What A Ride: Alabama

(previous chapter)

When we showed up to Anniston, it was already dark and the party at Dw's was already going strong. Dw was an older Family member who was also Tea Time Family with Mr. Tea. He was plugged into the local music scene, and had live bands play his house nearly every other night.

I managed to get a seat on the couch, even among the crowded space, where a kitten promptly settled into my lap. After a long stretch with little smoke, the abundance in Anniston was a welcome relief that the whole caravan had been waiting on. At one point, I passed out on the couch with my boots still on, prompting those gathered to draw on my face with a sharpie, which woke me back up.

The next morning, you could tell the place had played host to a party. Enter us. The deal in Anniston was: we got to stay at Dw's while as, basically, holding camp for the Talladega gathering, take showers, do laundry, eat very well, and never have to worry about smoke; in exchange for basic work, like keeping the place clean, handling the wood work for the fires, and of course helping prepare the meals. 

After a week at Dw's, Mama Frea and Mr. Tea took a group of us to another of Mr. Tea's friends, who lived just outside of Tuscaloosa, for a mission flying signs for money for food to bring to the gathering. I also needed new socks, athletes foot medicine, and some money for food on my journey back to Ohio. We spent the weekend there, flying signs on Friday and Saturday. We weren't the only Family in the area, either. The Fat Kids Kitchen bus was also on a spange mission. 

On Saturday night, I also went out to some bars in Tuscaloosa with a member of our group that had tried busking there the night before. I laid out my trade blanket, which contained mostly wire wraps made out of the glass I had picked up in Florida. Drunk college kids are easily swayed to look at shiny things. It was rainy that night, and we had walked in the rain to get there, but we sat underneath an overhang that protected us from most of the weather that night.

When the bars closed, one of the people that had given me a kick down offered the guy I was with and I to ride back to Mr. Tea's friend with him. The guy I was with declined, wanting to spend the rest of the night in town and try to make more money. I went ahead and accepted the ride, though I probably would have been better off walking. He was swerving all over the road and neither of us really knew where we were going, so we never made it to where I was going. He offered me to go back to his place and he would run me back the next morning. I wasn't ready to stay in a vehicle drifting all over the road, so I talked him into letting me out at a gas station. 

A cop pulled up to the gas station just as I got out, so I walked up to the officer and asked him if he could tell me where a food mart near where we were staying was. Turned out there were two of them. I asked if he could take me, but he said he didn't have the authorization to put me in the vehicle. I tried to find the food mart with his directions and my memory, but only ended up lost. Eventually, I spotted a paramedic ambulance headquarters and decided to ask for more directions there. One of the details of my memory, crossing a railroad, led to me finally getting some directions that led me back to Mr. Tea's friend's house.

After the weekend, we made it back to Dw's, where we stayed another couple weeks. I would be leaving for Ohio soon to watch some friends get married on April 17th, but the weather was still warming up so I thought I'd wait it out long enough to catch a free Blues Traveler show in Anniston on March 27th. I left the day after the show, catching a ride to Union, Alabama with some people who had also been staying at Dw's. Brand X Kitchen and Mama Frea had already had their own falling outs with the group, Brand X leaving first. 

After flying a sign on the on-ramp to hitch out, a cop pulled over to inform me that flying signs, regardless purpose, was against city ordinance. Luckily, he was a friendly officer that offered me a ride out of his jurisdiction after a quick weapon pat down. I got a sticker from him too, which I put on my pack until it fell off. 

I had to stay the night where the officer had let me out, but the next morning I caught a ride through Atlanta, Georgia with a trucker. To be honest, I can't remember where he dropped me off, but it was somewhere in Georgia on I-85. I was on my way back home.

(next chapter)

What A Ride: To Ocala Part 1

(previous chapter)

One of my uncles was on his way to visit some of his family in South Carolina when I was getting ready to leave, so I caught a good ride out of Ohio. We left early in the morning and arrived just outside of Spartanburg that night. I stayed with his family since it was late, but it wasn't long before I was on my own the next morning.

I got dropped off on HW 176, choosing to avoid the interstate at first since I wouldn't be able to just walk the interstate if I didn't get a ride, as Charleston was still in the back of my mind. Then, I set off south to the tune of "Wagon Wheel" on loop in my head.

My first ride came from a friendly, older fellow that took me as far as Union, SC, then gave me a nice camouflage jacket to help keep me warm. I continued walking from there as the sun got lower and the temperature got colder.

On the outskirts of Union, outside of the actual city itself, I encountered a man named Dale, and his girlfriend. Dale had called me over to his side of the road when he noticed the large backpack on my back. In a period of "roughing it" himself, Dale was curious why I was carrying such a load around. We began to chat and ponder over the workings of the universe, synchronicity, and things happening for a reason, while I enjoyed a meal he had given me. I asked if he knew a place I could set up camp for the night, as the light was fading rapidly, still in early January. In response, he and his girlfriend called the pastor of Philippi Baptist Church of Union, who was away on church business at the time. Even though he was wasn't in town, the pastor still set me up with a room at the Magunison Motel for the night, where I was able to shower and rest in a comfortable bed.

