Dee-ah-nah

Thursday evening after walking through Monterey's Cannery Row, I stopped to take a break and eat at an oceanside park. After talking to a homeless guy for a bit, a totally gorgeous young woman approached me and asked me if I would take some pictures of her (with her camera) by the ocean and on the rocks and stuff. With an accent I couldn't place, her looks told me she might be from Italy or Spain, but she was German. Her name was "Dee-ah-nah." (I didn't get the spelling.) We talked for a little bit, then from out of nowhere, she said she had to go. And she was gone. Probably for the best. --> That night I slept on a beach a couple miles from the park, about 30 feet from the ocean, sans tent. No one bothered me. --> Friday, in the middle of a very long walk, I got a ride into Carmel with a real estate agent named Patrick, I think. He drove a Land Rover or a Range Rover or something; my
second career ride in a high-end vehicle. --> I took this pic somewhere between Carmel and Big Sur.

San Simeon

I'm at the 'staging center' for tours of the Hearst Castle (which is somewhere in that picture) right now, with Gisela. Gisela is a German high school teacher. She will be taking the tour; I will not be taking the tour. I have a lot to say about the last few days, but I don't have my laptop right now because I left it back at the farm. The farm? Yeah, the farm. That's part of the story; a really good part of the story. Haven't been able to say anything lately because I was in the middle of nowhere for a couple days. I should be able to catch up a little when we get back to the farm. --> To the anonymous loserfucks who sometimes feel the need to talk shit about me in comments: You are total pussies who wish you had the balls to get out here and do what I do. Fuck you and please allow yourselves to have an original thought someday.

Big droopy titties

Well, I finally got a ride yesterday after my road ended at the 101, south of Gilroy, leaving me with nowhere to walk. The ride was from a local woman named Brandy, who was wearing a tank top (or wife-beater) with no bra. Functionally she was topless, because every time she moved, if I was looking at her, I caught an unwanted glimpse of a big, droopy, ugly titty. I like getting a sneak peek at a nice pair of titties just as much as any other hetero dude, but these weren't nice titties. The ride only got me about five miles down the road, to a pretty bad exit. Additionally, I'm out of food and I have nowhere to get more food. --> So here's a pic of my new backpack. I usually can't make it stand up like this because the sleeping bag compartment at the bottom is too small, which sucks. Mostly I really like this backpack, but it's already starting to come apart in a couple places (after
less than two weeks of really using it). I'll probably end up exchanging it for a new one.

Downtown Gilroy looks like the

Downtown Gilroy looks like the perfect place for my pizzeria that will never exist.

Coastal California

In the coastal region of California between San Francisco and Los Angeles, including those cities, the local people just will not stop to offer you a ride, regardless of how deep you may be in the middle of BFE (Butt-Fucking Egypt). Right now I can only remember receiving rides from six people in that area. (I think that's all of them; they were all last year.) Three of those drivers were from New York; two of them were from Mexico, one of which didn't speak English but still found enough kindness in his heart to give a white boy a ride and $5; and the other ride was with three 20-ish British guys touring California for about a month. --> North of San Francisco it's a totally different story, though. In northern California, people will wait in line to give you a ride and a big fat joint. --> Right now I'm walking south on Monterey Road, about 20 miles south of San Jose. I should be
about to Gilroy (the garlic capital of the world!) tonight if I don't get a ride.

Busted!

I was handcuffed yesterday for the first time in my life. It wasn't really a big deal, though; I wasn't arrested or anything. It was just a rookie CHP officer learning how to do his job. Why was I handcuffed, you may ask. Well, because I was walking along the 101 freeway south of San Jose. As is the norm when cops 'pull me over' on the freeway, these guys gave me a ride to the next exit (which was less than a mile from where they found me). It made sense for them to cuff me because unlike most police cruisers I've ridden in, theirs had no barrier between the front and back seats. It also had much more leg room than the typical cruiser, I might add. --> Shortly after my encounter with Ponch & John, I stepped into a McDonald's to fill a water bottle. Seeing Bill Maher on Larry King, I took a seat and was soon joined by a guy named Eric (Zamora?) after he inquired about my gear. We talked
for like two and a half hours. Very cool guy. I've walked all the way from SF, with much zig-zagging.

