Kurado's hitchhiking. Pick that nigga up!
 

How's this for a random topic. You guys ever hitchhike? Attempt it? Any interesting stories?

I've only done it once, and it was last December. Kind of a fun adventure because we hitchhiked to the beginning of the volcano trail and afterwards, Thank God, we managed to hitchhike back down to the main highway back to the capital. Most of the vehicles on that route were trucks so it was cool because people seem to be cooler about giving you a ride when you're not actually within the vehicle with them.

Guess if I were a woman I'd be more worried about freaks like the Want Ad Killer.

Never regardless of who the hell it is. I'd be too scared to anyway. I feel sympathy for them, but that's their problem.

I've never tried it myself either way. Who knows what kind of crazy characters are in that car that picks you up.

I don't think I'd ever hitchhike, and I sure as fuck would never pick up a hitchhiker. I like to go by the saying 'live and let die.'

Given today's social climate, I don't really expect anyone to say they'd pick a hitcher up, even if I disagree. That's probably because I've both hitched and picked them up though.

Nobody that ever picked me up really scared me. A couple of close calls, but those stories are too long to tell here. Lots of pick-ups by the police (as it's illegal in the US). Mostly guys picked me up, though a few ladies did. I've only ever seen two hitch hikers, and the first one was before I was old enough to drive. The second one was just this past month, naturally, I picked him up.

I admit, if I didn't have this thing hanging from my groin I'd probably have been a little scared. But I do, so I wasn't.

But yeah. I'm a hitch-hiker. Some of my friends even call me Hitch, though it hasn't caught on (I'm glad for that). I've thrown some shit down into my journal, so if anyone's actually interested in what a modern day hitcher might meet.. go for it. Start here. The hitching entries should be easy to spot.

Mental note: Refer to FF as "Hitch" from now on.

=O

Come on guys. I'd like to see the statistical likelyhood of a madman picking you up.

As I understand it, rapists are far more prevelant than madmen. That's the reasoning behind being happy for a dick. If a madman picks you up you have about a 50/50 chance of getting out of that car alive anyway.

Your odds increase greatly if you're carrying a BIC Pen.

Story from a cell mate I had:

"My friend told me he was hitchhiking when a dude picked him up. After about two minutes the guy told him that they either had to have sex or fight, but he wasn't getting out of the car without doing one or the other. Dude chose to fight, driver pulled over, and basically beat his ass and left him there. Drove off."

There's really no winner there.

Your friend should have had a pen. Really man, what was he thinking?

I've only had to do it once to get to school. I got picked up by a cop, though, so it wasn't that exciting.

Won't help you if it's a gay rapist. I hope you always carry a pen on you.

So, what's it feel like riding in the backseat of a police vehicle?

Dude better look like the guy in your avatar if he's going to rape me.

When I was in Girl Scouts we took a mother-daughter trip to Big Bear and stayed in a cabin for the weekend to be in the snow. About 9 of us girls and the troop leader decided to go out on a hike and we thought that the road we ended up at would curve back around to the cabin, but it didn't. We just kept wandering until we finally found someone to talk to. It turned out we were miles away from where we were supposed to be, so the guy offered to give us all a ride in his van back to our cabin. The leader agreed because she had no clue how to get back there. She also got in tons of trouble for doing so.

There's no chance I would pick up a hitchhiker. I've seen plenty of them, but they're always scruffy old guys with beards large enough to hide three knives, a revolver, a broken bottle, and a full bottle of booze. I'm sure the vast majority of them are probably decent people, but why take the chance of getting car-jacked, stabbed, etc.?

I'm all for helping out my fellow man, but that's just an unnecessary risk. Walking (probably) won't kill them.

Usually cops are cool about it. I only had a few bad run ins with the authorities, most of the time they'd take me down the road or buy me a hot meal. Shit, one officer didn't even know it was illegal in the neighbooring states.

Christinajon, I used to think Girl Scouts were all bitches. I now see the error of my ways.

And Tritoch, do I look like a scruffy old guy? Regardless, you're right. They are nice guys. All the other hitchers I met were like that, and they always left me with words of walking wisdom. A guy I met during a particularly long dry spell was the one to explain to me why you should always carry a pen.

I should preface this story with a note: My mother is a clinically insane woman who ironically was a crazy hippie ex-hitch-hiker extraordinaire. This was years ago, so none of us had any cells.

We were up near the Kancamagus Pass near the New Hampshire border while we were camping a few summers ago. We had my mom, my sister, Steve and Eddie (friends) and myself in a minivan, ready to hit the river with all of our inflatables.

