Who was the first memorable person you met on the road?

[Jimmy Beans]

Less who and more so what about them made them or the experience you shared with them memorable to you?

I'll go first.

I was a conductor for Union Pacific railroad, it was 2004 and I was commuting from Fresno where I lived(still do) to Bakersfield to take the southbound trains down to West Colton/Long Beach. We'd return usually the following day back on a northbound to Bakersfield and from there I'd drive the 111 miles back home to Fresno again.

I did that routinely for a long while and one particular evening I happened to spot a hitchhiker out of the corner of my eye just as I left Bakersfield northbound. I got off the highway a couple miles later at the first available off-ramp and then drove all the way back to offer the guy a ride. I'd never picked up a hitchhiker before but it just occured to me then, why fucking not?

He and I were in our twenties, his name was Greyson and oddly half his mustache was grey, just some random birthmark of sorts that happened to coincide with his given name(or so he told me anyway). He was the first traveler I'd gotten to know, and I feel like he opened my eyes to something I hadn't really given much thought to at all before that.

We got along so well I drove him past Fresno where I was heading and took him an additional 200 miles or so to Roseville and dropped him off at the Amtrak depot where he said he was trying to reach that night. I hadn't even realized people still hopped freight trains when I met him, I figured it was some great depression shit long since dead but he told me he intended to catch one near there.

We rocked out to Initial State - Abort The Soul , that was my shit back in the day. As we talked he just blew my fucking mind with stories of travels and warfare he'd been involved in against loggers using porcelain spikes and various other rigging devices. I'd love to hear an update from that guy if anyone happens to know him.

I credit that guy for my first boxcar ride even though he wasn't on that train. I might not have approached the group of travelers who befriended me and invited me to hop a train with them had Greyson not previously introduced me to the realization that people actually still rode freight.

Meeting Matt Derrick may not have happened if not for Greyson, finding this awesome community, making all the friends I've made on the road, all of it. Greyson certainly played a pivotal role in how my life would turn out and he probably doesn't even know.

So how about you, who sticks out in your mind?

 

[Whereamiwhatdoido]

Great story of how one free-spirit like Greyson affected your entire life. I think for a great part, that is the kind of impact I desire to have on people when I go hitchhiking.

My person in mind was a very different type of story.

I had been living a life in Denmark which I thought was trivial and a downward spiral, with a lot of hard drugs and alcohol. I was only 19 so I wanted to see something new.

A friend of the family was a long-going lorry driver, he went regularly from Denmark and down in the French wine-making societies near Bordeaux. As I desired to start a massive euro-trip I rode with him and got off in Bordeaux.

The plan I had when leaving was to walk around the entirety of Southwest Europe, it just so happened that walking with a weighty backpack was a lot harder than I had imagined. And so I started hitchhiking, amazed at how well it went I soon came to the university city Montpellier on the mediterranian coast.

Montpellier struck me as a mecca, there were tons of young people, of all different sorts. There were homeless people, more than I could count and I thought to myself that I fit in. I met a characteristic young guy, he was 24 and had just come to the city wanting to deal drugs on the streets.

So this guy had major impacts on my life, but he's not the person I want to describe here.

My new gotten friend had a couch, a lowrider 2 person couch, comfy as heck. He scored us Lsd and suggested me to keep a mantra "full power" as I got tripping. It worked, god it was unbelievable how high I got. So on the second or third day, miracously I was still high in the skies.

So sitting in this couch just experiencing the extremity of staying high, minding my own business with my friend sitting crosslegged on his skateboard infront of me. This person showed up. He sat next to me on the couch. He was a gypsy.

For three days straight he stayed around. He didn't talk much. He didn't ever tell me his name. He bitched a lot when there was no weed around.

One morning he wasn't really that happy easygoing gypsy anymore, and on the sight of the police patrolling he started acting as a gorilla. In France that's considered illegal, as you should show respect to the police by law. This guy didn't. He was beating his chest and acting up. Taking off his shirt these policemen decided to deal with this guy.

Man the scenario that unfolded was so hilarious. The three coppers tried to grab him. He was like an eel to them. Haha. He was all over them man. Running through their legs, walking on hands and feet, chest up he looked like a spider as these copper just couldn't get their hands on him.