The next day, Dale was going to run me to Whitmire, the next town over. Instead, we just ended up running around together. We hung out with some of Dale's friends, including one that gave me an extra bag with wheels to pull behind me, and one that said he'd get me to Charleston, SC the next day. And Dale ended up breaking up with his girlfriend, but that's another matter. Dale also traded me a lifesaving jumpsuit for the jacket my ride the previous day had given me. I ended up crashing out on the couch at Dale's that night.

Dale's friend gave me the ride to Charleston the next day, but it wasn't until later in the day and the sun had already set by the time we got there. I wasn't comfortable in such a big city at night when I didn't know much about the place, so I had Dale's friend take me to a free campsite in Francis Marion National Forest.

The next day was a long walk back to Charleston along HW 17. It took a few hours just to leave the forest, then another couple hours of walking before I finally caught a ride with some older black gentlemen. When they dropped me off in Charleston, a group of more blacks on a job-site gave me advise on the city bus system, then tried to outdo each other in the amount of money they gave me. Since I had left with almost nothing, that had been a welcome and needed surprise.

The bus didn't seem keen to pick me up, though. I sat at the bus stop for a couple hours as buses went passed with no sign they intended to stop. Eventually, I called the line and a bus stopped shortly after. I rode to where I'd catch the next bus, then rode that bus as far as they went towards leaving town.

I ate some Burger King before going on down the road. Some man stopped me and offered me a place to shower and rest for the night in the motel room he was staying at. Maybe I didn't have anything to worry about, but the fact that his first question to me had been how would I respond if someone took all my things, which left me with a red flag big enough to turn the offer down. He kept persisting that I stay. He was also drunk. I insisted that I wanted to cover as much ground as I could before I stopped to rest and kept walking. He stared at me for longer than I was comfortable with as the distance between us grew, which solidified my decision to keep going.

I took HW 17, also known as Savannah Highway, south out of Charleston. It was dark by the time I set up camp that night. I had wandered into some neighborhood off the highway with a path into a wooded area where I could conceal myself.

I hit the highway again in the morning, making it to a gas station where the manager gave me some cardboard and free food she was about to toss out. I put "Georgia" on the cardboard and enjoyed the gift of food while standing on the other side of the road from the gas station, trying to catch a ride. It was actually a pretty attractive woman that picked me up. She was on her way to Florida and decided to turn around and come back to give me a ride after passing by the first time.

My next destination was Richmond Hill, GA. I was supposed to meet up with another traveler on his way to Ocala there, though he was a few days behind in his journey. From there, I was supposed to continue south to St. Mary's, GA to meet up with a friend from Nelsonville, Ohio that had moved away. I made it to Richmond Hill, but those other two things never happened.

The woman let me out at the McDonald's in Richmond Hill. No sooner had I left the ride that a man, Gypsy, comes out of the restaurant and asked if I was traveling, and if I was hungry. He told me to come inside, then bought me four McChickens.

As it turned out, there were quite a few dirty kids in town at the moment. There was Gypsy, his wife Virgo, and another four kids - I can't remember everyone's names, but for the sake of anyone who may recognize his traveling name, Strings was one of the four. I include that information because I've since met many other people who've claimed to have known Strings since he was a young, naming him as an inspiration they began traveling. Unfortunately, Strings and some other kid got a ride out shortly after I got there, so I didn't really get to know him. The rest of us hung out in the McDonald's until it got late enough to go set up camp in the woods behind the restaurant.

The woods we camped in was obviously a bum camp already, with a tarp strung up for shelter and other trash around the site. After creating some bridges across a couple creeks, we could also reach some railroad tracks at a location where trains would often stop so one train could pass another. We spent the night at the bum camp, then went back to the McDonald's the next morning. We hung out there for awhile, but by around 4:00 in the afternoon we were back in the camp, waiting on a train.

We had to be quick finding a place when the southbound stopped. I was the last one on, and the train began moving again as I began stepping up on it, temporarily knocking me off balance. It was my first time hopping, so I shared a car with Virgo and Gypsy. The other two kids took the car in front of us. I decided to leave my extra bag, which had really been more of a hindrance anyway.

Being on the outside of a moving train left me pretty nervous at first, but the nerves quickly subsided once I settled into place. The view was incredible! Unfortunately, it wasn't the train we were looking for.

When we hopped, we were expecting to be in Jacksonville around 6:00 that day, having hopped around 4:00. The course the train took seemed strange to the more experienced rail-riders I was with once we started noticing the towns we were passing through. We assumed the train was headed for the station in Waycross, GA, where we might have needed to be ready to get off in a hurry, or perhaps to Tallahassee. Then, we passed right through the Waycross station without showing any signs of slowing down or stopping, confusing our party as to where we were going more, as we were now headed north-west.

While the view and experience made everything worth it, what was to be a couple hour ride into Florida became an all-night ride to just outside of Birmingham, AL. We spent the whole time joking about the ride, saying that one of us should go ask the conductor where we were going, demand the train go to Florida, or that he knew we were there and had gone off-course just to mess with us. We had, after all, passed plenty of railroad workers that either didn't see us, or looked the other way. We waved at plenty of pedestrians as we passed, including some people that slowed their car down to videotape us with their phone. I imagine the footage is on YouTube somewhere. The night was pretty cold on the outside of a moving train, even with my jumpsuit and sleeping bag. It could have easily been a longer ride to who knows where, but when the train finally finally stopped somewhere it seemed reasonable to get off in the morning, we decided the ride had already been ridiculous enough.

(next chapter)