Experience: Hitch-Hiker's Odyssey: Part III - "What? Me Worry?"

“… on the one hand lay Scylla, and on the other mighty Charybdis in terrible wise sucked down the salt sea water… and pale fear gat hold on my men. Toward her, then, we looked fearing destruction; but Scylla meanwhile caught from out my hollow ship six of my company… writhing were they borne upward to the cliff. And there she devoured them shrieking in her gates, they stretching forth their hands to me in the dread death-struggle. And the most pitiful thing was this that mine eyes have seen of all my travail in searching out the paths of the sea."

 

Narration of Odysseus

"The Odyssey" by Homer (translation of S.H. Butcher and A. Lang)

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On December 27th, 1971, as 20-year-old University students, my friend "L" and I possessed that perfect storm of arrogance, inexperience and desire for adventure necessary to attempt a midwinter, 6,000 mile cross-country hitch-hiking road trip from Syracuse, NY; bound for anywhere in California where we could touch the Pacific Ocean; and then back to Buffalo in time to resume classes.

 

These are the tableaux from that event, with the facts (as accurate as I can recall) softened by the passage of nearly 40 years.  The experience blog is broken into 3 installments to entice readership.  This is the conclusion.

 

Part III of III - "What!  Me worry?"    

 

Day 6:  1/3/1972:  San Francisco, California to Reno, Nevada – 225 miles

 “Into the Donner Pass”

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We realized it was time to leave California and set out for home by the Northern route.  The charm of Los Angeles and San Francisco quickly vanished as faceless rides brought us into central California in winter; a gray-brown scrubland scarred by endless highways.  We became victims of the Monday highway traffic, taking most of the day to get to Sacramento.  We were bored, I had a sore throat, and “L” was whining about living on peanut butter and cigarettes (but at only $0.35 a pack!)  Another hour in the cold did nothing to improve our mood.  To add to our misery, a young woman hitch-hiker, just emerging behind us in the twilight, was instantly scooped up for a ride.  While we were complaining of the injustice, a man driving a green Porsche pulled over.  He saw the whole episode and confessed he was also planning to pick up the girl, but since he missed his chance, his conscience got the better of him and he stopped for us.


We were skeptical that we could all fit in the sports-car with our gear.  The two seat, mid-engine 914 had both front and rear storage and our duffles fit neatly beneath the front bonnet.  I was wedged between the seats, side saddling the shift-stick, and “L” got the shotgun position.  The 40-ish driver seemed decent enough.  He claimed to be the education commissioner of California. He was driving up to Squaw Valley for a few days of skiing.  He offered us a pack of his “Lucky Strikes”, which we greedily chain smoked while chatting about everything but education.  I remarked that the 2nd or 3rd “Lucky” had soothed my sore throat.  We wound steadily upward in the dark through the mountains as growing piles of snow appeared along the roadside.


We came to the I 80 exit for Squaw Valley, somewhere around Truckee, the Donner Pass region, and we un-wedged ourselves from the warm interior, got our duffles and watched silently as the Porsche disappeared into black stillness.  We looked around but couldn’t see beyond the ten foot snow banks on both sides of the frozen asphalt trough that was our lifeline.  A few minutes passed.  Not to worry, surely there would be someone going from the Ski resorts to Reno that would give us a ride.  An hour, then two; the few cars that passed never slowed to look us over, much less stop.  We began to nervously speculate.  Perhaps drivers were frightened by our appearance in the night.  We had heard road stories of ghost hitch-hikers.  I joked that maybe we appeared to be members of the Donner Party… some 80 plus pioneers stranded in the winter of 1846 - 1847 in 20 foot snowdrifts… at just about the location where we were standing… only half of the group survived… there were claims of cannibalism…”L” wasn’t laughing.

 

We were numb but not too dumb to run to the car that pulled over for us.  It was driven by a tall, dark severe looking young man with a blonde girlfriend.  She looked like a showgirl.  They claimed to be University of Nevada, Reno, students coming back from skiing.  They chided us on crossing the Donner Pass at night, telling us that “you had been lucky to get a ride… we don’t usually pick up hitch-hikers… hadn’t you heard the rumors of cult groups along the Donner pass welcoming hitch-hikers, then murdering and eating them?... didn’t you hear of Charles Manson and his gang out there in New York?”   They were enjoying themselves, a laugh a minute.  We let them have their fun.  After a short, warm trip downhill to Reno we cautiously accepted the offer to stay over in the driver’s dorm-room.  He stayed elsewhere.  His room had no cult artifacts, but I recall it did have a zebra skin rug, which I slept on. (I understand they have now come back into style.)