Turns out the van broke down a few miles off the target. So we all got out, poked at the engine, and had a good old time being us. Mom was stressed and had no idea how to get us all off the road and into a safe place.

SO. She thought it would be a good idea to HITCH-HIKE US A RIDE.

A fucking Mainer priest pulls over, driving a tiny little Toyota. He says his church is just down a ways, and he can give us a ride into Fryeburg - a VERY small town just down the road.

My mother agreed to take a ride from him. Tricky part? She was staying behind with the van to wait for AAA.

The four of us kids were ELATED to go for a ride with a strange man, though. We were stupid and oblivious, and agreed happily.

We get into the car with the old man. He starts talking about UFOs and the "crazy things" he has seen in the area. At this point, we all kind of look at each other and stifle laughter.

We all did eventually get safely to Fryeburg. But we still talk about this WEIRD PRIEST to this day.

There are other little incidents with my friends Jenn and Sarah. We would walk around in the cold for hours and those two would just get so sick of walking, they'd try to hitch back to their home area. I never took a ride, and always walked home alone, in the cold, through some nasty neighborhoods of the city in the middle of the night. I don't know which is safer. =/

We also recently took a ride from two men in Knoxville, Tennessee. We were looking for food, and the bitchass hotel lady gave is really bad advice. We took the bus down to some part of town where there were nothing but BARS, and no food.

So we were asking people where there was a good restaraunt. Two guys told us they knew of some place called the Silver Spoon or some shit, and they would drive us.

I was all "UH THATS NOT A GOOD IDEA, GUYS. We're totally out of our element." But 2 against 1. We took the ride.

And they got us COMPLETELY fucking LOST. They were drunk, I think. They couldn't even find The Silver Spoon. They pointed out an Denny's and I was like "NOTHX" (what is WITH you southerners and Denny's?!?!) and we got sick of letting them drive us further and further out of the city at that point.

Concerned we'd never find a bus or taxi or whatever to take us back in to Knoxville being any further out, we told them to just pull over - we'd find something on foot. They seemed puzzled, but did so kindly.

And the reason I wasn't driving that night was because I had driven about 1200 miles that day and did NOT want to get back in the car.

Shame. Even Sass has more balls than some of you fucks.

You say that like it's news.

PM from last night, as I can't have Capo go thinking he's original.

Well. :(

To contribute, I've never hitchhiked myself, although I would if the situation called for it. I don't see a problem there, as I feel I could handle myself in most cases of physical dispute. If he pulled a gun, I'd be fucked but that's the risk you take hitchhiking.

My dad, on the other hand, has told me of his many hitchhiking adventures. Most notable, though, was the time in the early 70s when he and a friend hitched rides from Pittsburgh all the way down to Miami for a protest against President Nixon. When he got there, Carlos Santana ended up playing them all a free concert. Even better, on the way back a guy took him and his friend from Northern Florida back to Pittsburgh. =D

A couple friends and I accidentally hitchhiked once, but it was only for like a half mile :P

We were walking from the high school to the middle school for basketball. It was winter and we were not well dressed for the snow on the ground. This lady in an xbox sized SUV stops and offers us a ride, very casually as if she knew us. I'm thinking "oh my friend must know her," and my friend was thinking the exact same thing about me. It turns out among the three of us, NO ONE KNEW this lady. We realized that midway through the ride and sort of got freaked out. She was talking about how she euthanized dogs for a living, and she had all the equipment in the trunk and she was going to put a dog down after she dropped us off. Very unnerving...

It all turned out fine, but those three or so minutes were kindy creepy :P

I have never hitch-hiked, and I have no intention of doing so. There was one time that I could have done with hitching a ride, seeing as how it was raining and I had 5 miles to walk. But I decided against it seeing as how it was getting late on, and who knows what comes out the woodwork at that time of night.

A lot of them are. That's why I quit in middle school.

No, I meant that all the hitchhikers I've actually seen on the side of the road were scruffy old guys like I described. I'm not trying to generalize that all are like that.

I think I'd pick up a woman hitch-hiker, especially if she had kids with her or something. Granted, thats probably how the crazies trick you but I mean... I'd think it'd suck standing out in the rain with kids to deal with.

Not many hitch-hikers left because of cell phones though. I knew one kid that hitch-hiked from my college to a city 20 minutes away in Vermont... thought he was crazy, mostly because that's pretty much how he introduced himself to me. "Hey, saw you on facebook, thought you'd be cool because you're the only girl I've seen not wearing pearls or holding a red cup... I just hitch-hiked to Brattleboro, wanna be friends?" O_O