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October 15, 2002
let's try this again. i'll
let's try this again.
i'll start back from when i left vegas for flagstaff. I ended up not getting that ride out of vegas, which was to leave at 3 am, so that was ok. first folks who picked me up were english, they were a couple working on some research about natives, the hopi i believe it was. we had a good chat and apologized in kind for our fellow countrymen electing little bushy bush and blair. they dropped me off in kingman, arizona, and shortly after i set my (admittedly overloaded) pack on the ground on the interstate 40 freeway onramp 2 retired extruckers from missouri picked me up. they were cruising the nation in a chevy van with a bed in the back of it, they were really cool, we talked for a while about what it was like for them trucking, how it is to be retired now (i asked if they liked being able to take their time and not be on schedule, and one of them said, "we still seem to always be in a hurry." i guess that's something that's hard to drop), the differences in weather in our respective states (a very common topic while hitching i've discovered), and other stuff. they got me to within 30 miles of flag, and for the last hour and a half of the ride they let me sit in silence, which was welcome, usually the folks giving you a ride want to talk the whole time. as i sat behind them i felt happy and sad for them, happy cause they were such good friends and would prolly go on cruising around the country for a while longer, but sad cause one was smoking and had to hook up some sort of ventilator pump to shoot air into his lungs every once in a while, and the other, who was driving, was half deaf. i wondered how one of them would feel when the other passed away. don't know why i had such morbid thoughts, they were just good old boys. they still stopped at truckstops to shower and wash up, old habits never die i guess, they got free showers at those places when no one else did, they looked pretty pleased about that. they let me out in williams, arizona. i saw another hitcher waiting near the onramp, and went up to speak to him. amos was his name, he had a huge white beard and lived out in the countryside, had just finished building his cabin by hand, and had been waiting for 4 hours. i groaned, for this was a bad sign. but 20 short minutes later a nice lady with her daughter and a car full of laundry picked both me and amos up. quickly amos and the lady started talking about jesus, so i finished the book i'd been reading and looked at the countryside. flagstaff is at around 7000 feet, so there are tons of coniferous trees and it's all very beautiful. the laundry car lady dropped amos and i off at the railway station in downtown flagstaff, or flag as the locals call it, and i started wandering around. it was saturday, and everyone looked relaxed and happy. i stopped at an outdoor store and got directions to some nearby bouldering, and at a record store for directions to the mates of state show. then i walked up this long hill to the bouldering spot, which is right outside of buffalo park. i marched down to the rock, it was basalty and solid and looked so good, but then i realized that the sun was going down and i had to head back to town to go to the show. some other time i'll get to climb there. it was a bummer, but at the same time i was kinda realizing that flagstaff seemed a pretty good place to move to after i get back from this trip. anyways, went back into town, got vegan chile at macys, the rad vegetarian restaurant, then walked outside and some kids said, "hey, wanna go to a show?" we figured out that it was the same show, and they led me there. at the house the living room was full of folks, i got kinda quiet and did a lot of people watching, but managed to get an invitation to stay at that house so i wouldn't have to trudge back into the hills and pitch my tent in the cold ass weather. the first three bands were varied and all not so bad, they were local so the flagstaff kids rocked out a lot. finally mates of state played. they had tons of new songs, all really excellent and i can't wait for them to start recording the next record, on one song the drummer, who's name i don't know, didn't even play drums, he just sang and looked all goofy and sweet, singing to his wife. tons of people at the show knew the words and we all jumped around and sang along. afterwords i was talking to another person who was just passing through and had stopped for the show, we agreed that seeing that band made us lonesome for all the folks back home who we would have wanted to see the show with. i ended up falling asleep after most of the folks who stayed after to drink were either gone or passed out. the next morning someone made vegan potato breakfast soup, then i walked with the folks who lived there and their friends who were staying for the weekend to get coffee. they told me that every sunday this big group of folks goes to this baseball field, drinks tons of beer, and plays kickball for the afternoon. it was tons of fun, i didn't drink cause i thought i was gonna go climbing, which i didn't do anyways, so i was more sober and better able to play. they were jeering me and calling me dan reno, it felt good to make friends so quickly. that night we ate thai food then went back to the punk house and watched hedwig and the angy itch, which i fell asleep during.