He ran up in the trees, hanging there as an orangutang screeming uhuhuhuh shaking the branches.

This was so funny. He got down on the ground and they continued the chase for another 5 minutes, him diving through their legs and them running around with their pride being broken by this guys agility. In the end they got him cornered up, it seemed, and the guy dived into the parks pond head first.

Showing balls and all, the police were outsourced as they didn't follow him into the murky water. As the gypsy guy sensed his victory he went to the brim of the pond, forcing the police to step in and get him out themselves.

The guy was enforcing that I'd please care for his dog and I did.
I met him a few days later, it seemed like the police had given him a shower and a new dress before letting him back on the streets. He was fresh as ever and overly happy to get his beloved dog back.

Never saw the gypsy guy again but meeting him made my life a very different one for the following months, as I with the occupy movement moved into the trees in the forementioned park in Montpellier. I credit this guys free-spirit as the influence that changed my views on life.

 

[Deleted member 2626]

Monkeywrencher hell yes! And one would be an old head I had met on amtrak on the way to new mexico. He taught us some things and said about how even in his fifties he had just hitched weat to east with his lady and was then headed to Colorado for work. Every stop hed smoke a joint or spliff right in front of everyone. And said if you smell like shit they never know. He was a genuinely happy dude it seemed. And my last rideshare from va to co i rode with two people my age who farmed and raised goats and we crossed the country in a 75 i believe vw bus. They were self sufficient folks. Lived off crafts goat cheese and herbs. Very organic folks.

 

[Desperado Deluxe]

On my first real travel experience. I left my house tried to hitch and stood there for about an hour and finally gave up and took the bus to the next town.

From there I hitched and someone gave me a ride and dropped me off in the middle of nowhere which was normal because there was a junction in the highway and my ride wasn't goin all the way in my direction. So walking along someone else picked me up and invited me to their house. He seemed like an alright guy so I agreed.

We sat up all night drinking whiskey and talking to an old man with a thick southern louisianna accent. Talking all this stuff about weird conspiracies about famous people. The others said "do you get what this guys is sayin?" I nodded, I had no fucking clue what he was sayin.. The house was nearly empty due to the fact they were moving soon so I fell asleep on the floor of the living room.

I got up early the next morning to some coffee said my goodbyes and started towards the bus station. I got there and there was an older hitch hiker guy who said "hey there!" He was in his mid to early fifties drinking beer from a coleman cooler. In a strange way he reminded me of my uncle he said where you headed to? I said up north. He said well you can tag along with me I'm headed up to paso robles. So we rode the bus and talked along the way told me value able info on where I could pick sage. Strangely enough one of the other passengers on the bus was a lady and her son that I would see for years to come when I travelled through the area although I've never said a word to her.

We made it to san luis obispo and we had a couple minutes before the next bus came and we took turns taking a piss on the side of city hall. We got on our bus and continued to paso. I asked him about SLO and he said it was a nice town. We got to paso and ran into another hitch hiker about the same age. He was tall skinny and awkward and aged by many suns on the road. It was the first guy I met who's birthday it was and we got some weed and beer to have for the evening.

We went under a bridge and camped for the evening. We sat for hours with them telling me stories of their travels. Really quite simple really but imagine an 18 year old kid hearing of two old travellers life on the move. It blew my mind. The first said about how his life of travel started when he blew up part of a mountain in arkansas and was banned from the state. The other told of how he was robbed at gun point by a twelve year old native kid on a rez in arizona. The first told of getting a prostitute and having such a "good" night with her that he woke up with all his money still there and she was gone. The second talked about how he was sitting under a bridge and with a train coming by a guy jumped off it with a giant duffel bag of weed and just left it there taking off running. They continued on of nights of getting stuck in the snow, crazy city nights with crazy women, making a killing off of flying a sign. The next day the first guy said you can catch bus up in king city. Just fly a sign saying "king city" over there.

I did so and a trucker stopped and gave me a lift. And here I was the new generation of traveler to explore and experience all the wonders of this world having been inspired by two old hobos that had seen it all and been through it all having shared their experience with me. This was the start of a great odyssey.

 

[salxtina]

Me and this runaway teenager and a bunch of other misfits were all camping on the land of this old ex-professor for a while, who'd gotten fired for bringing acid to school, and was seriously convinced he could read all of our minds, that was interesting...

