Johnny Lightspeed
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2009
- Messages
- 153
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- 47
In September, after a summer of blundering my away across the country and back I decided I would go to california alone and get my day labor on in order to scrape up enough money to buy a prospectors tent and enough supplies to live somewhat autonomously in a warm place until the frost broke and the whole US was fair game again. This was my goal at least.
I was saying my goodbyes to my friends in Boise (hometown) after a short visit before I hopped west outta the Nampa, ID trainyard. Pretty much out of nowhere I started talking to this girl and told her how I was leaving the next day and such. Turns out she was from Nampa so she said she wanted to watch me catch my train. I said okay so the next day I took the nampa express bus from Boise and met her at the hop out spot. For some reason the hotshot I needed to ride straight through the hinkle yard wasn't showing up so she waited right there with me under that bridge for almost two days. By the second night I had collected three more friends who wanted to go cali so we were sitting under that overpass drinking a little when our train showed up and was gaining speed (CC must've been a little more east for some reason). I had this plan to give her this rose I picked and immediately run off and catch my train. I had everything all set to go so I handed her the rose and ran down the embankment towards the train but by the time I got there it was going way to fast. FUCK so I walk back up to the girl who was still waiting and I was all embarrased of my botched attempt to be all cute and shit.
My 3 friends and I said fuck it and caught the next drag that showed up and decided to get off in La Grande and figure it out from there. The ride ended up being really awesome. Perfect weather, plenty of smokes and food, and a nice boxcar right next to the rear dpu on the longest train I have ever ridden. Never did see the front of it. We met some old ex-brakeman guy in La Grande who took us in for a night of drinking at his place. In the morning the guy called his friends down at the UP office in La Grande and asked him what kind of trains were coming through that day (still lookin for a DS). They said a DS would be coming in a few hours. We decided to split up in groups of two to just hitch the rest of the way anyways. The brakeman guy dropped us off a mile west out of La Grande along I-84 which I realized was also the WBD CC for La Grande when after a few hours of unsuccesful hitching I saw said doublestack coming around the corner at a slow pace. I waved my big sign that said "PDX" at the conductor and he replied with a honk and a heavy foot on the brake. I still tell myself he stopped for us but I know thats probly not the case. We climbed into a 48 well and took in the scenery of that mountain range between La Grande and Pendleton which was pretty epic. We also were parked at the Hinkley yard for 4 hrs and afterwards we slept through our portland stop and hopped off on the fly somewhere in the region of Mt. St. Helens.
Long story short said lady told me when we I was waiting for that train that she wanted to go to california with me so I told her that I'd find a place to live and come back and get her. A few days later I got a ticket trying to hop south outta portland so I said fuck it and came back and got her. After a few days of finding her gear and stuff we were off to california again. I ended up finding a place to live in Oakland before I even got there so it worked out perfectly except it wasn't in the woods at all but it was an awesome place (if your ever in berkeley/oakland check out the prince street house). Well we ended up fucking up that living situation but thats a whole 'nother story. We're still together and we got a temporary living situation again
I was saying my goodbyes to my friends in Boise (hometown) after a short visit before I hopped west outta the Nampa, ID trainyard. Pretty much out of nowhere I started talking to this girl and told her how I was leaving the next day and such. Turns out she was from Nampa so she said she wanted to watch me catch my train. I said okay so the next day I took the nampa express bus from Boise and met her at the hop out spot. For some reason the hotshot I needed to ride straight through the hinkle yard wasn't showing up so she waited right there with me under that bridge for almost two days. By the second night I had collected three more friends who wanted to go cali so we were sitting under that overpass drinking a little when our train showed up and was gaining speed (CC must've been a little more east for some reason). I had this plan to give her this rose I picked and immediately run off and catch my train. I had everything all set to go so I handed her the rose and ran down the embankment towards the train but by the time I got there it was going way to fast. FUCK so I walk back up to the girl who was still waiting and I was all embarrased of my botched attempt to be all cute and shit.
My 3 friends and I said fuck it and caught the next drag that showed up and decided to get off in La Grande and figure it out from there. The ride ended up being really awesome. Perfect weather, plenty of smokes and food, and a nice boxcar right next to the rear dpu on the longest train I have ever ridden. Never did see the front of it. We met some old ex-brakeman guy in La Grande who took us in for a night of drinking at his place. In the morning the guy called his friends down at the UP office in La Grande and asked him what kind of trains were coming through that day (still lookin for a DS). They said a DS would be coming in a few hours. We decided to split up in groups of two to just hitch the rest of the way anyways. The brakeman guy dropped us off a mile west out of La Grande along I-84 which I realized was also the WBD CC for La Grande when after a few hours of unsuccesful hitching I saw said doublestack coming around the corner at a slow pace. I waved my big sign that said "PDX" at the conductor and he replied with a honk and a heavy foot on the brake. I still tell myself he stopped for us but I know thats probly not the case. We climbed into a 48 well and took in the scenery of that mountain range between La Grande and Pendleton which was pretty epic. We also were parked at the Hinkley yard for 4 hrs and afterwards we slept through our portland stop and hopped off on the fly somewhere in the region of Mt. St. Helens.
Long story short said lady told me when we I was waiting for that train that she wanted to go to california with me so I told her that I'd find a place to live and come back and get her. A few days later I got a ticket trying to hop south outta portland so I said fuck it and came back and got her. After a few days of finding her gear and stuff we were off to california again. I ended up finding a place to live in Oakland before I even got there so it worked out perfectly except it wasn't in the woods at all but it was an awesome place (if your ever in berkeley/oakland check out the prince street house). Well we ended up fucking up that living situation but thats a whole 'nother story. We're still together and we got a temporary living situation again