this brings us to yesterday, i awoke and packed, bid my fairwells, and walked down to get vegan breakfast. flagstaff has 20000 college students, bringing the population to 60000 during the school year. it kinda reminded me of idaho, cept there aren't tons of mormons, which shouldn't mean much but the folks had a friendlier air i have to admit. while i was eating some hippy named snakebite came up and said he's run me out to the freeway onramp. it sounded good, so i let him drive me to the freeway onramp farthest toward the east side of town, not the one the punk kids said i should use. well, i sat there for at least an hour, then realized that the hippy had little idea what he was talking about, and started the 4 mile walk back to the other onramp. i must admit i did a little cursing of hippies during that walk. 5 minutes after i got to the second onramp i got picked up. which goes to show, don't take advice from hippies.
the lady who picked me up was named ann. she was originally from chicago but had lived in arizona since she'd moved back from israel, where she'd lived for 20 years. she left israel after her marriage fell apart, and somehow ended up married in arizona. right now she's in the middle of her second divorce, and had taken up smoking pot with one of the twins she'd had in israel who lives here now. she also confided that she is into speed, and spends a ton of money on it. all this information she disclosed within about 10 minutes. it's amazing what people tell hitchhikers, i sorta nodded and made sympathetic noises, trying not to flinch when she started talking about being all methed up while she cared for a retarded person, which was her job. she was supernice to me, recommending i go visit israel while i'm young, and stay on one of the communal farms to learn hebrew. it got me thinking about that again, not sure if i'll do that, but i've always thought about it. she said that she'd lived in the west bank 30 years ago and that there weren't any arabs there back then, and she felt that israel had put up with enough arab attacks as to warrant their possession of that land. she left me in winslow arizona, another small town made famous by that song "taken it easy," they actually had a corner for people to stand on and take pictures of themself. i didn't do that. it took prolly about 25 minutes to get picked up out of there, which was funny cause that "taken it easy" song is about hitchhiking and all the folks driving though gave me weird looks. one note, never expect to be picked up by anyone from california, they all drive by hardly looking over to careen off down the freeway in their shitty california driving style. anyways, a semi with a red cab was turning onto the freeway, and lo and behold, it stopped, the first time ever i've been picked up by a trucker. i hopped up into the cabs and shook hands with mike from the ukraine, he was missing half his right thumb but looked happy and not insane so i settled down inside. we got to talking, of course, his english was ok and not terribly hard to understand, he told me pretty much his life story, he'd driven trucks all over russia and ended up having two siblings killed by the kgb, so he figured it was time to get out of there. his family had lived near chernobyl, and tons of his aunts and uncles had died of radiation related cancers. mike spoke with reverence of the united states, it made me so happy for him, he had his family over here now and owned two bigrigs and a house in seattle and sponsored other from the ukraine to come over every year. he had such a good humor, he was in the middle of learning spanish and i helped him with some words. it was cool to see the scenery from the cab of a semi, such a good view, the highway to albuquerque goes through this amazing country, tons of red rocks and cliffs on the side of the road, so beautiful. actually mike said something semi profound, "sometimes you look out window and see the ocean, sometimes trees, sometimes mountains. it's all beautiful." i nodded in reverence to the outdoors. we cruised along, me smiling all big and looking at the clouds, mike offering me apples and talking about all the states he's seen. he was destined for pennsylvania, then on to ohio then maine then new jersey then somewhere else before going back along the top of the country to seattle. wow, eh? he planned to start bring his wife along so she could see the country. toward the end of our drive he started talking about jesus and how i should go to church, but i didn't let that bother me so much, seems like lately people all over want to talk to me about jesus, when i was in vegas in happened in a chinese restaurant, in flag at the macy's cafe. damn jesus, he's following me everywhere:)hehe.
i got out of the semi next to the freeway after shaking hands with mike, then walked towards a gas station. these folks in the gas station gave me a lift to a busstop where i got a ride to the city center, then a ride to near my grandma's. i called her and and she was waiting in the front yard when i walked down the block. i got a big hug.
ok more about albuquerque tomorrow, gotta go back and eat, man grandma likes to feed me. she told me a bit about my great great grand parents today, it was what i was hoping for.
thanks to sara and regan for hanging out when i was in vegas, i had a good time.
4 days till mexico.
Posted by bendan at October 15, 2002 04:46 PM
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