Then in my hitching-around-the-country journey last year, I was making my way back south after visiting my mom's house, and this trucker picks me up, and looks at me and goes, "hey, I get it! you're a lesbian, aren't you?" I just go, "yeah, sure," tho I'm not, and he says, "well, that's okay! there's nothing wrong with that!" He's texting while we ride, and the next exit we get to, he stops and says his friend is coming by in 20 minutes who just got some heroin, asks if I want to join them, says he'll be on the road again within an hour.

So to this man's credit, he's being generous and not homophobic, I guess? But no way I'm getting on the road with a driver who just shot up, also I can get out of here way faster than an hour. So I go to leave, and he says, "Wait, are you a cop?" and after assuring him I'm not a cop and thanking him for the lift, I walk back to the ramp.

And the next guy who stops, also a trucker - is, like, this Vietnamese saint, honest to god.
He's both a trucker and a pastor at this little church, he keeps showing me pictures of his grandchildren. He insists on serving me homemade rice and fish-cakes with green onions out of a cooler. And it's early spring in the Shenandoah valley, and he spends the whole ride whistling softly along to Vietnamese pop songs on his radio, and drives me clear down to Tennessee.

 

[kokomojoe]

Me and this runaway teenager and a bunch of other misfits were all camping on the land of this old ex-professor for a while, who'd gotten fired for bringing acid to school, and was seriously convinced he could read all of our minds, that was interesting...

Then in my hitching-around-the-country journey last year, I was making my way back south after visiting my mom's house, and this trucker picks me up, and looks at me and goes, "hey, I get it! you're a lesbian, aren't you?" I just go, "yeah, sure," tho I'm not, and he says, "well, that's okay! there's nothing wrong with that!" He's texting while we ride, and the next exit we get to, he stops and says his friend is coming by in 20 minutes who just got some heroin, asks if I want to join them, says he'll be on the road again within an hour.

So to this man's credit, he's being generous and not homophobic, I guess? But no way I'm getting on the road with a driver who just shot up, also I can get out of here way faster than an hour. So I go to leave, and he says, "Wait, are you a cop?" and after assuring him I'm not a cop and thanking him for the lift, I walk back to the ramp.

And the next guy who stops, also a trucker - is, like, this Vietnamese saint, honest to god.
He's both a trucker and a pastor at this little church, he keeps showing me pictures of his grandchildren. He insists on serving me homemade rice and fish-cakes with green onions out of a cooler. And it's early spring in the Shenandoah valley, and he spends the whole ride whistling softly along to Vietnamese pop songs on his radio, and drives me clear down to Tennessee.

That's like a sign for avoiding the heroin trucker, getting picked up by a pastor trucker. Crazy.

This is a tough question cause I've met a lot of memorable people, so here's a couple stories.

I guess this ones memorable because it was some of the first real, solid travelers I had met on the road.

It was this dude and his girlfriend in Boulder CO. Didn't get their names sadly, as is the case a lot of the time. They were hippies and I totally get why some people dislike some of the more obnoxious, passive-agressive type of hippies but these people were super chill and just hilarious to be around.

We'd go in some alley to smoke and then go on Pearl street to fly. He'd juggle and she'd play her uke, they never wore shoes either. My roaddog, who was a friend from my hometown who had done a fair amount of hitching before, and I were bummed cause neither of us had any busking skills or any other way to make money besides flying and they were just so encouraging, saying all these simplistic things we were good at which sounds dumb but at the time it was like, "yeah you're right, fuck yeah thanks."

I guess what makes them so memorable to me was the fact neither had a whole lot of gear and they were just these dirty happy motherfuckers. Although I had acknowledged it was possible to live a happy non-materialistic life it was just that these people verified it and to this day they were still some of the most genuine people I had met.



The other most memorable group of people I met was in San Francisco.

Their names were Gingey, Josh, Devin, Sergio, and Jimbo. It was weird cause I saw all of them in Portland before and didn't talk much to them. We exchanged some yelling in the distance one night and I yelled, "I love you" at who I later figured out was Sergio, he said "nahh it's too late" forget what started this, just typical random drunken exchange of words I suppose.