Aimless is not a love

Aimless is not a love story. Forget the rest of the story because it was too perfect to be real.

Looks like Stanford University is

Looks like Stanford University is going to make an excellent campground tonight.

No comments?

Are y'all telling me none of my recent posts are worthy of comments? Do I have to be an asshole to get comments or something?

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Aimless
Aimless Video Evidence

Are there still any Berkeley

Are there still any Berkeley students out there reading this? Or Billy Lieberknecht? If so, I'll be there in about an hour. Call me or something.

All the way

Here's a picture of Vernon. By the way, I'm still riding with him, even though he went to Buffalo while I was at the truck stop near Erie last weekend. We're leaving Dallas and heading to San Leandro, CA. --> Last night when we arrived in Dallas and exited the interstate to deliver some engines to an International plant, there was a dude unconscious in his car at a stop light. There was an older guy in another lane who had already stopped to check on him; I think he was talking to 911 when we stopped. After Vernon and I got out of the truck, I stood by the unconscious driver's window as a fire truck approached. Before the firemen arrived, the driver regained consciousness but had no idea what was going on. When his foot came off the brake pedal, he began coasting into the intersection, so I yelled in the window for him to pull the parking brake. Still not quite awake, he pulled the
lever after several seconds. He seemed more alert by then, so we took off, leaving him with the firemen.

Vernon

Leaving home Thursday July 31 just after 5:00, I embarked on a 17-mile walk to I-70 Exit 79 (Ohio), where there is a TA, a Pilot, and several fast food joints. By Friday afternoon I’d arrived at the exit, where the excessive heat and humidity had me pretty beat. Hanging around the TA fuel islands for a few hours that evening, I didn’t get a ride, but that was OK because I wanted another night of good rest before hopping into some stranger’s truck. So I found a nice place to sleep pretty early that night.

Uncomfortable with TA’s layout, I crossed the overpass Saturday morning to check out the Pilot station. Although I usually prefer TA over Pilot, I liked this particular Pilot station, partly because I found out right away that the management had no problem with me being there, as long as I wasn’t bugging drivers for money, which I never do. After a few hours with no ride offers, I walked back across the interstate for a light (cheap) lunch at McDonald’s, then returned to Pilot, where a driver immediately asked me where I was headed.

When I responded “Anywhere,” Vernon Mack told me he was going to Buffalo, then gave me the signal to come on over and get in the truck. So I climbed up into the truck and put my stuff in the sleeper, and we were gone.

A few minutes after we hit the road, Vernon, who is black with some Cherokee, German, and other blood, began telling me about one of his previous jobs. For ten years he worked at Warner Brothers Studios in LA, doing security for live-audience TV shows, a job he acquired after a chance encounter with Queen Latifah, who was largely unknown at the time. Even though I had not even mentioned my interest in making movies, Vernon proceeded to tell me about how I could land an entry-level job at WB, which could lead to cooler jobs like editing. He told me who to talk to and stuff like that. It’s something I’ll definitely look into whenever I get to LA.

Vernon’s load was bound for Connecticut, but he planned to spend almost a full day in Buffalo first, visiting his mom and various other friends and family. By the time we neared Buffalo, Vernon and I had established a healthy rapport. So instead of dropping me off in Buffalo, as was the initial plan, he ended up inviting me to hang out with him and his people, which I did. He also invited me to keep riding with him beyond Buffalo, which was a fine idea with me.

On our night in Buffalo, Vernon parked the truck behind his mother’s inner-city apartment. Shortly we rode with his sister to her house, where we hung out with her husband and one of her husband’s old friends for a while, drinking a couple screwdrivers and having some nice conversation. Eventually one of Vernon’s cousins (Cliff) showed up and took us to a barber shop in another primarily black neighborhood, where we met yet another cousin, Tony (who owns the barber shop), before going off to an apartment in downtown Buffalo, where we hung out and imbibed all night.

