Commenting on the lunch you mention how nice it is to have a community so willing to give and what beautiful weather it is for mid-January to boot. He replies he feels very lucky in both regards, that the town has been very good… and that he is very lucky, just for double the emphasis you figure. You'd like to ask him his origins but fear that he may get nervous, no need to give stress or anxiety to those who don't deserve it and have enough of the real deal to fear daily. The lunch seems to be winding down so you bid farewell and ask directions to the beach, straight down the main avenue?, easy enough.
Remembering the Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor cozy in a brown paper bag in your pack you decide to reenact the theatre production of "That Young Roving Drunk Out on the Dunes of Grover Beach" starring yourself. This presentation is based on the true story of a recently graduated student that decided to have a 40 in the hour that was left before the train came through town. He races himself to the bottom of the green glass bottle… and wins! He analyzes the location of his perch: a dune valley with a group of multiple mothers and their daughters over the hill to the right and a continuous trickle of beach loafers walking with significant others, dogs, and beautiful weather in tow. It's at this moment that the setting is all too obvious for a commercial photo shoot.
After this success you decided to reward yourself for a job well done with another 40 of Mickey's and head back to the train station to read a copy of the local paper. It's at this moment that you realized you achieved a consumption rate of more than an ounce a minute and your empty stomach full of malt liquor has resulted in a fabulous drunk that has you using the station bathroom 3 times before the train approaches…this seems to amuse another waiting passenger quite a bit… and by amuse you mean scour disapprovingly at your probably very obvious drunkenness. The train magically appears as you burst out of the pissery for the final time. You rush to collect your bag and hop on the train which begins to depart even before you've managed to commandeer an entire 4 seats. After friendly ticket punching "Marge" has left, you realize the entire back half of the coach is yours and you proceed to open the next bottle.
After finishing another half it becomes readily apparent that you are much too drunk and resolve to hide the bottle in your 4500cc pack so that it will not be found again for the remainder of the trip. The bathrooms, once more, become a familiar recreation area and the sanitizing deep blue ammonia water is an absolute thrill to watch. Goleta, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo and the sun sets over the water. Not long after the (possibly) full moon rises you doze off and wake up in LA with a mini-hangover on the horizon. In a confused and drowsy state you must decide whether or not to spend the night at your brother's place downtown or take the metro out to the beach cities.
In the middle of talking to Brother the phone cuts out, probably due to the fact you are walking into the underground as you go and so the decision is settled, make it home. You purchase a ticket and try to figure out the metro gates but eventually just walk through without sliding it through a turnstile. A voice from behind you assures you that it's ok to keep going and you turn to the man. For some strange reason he believes you might be an Argentine and questions you in Spanish. Due to the fact that the drunken slumber has severely knocked out your witt-mechanism you fail to respond with "Por supuesto Che! Y quién eres vos?" Instead you're lame and just mumble you live in the beach cities, he's noticeably confused and does the smile and nod yet still believes you're some sort of Latino.
Red. Blue. Green. The route you follow takes you through the "real" LA. You sit next to a man suspended in mid slouch fast asleep from a heavy drinking binge and only awoken when the metro police shake him and demand to see his ticket. Transferring lines you pass by an arrest and a very riled-up woman is yelling at the arrestee at how incredibly "estupido" he is. Way to rub salt in the wound.
The parents meet you at the end of the line and 13 hours later you've made it home. Reflecting back on the day you're satisfied, maybe it's the plate of ribs you're currently devouring like some ravenous creature-human hybrid, all the same…you're pleased. So what if you didn't make it more than 15 miles from your point of origin by hitchhike, if you ended up paying more for the ticket from Grover Beach than it would have cost from SLO, if it took the entire day to travel something that normally takes 3 ½ hours by car and 5 ½ by train? It punctured the hymen of hitching and provided a window to the potential of just how interesting this method of travel can be.
