Aug 10, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
Land is abundant in the central western states, but people are scarce, and so roads are scarce, too. Flip through an atlas and compare Utah with Michigan, or Illinois, or even Kansas. In any state east of the Mississippi, cow pathers have options. Roads crisscross to...
Aug 6, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
Hitchhiking is easy in the Colorado mountains. In Dolores, I caught a ride with Kai and Haley, modern-day hippies without peace signs or tie dye. He drove with aviators and a blond goatee, in a 4Runner packed with camping gear, food and beer, guitar and banjo....
Aug 4, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
Dustin made me nervous. The combination of a tough-guy goatee, black-on-black sunglasses, and oversized gangster shirt with way too much gold lettering made him someone I wouldn’t have smiled at had we passed on a sidewalk. A cool chin lift, maybe, but not a...
Jul 27, 2013 | the post calvin, Traveling on Trust | Blog post
Through online research and personal experience, I have discovered a few tricks to effective thumbing, so you, too, can hit the road.
Jul 25, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
“Brother, this town is delicious.” Heather leaned forward to peer farther out the windows, looking like I do when I drive through mountains. “Can you believe it? Get a look at that building.” More than twenty artist-owned galleries fill the...
Jul 25, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
I’ve had many “first experiences” in these past weeks. Seeing the North Dakota oil fields, sleeping in a semi truck, riding in a car going a hundred and ten miles per hour for half an hour. But the most unexpected was whitewater rafting. Outside...
Jul 22, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
I had my first group hitchhiking experience of the trip with two Colorado Trail thru-hikers and a crazy man. I met the hikers in Buena Vista, a town shadowed by fourteeners and well trafficked by rafting companies. The two brothers, Brian and Seth, had hitchhiked into...
Jul 18, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
Norton, Kansas Established: Feb. 26, 1867 2010 population: 2,928 Julie Winters had a good life. Good enough to feel guilty about, she said, then added, “I’m paying for it now.” That morning, like every morning, she visited her husband. They married...
Jul 17, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
A sheriff’s truck pulled into the nearby lot, and a cop got out. He was young, with short, military-style hair. “Hello!” I put my thumb down and rolled up my sign. “How’re you?” He nodded. “You’re technically...
Jul 15, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
I was hungry and sunburnt and stuck at a truck stop metropolis in northwest Indiana when I met Glen. In the two and a half hours prior, a woman going the wrong way offered me a ride, a cop checked if I was a runaway, and a dad and son asked about my story when I...
Jul 1, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
I lost my sign. My beautiful sailcloth and housepaint sign. Passengers would see it and smile; kids in the opposite lane would twist around to read the lettered side. More than half my drivers mentioned it, and many said it was the reason they stopped. But in...
Jun 29, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
The highways can surprise you. Just off two-lane MI-28, for instance, well away from so much as a gas station, I found a sculpture park, quirky and free and controversial. Lakenenland, named after its creator, is unaffiliated with any city or artist collective. It is...
Jun 28, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
“I’m not trustworthy,” Cindy said. “Every number’s half of what I say, and every story’s half as good.” She cackled, then twisted so she could wink at me, crammed in the backseat. She rode shotgun and fidgeted constantly....
Jun 26, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
I first heard about the veteran walking across America when I was still a full state behind him. “We saw him last week,” a family told me. “He’s carrying a flag all the way across the country.” And from another driver: “He’s walking from Washington to...
Jun 25, 2013 | Traveling on Trust | Blog post
I rarely wait more than an hour for a ride. The average, actually, is somewhere closer to half that. Sometimes I get out of one car, wave goodbye, and before I can even walk across the parking lot and pull out my sign, someone else pulls up and offers me a lift. Those...
