oh, word? i have been to Selma...tell us the story
welcome to the site
i think there are a few other Russian folk on the forum who are also traveling the Americas...
Two days after me and my traveling partner Hibiscus left the SF Bay Area, we had had our first good day, heading up the coast all the way up along the 101 to Eureka, and to Crescent City. We were trying to make our way up to Grant's Pass to hit the 5 to make our way to Portland, but alas. After 250 miles that day we were dropped in the good town of Selma by a nice nurse, who like everyone else between Portland and SF grew weed.
This is tiny, rural town, but there's a large grocery store that we head over and settle down outside for dinner. We chill for a while and I end up shooting the shit with this other vagabond called Possum as this woman asked us to watch her dog. (She also wanted to give him to us but we didn't have the ability to take them on at the time)
We end up sitting down and talking for a few hours, dude was hilarious and really good with impressions and we just shot the shit for a while about everything and anything as we eat and relax after a long day. About a quarter of the way through the conversation the guy offers to sell me a Marlboro Adventure Team patch for some weed and I spent the rest of the conversation thinking about it.
We keep talking, and this guy rolls up to smoke a joint with us that looks like a stereotypical coal miner and gives us a bunch of resin. This had been happening to us all the way up the coast as it appeared that everyone and their mother was either growing or smoking up here. I get decently high and just marinate in the conversation and the feeling of everything finally sinking in. I had made it. Hitchhiking worked, sleeping outside worked. Vagabonding works. It's not hard, and I felt more free and happy than I had in a while.
As we're winding down I decide I don't want to buy it and give it back to him. And then he just gives it to me, saying that "I knew you really wanted it because you didn't buy it. If you had offered stuff for it, I wouldn't have given it to you because you wouldn't have really valued it."
And then he packed up his stuff, and left
I suppose he was right. I now have the patch on my jacket, on the bottom right pocket. If anyone ever runs into him, tell him Ev has the Marlboro patch on their jacket now.
We, tired and slightly high, decide to settle down and find a place to sleep. We trudge off to the nearby woods and go a bit in and find a grove to settle down in. All of a sudden, we hear movement around us. We sweep our lights around, looking and call out. We hear and see nothing except more footsteps in the bushes.
This standoff continues for 10 minuets until all of a sudden we hear a shout
"YOU CAN'T SLEEP HERE!"
We try to say something back to the person but we get no response.
Just more walking in the bushes.
Taking this as a good sign to move we pack up and move back to the grocery store, where all of a sudden the store alarm goes off as a few figures start running in and out of the store from the back and to the woods, hollering and shouting. I don't give a fuck tbh, more power to em, but I was already spooked and wanted nothing to do with this. We retreat to the gas station across the street and plot our next move. We don't feel safe staying in town so we decide to hike down to a bar a half mile down the road and see if anyone will give us a lift to the next town at least.
When we get there there's a few people still around wrapping up the night. We give our story to the people there and this woman asks us where our ultimate destination is.
"Well, we want to get up to Portland to meet a friend of ours."
"Hmmm. Well, tomorrow I'm headed up to Seattle. Why don't you come back with me to my place tonight and you can ride with me to Portland tomorrow."
We were down instantly, a safe place to sleep and a guaranteed ride to Portland? Something good came out of being scared, at least.
We drink a round and start heading over to her place, in a rented U-Haul pickup that she got to drive around. As we're on our way there. Two facts get revealed to us. 1. This isn't her place, it's her sons place and she's here to help take care of him after a bad car crash. 2. She hasn't informed him that she was bringing two hitchhikers back to her place. This was going to go well.
We get there, and she pulls in and starts talking to him. We see the son briefly through the front door but we never speak to him, she goes in and has a conversation that involves a lot of shouting. Eventually, as we're contemplating bailing and sleeping in the woods, as this is a bit of a drive away, she comes out and says it's fine. The son has gone back to sleep and we exchange glances, too tired to worry, decide to go for it. We sit on the porch and talk for a while to get to know her better. Just a nice relaxing conversation before turning in. Nope.
Turns out the woman, Patty, was a intresting case. The best way I could describe her as is a 'Alex Jones Libertarian'. She started talking about brain chips, the EPA, Chemtrails, everything under the sun that could be described as a conspiracy theory. All while seriously smoking us out. By the end, we were trying hard not to laugh as and I was mostly going "uh huh" "yeah" "that's right" in order to seem interested. Eventually it's around 2am and we're so tired and very high, so I suggest going to bed and we finally get some blessed sleep.
We wake up the next morning around 10, and spend a few hours lounging around as Sally packs her stuff. The morning is mostly uneventful. Until we discover one of her sons cats, Kobe, has gone missing right before we're about to leave. We spend a hour looking around for Kobe, before she decides we should just get going. So not only did we strain the relationship between a mother and her son by barging in to their life unannounced, we also contributed to the loss of his cat. I doubt they're on speaking terms now.
We then have a uneventful ride to Portland, and finally escape the weirdness of Rural Oregon. Not the most exciting story, but we've just got started and hopefully will have many more.
Welcome to StP! I love to see the ukulele because I'm a bit of a musician myself. I've never written my own songs and I don't play much uke, but I'm wondering if you have?
Nah, I'm just getting started with it so I don't have the skills to do that, but I want to!
Thanks to everyone for their friendly words! See y'all on the roads/rails/whatever
