Hello, all! 20 years old from Iowa. Male. I’ve had an account on here for several years since I first hopped a train at the age of 16. Never got around to posting though. Just on here looking to meet new people, I got a couple friends I’ve hopped with regularly, but looking to expand also people with more knowledge.I do have a home to live in, pay rent to stay in a bedroom. I just make enough money to make ends meet, cause to be honest I’d be happier living under a bridge with nothing than working a full time job, but I love a woman very much so I stick around.
Started train hopping as a way to run away from home as a teen, now as an adult it’s just a way to travel and a love of mine. When things are physically easy, my brain doesn’t like it idk im strange. I’ve had extreme depression most of my life, and my only cure besides thc is struggle and adventure. I like the kind of experience where there’s points it’s so hard that it makes u rethink everything that got you to that point. Really changes your point of view on life.
I know most of what I should know, can get pretty much anywhere I’d like to, but I’d like to meet someone with a lot of experience all around the country. Most of the time when I hopped trains, I had no experience absolutely no clue what I was doing! It was bad first time I rode I hopped on a grainer in front of the bull and actually flipped him off too! (16 and dumb what can I say) Needless to say that didn’t work so well, didn’t get caught but had to wait what felt like 8 hours till it moved again. Successfully made it from Sioux City to Mankato tho, more about that crazy ass journey in one of my rambling paragraphs below.
I’ve made four longish journeys so far, from Sioux City to Mankato as previously mentioned, from Waterloo to Dubuque, and from Dubuque to Chicago and back. ( counts as two I think?) Rode many many times more than I can count to go short distances, like 5-30 miles just to get places faster than public transportation/walking.
I’ve been researching constantly lately, got myself a scanner and I’m going to be going on many long distance trips across the country relatively soon. Got all my maps and stuff good and right and I’m just paranoid enough that I have never gotten caught yet. (just meaning always looking out for workers and staying low, plus I run very fast and can sit motionless for hours)
I also happen to have a map of every abandoned bridge in half the country, ever increasing by the day. It’s also sorted by category, abandoned train bridges, crazy ass deathly abandoned bridges, climeable bridges, etc (yes, I’m probably autistic, this took half a year so far of a couple hours a day on maps)
I got at least a few nice spots to hang out at in pretty much every county! Especially Montana hope to go there.
Oh also drug wise I smoke weed pretty much everyday, I do drink, but I never buy alcohol only drink when it’s handed to me, I prefer the green. I don’t care if ya do drugs just no meth, opioids, or angry drunks.
I got your back, and I’m down for whatever if we’re traveling together. (Unless ur trying to get me to do something I definitely think I’ll go to jail for, in which case you can think of me as your lookout I guess) I mean this is the internet I could be lying but I give my word. I go with my gut, and I stay low.
First time I rode a train I rode with a guy I had broken out of a rehab facility I was court ordered to. Parents didn’t want me cause I kept running away, they didn’t want to deal with it, so I was court ordered to rehab after being caught by the police for being missing. Got drug tested there tested positive for weed n then I was off to rehab.
A lot of very interesting things happened there, long story short I broke out, was out a month, got caught n sent back and was plotting my second escape. Left with two people, a boy and a girl, and we stumbled upon a friendly, but creepy Native American fellow. We had stolen a bottle of alcohol and I yelled at him yo wanna drink. He offered me us some meth and Im smoking it with him for my first time, not good at all but I was just all fuck it at that point. He took us to this traphouse ( not tryna be rude I mean they were very nice cool place but lots of guns and drugs and scary people) Ended up kicked outta there split up with the girl, she wanted to stay I hope she’s ok I really do.
But the point of this we got a train after that and rode it through Iowa up to Minnesota. Well what I didn’t know is my escape buddy was diabetic and he needed daily shots, he never expected to actually successfully escape this long. So he’s goin into a fuckin diabetic coma like dying in front of me, when the train stopped I carried that mf down the road at least half a mile trying to make it to town. Got a ride to the nearest hospital but were promptly greeted by police officers in the hospital room cuz he told em his name and yk were missing minors. But yea just a little story so you maybe think I’m trustworthy, real shit, if we riding I got ya
I’m not a very talkative person, I usually regularly have two dialogue options, yea or hell yea. I kinda instinctively take charge, not bossy or demanding or anything like that just usually in my experiences I’m the plan guy and people wait on my like advice.
Very good head in bad situations when things get stressful my mind just calms down and locks in on the task at hand , whatever it is. Always calm my mindset is bitching isn’t gonna change shit so my attitude is always pretty optimistic
I usually stick by rules when it comes to illegal activities, such as not going in rail yards in daylight and staying hiding in trains when visible, doesn’t sound like much when I say it like that but I’ve had a lot of people tell me to chill out n not worry n it’ll be fine but I don’t like risks yk. I weigh the options and think about what I’m doing, no rush.
I do some crazy shit so if your with me and see things I do that are wack sometimes don’t feel the need to follow me, I’ll climb anything that’s climbable. I do have a criminal record, which is extra incentive not to get caught ( nothing serious, underage nicotine possession and “interfering with official acts” booked it from a cop while heavily intoxicated and changed my mind about 20 steps in, but too late) Just misdemeanors but I’m looking forward to when I can expunge my record as long as nothing else happens.
I also am in a relationship with an amazing woman so my trips will be relatively short, couple weeks at most. I’ll miss her too much.
But yea thanks for reading my little thing and hope to get to know some of you guys.