The next day, as we sat on the porch of the housing project where he grew up (and where his mom still lives), Vernon pointed to a third-floor apartment in the next building and told me that’s where Rick James lived before he hit the big time. Vernon had a lot of stories to tell about Rick James and some other characters that came from Buffalo’s projects, but I can’t remember enough to retell them.

Late Sunday afternoon we hit the road again, heading east from Buffalo on I-90 to southern Massachusetts, then south into Connecticut, where we spent the night before dropping the load and picking up a new load in New Haven.

Monday afternoon we passed through Norwalk, CT, where I spent a month in 1994 with Katie Hemingway before she broke my heart and sent me home. This was the first time I’ve been to Connecticut since then. Less than an hour later, in the Bronx, traffic crept along at a snail’s pace for about an hour before finally picking up some momentum in the upper tip of Manhattan as we approached the George Washington Bridge, where I finally got a good look at the beautiful and amazing metropolis of New York City. I ♥ NY, so it was difficult for me to just ride right through the city, then watch it slowly disappear from across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

Eventually I could no longer see NYC, so I turned my attention to ugly, industrial New Jersey. Soon we neared Philadelphia, but I never saw Philly because we stayed on the toll road east of the city, in the Garden State. In a nearly never-ending chain of cities that I suppose begins north/northeast of Boston, we continued until the morning hours, passing through Wilmington, then Baltimore, then the outskirts of Washington, DC, then Richmond. Only after Richmond did the hundreds of miles of continuous city finally come to an end. Finally, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, we arrived near the home of another one of Vernon’s cousins (Brad) in Raleigh, NC, where we watched some TV and slept until late in the morning.

Our trailer full of used automobile tires was destined for a small shop in Columbia, SC. As we headed toward Columbia, Vernon called the shop and found out that they close at 4:30, which meant we could not get there in time to make the delivery that day. So we pulled into a Flying J on the north side of Columbia sometime that evening and had plenty of time to relax and sleep before making the delivery Wednesday morning.

Compared to Buffalo and the rest of the northeast United States, which had beautiful weather while we were there, Columbia was HOT!!! I saw a digital sign somewhere that said it was 106 degrees. Consequently, I was glad we’d be heading north again. For the next delivery, we had to pick up in Florence, SC and deliver to Birdsboro, PA (Reading), where we did not arrive until about 3:30 Thursday morning, partly thanks to a couple dumb-ass drivers in Baltimore who, after turning their cars into accordions and basically closing the interstate, probably still haven’t learned why it’s not a smart idea to ride the ass of the car you’re following.

Thursday we picked up another load near Bethel, PA and took it to Bradford, PA (home of Zippo lighters), where we spent the night. Vernon was looking forward to a weekend in Buffalo, so Friday afternoon he went a little bit out of his way to drop me off at a truck stop in Harborcreek (Erie), PA, where I finally was able to finish writing this post (but couldn’t send it because there is no free wifi).

I was at the truck stop until yesterday afternoon. Now I'm in Kentucky, on my way to Dallas.

Unless I just can’t find any time to type, I plan to write more about my adventures with Vernon. So keep an eye out.

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Aimless
Aimless Video Evidence

Columbia South Carolina

I've been riding with Vernon ever since Ohio. We had a delivery to Columbia, South Carolina this morning, and now it looks like we're going back to Pennsylvania, near Philly. I have a lengthy draft of a blog post taking shape in the laptop, but I'm not finished drafting it and it's not always easy to find free WiFi when you're riding around in a truck. (Most truck stops have WiFi, but you have to pay $15 to $20 monthly to access it. That's total bullshit.)

Raleigh, Norph Carolina.

Raleigh, Norph Carolina.

New York City!

New York City!

We're now in Springfield, Assumchusetts,

We're now in Springfield, Assumchusetts, about to enter Connecticut. I'm still riding with Vernon, who picked me up in Ohio. More to say later.

Being so close to home,

Being so close to home, I switched to "Anywhere" mode, rather than heading west right away. As a result, I'm on my way to Buffalo.