So I hopped out towards San Fran the next morning by myself. Rode all the way to Roseville and slept alot of the way, still saw some scenic shit but had a nice grainer that kept me dry in the sprinkling rain. From there I tried hopping to Oakland and got a Lathrop IM instead. Made it back to Stockton and just took Amtrak for $17 to San Fran. After a couple days in San Fran I made my way to Golden Gate Park where I saw these people again.

When I saw Sergio, who's pretty distinct looking, I was like "hey fucker I love you" and he was just kinda what??? and I was like remember in Portland? He said, OHH Yeah, that was you? So I just started shooting the shit with him and later met the rest of them. Josh convinced me to go to Santa Cruz with them before heading back east and I was pretty, ehhhh, at first and then decided why the hell not. We rode caltrains from San fran to San Jose joking about how "traincore" we were. We stopped in San Jose for a night or two. We busked cause I had a harmonica I could kinda play at the time. Josh and Devin played guitar, Gingey played banjo, Sergio washboard, and Jimbo spoons. There weren't many other travelers in San Jose so we made bank busking as this giant band. Got a 30 brick of rolling rock and drank under this cool bridge playing cards and the next morning Sergio called a friend he knew there that came to feed us at the bridge.

We got on a bus to Santa Cruz and chilled on the beach and drank in the woods. I had a good amount of money saved from a previous job so I bought everyone acid one night and we were chilling in this parking lot and met this one chick and her boyfriend who on first impression seemed homosexual and she let us crash/shower at her place. A couple other dudes were living with her there and she was your run of the mill trustie. Not that I'm anti-trustie or anything like that but just giving you an idea for the sake of the story. They were just crashing there and using her address to get food stamp cards in the mail and splitting. ANYWAYS that night we were there coming down from our acid we heard her and the dude we thought was homosexual fucking very loudly in her bedroom. The dude came out of the bedroom into the kitchen completely naked and started cooking beets and casually talking to Devin at the table. We were on the balcony watching the whole thing laughing our asses off. The next morning she seemd batshit crazy so we just sorta split.

While in Santa Cruz we also found old wristbands for the little amusement park on the pier and rode literally everything for free. One of the fondest memories from the road with all those guys for sure. Can't wait to see them again.


Sorry for making this so lengthy, just really started getting the memories rolling.

 

[uniparemassilmas]

I'm not gonna tell any long story, but for shortly: 2013, I left my home country to travel for half a year and my family was not so happy about it. Well, they were happy that I will explore around and see things, but they seemed to be really worried as well. Although I am grown up, I think I will always be "little girl" for them, as I come from big (kind of big: 4 kids) family, then being youngest is not always so easy ..and on the second month of my trip I met a girl, who was traveling by bicycle all alone all the way from Sweden to India. We met in Austria, and I started to follow her stories in FB, and yeah: she managed to get to India, stayed there quite long time as well, found another traveler and now they are together and still traveling. Her story just inspired me to travel more and not be afraid to do it alone, as a small girl.

 

[roguetrader]

June 1990 - 16 years old, en route to my first festival and its Glastonbury - the big daddy....we thought we were so cool, master criminals coz we had a scam to get 6 people in on the back of 2 tickets. I'd lost the others somewhere on the way and was trundling down the road in my best teeny punk outfit when a brightly painted coach (big bus) slams its brakes on next to me - " Oi mate yer not fucking walking are ya ? Get in here ! " ..... so i climbed on board and suddenly i"m WAY out of my depth - the whole thing was packed with 'real' travellers - clad in military surplus clothing, crusty and stinking, mohawks, dreadlocks, homemade face tats, crates of Special Brew (9% loopy juice) and the air thick with hash smoke.....
In those days the festival let genuine, full time 'hippie travellers' (media term) pull on for free and the driver of the coach offered to take me in to their field. Oh how they roared with laughter when i admitted that id bought a ticket ! But they were nice and friendly and chatted to me, got me a little bit drunk and very stoned and told me to come see them if i needed any 'supplies' during the festy. i jumped out near the main gate with a big grin on my face, totally hooked already - i now knew what i wanted in life.... and here i am 25 years later - big lorry, pikey trailer, many miles to my name but i'll always remember these people and if any little newbie wannabe comes along i help 'em out as much as i can and try and avoid the 'superior' attitude that i see many others adopt. We were all green once.

 

[landpirate]

moved this to people and cultures section.