 


Day 7:  1/4/1972:  Reno, Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah – 525 miles

“What is the Mustang Ranch?”

 

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Our first ride out of Reno was with a boisterous group of men, loudly dressed casino workers in their 30’s and 40’s, who were heading to a place called the “Mustang Ranch”.  After they had a few laughs on us -- we had never heard of the Mustang Ranch – really -- they informed us that it was a “whorehouse” located about 10 miles east of Reno, and had been legalized by the Storey county authorities just the year before.  Our ride was short, we didn’t ask and they didn’t offer.  They left us off at the well advertised I 80 exit that leads to the “ranch” access road.  Coming from that exit we had no trouble getting our next ride with a trucker, passing through, who wanted to hear all about our visit to the Mustang Ranch.  He looked at us with contempt when we told him we never caught a glimpse of the place or the girls.  He wasn’t that interested in New York or college stuff. (A version of the ranch is reportedly still thriving.)

 

Continuing east on I 80, we soaked in the windswept high desert and mountain atmosphere of Northern Nevada.  The air was crisp and easy to breath.  We caught scattered rides with locals and truckers.  One local was a cowboy type; lean and coarse; dirty jeans, dusty boots and filthy shirt; heading from Winnemucca to Elko because he had “run out of ‘Coors’, and when you run out of ‘Coors’, there’s only one thing you can do – go get more ‘Coors”.  124 miles seemed like a long way to go for beer, at least to “L” and myself, but we didn’t argue.  We obliged our new cowboy friend when he asked that we join him in finishing off his last six-pack of pale yellow cans with the roaring stream on the label.

There were more faceless rides through the stark beauty of eastern Nevada.  My next memory is rocketing over the string straight section of I 80 across the Salt Flats of western Utah in a 1965 Impala.  The driver was a newly-wed who expertly drove well in excess of 100 mph, with one arm around his wife, who was nuzzling him from her position in the middle front bench.  They had just been married in Reno and were coming back to Salt Lake to see her parents.  “L” and I, gazing in all directions from the rear seat, were mesmerized by the distant mountain landscapes, endless salt desert and the immense Great Salt Lake.  The scenery is not less stark in the summer.


Salt Lake City was an urban oasis.  We ended up downtown and got a ride in a VW beetle with a cheerful, stunning, blonde girl of about 20, a sophomore at Brigham Young University, who was in town doing genealogy research during the winter break.  She took us over to BYU and showed us around the campus.  She knew about central and western New York.  The Mormons had started there in the early 1800’s and still have an annual summer religious pageant near Palmyra.  She turned us over to some of her fawning male admirers.  She instructed them to allow us to stay with them in their dorm overnight.  They obeyed.  The Mormon guy students turned out to be a friendly bunch and were very nice to us.  They took us to check out the University ride board and we found someone heading to Chicago the next day.  One local phone call and we were set for the next 1400 miles.  Despite the religious atmosphere, we felt a little impure on our pilgrimage; an arranged ride didn’t really qualify as hitch-hiking.

 


Day 8: 1/5/1972: Salt Lake City, Utah to Chicago, Illinois – 1400 miles

"The End of the Road"

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The ride-board ride on I 80, across the northern plains and prairie, with a quiet, polite Mormon grad student, left me with few memories.  We shared the gas costs and the driving and rolled into Chicago early on   Thursday morning, January 6th.  “L” and I had had enough of the road and asked our ride to take us to the O’Hare airport. 

 

 

Day 9: 1/6/1972:  Chicago, Illinois to Buffalo, New York – 500 miles

"Back to the future"

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We felt a little sinful, spending our last $25 on standby flights to Buffalo, but we had already compromised ourselves with the ride from Salt Lake.  We learned that predictability alters your perception of time and travel -- less excitement -- but we had had enough unpredictability for a while.  We also were veterans of patience, it didn’t matter to us how long it would take to get a flight, lounging in a warm, dry airport, but it turned out to be not long.


When we arrived in Buffalo, I called my room-mate for a ride to the UB campus.  Except for the call to set up our ride in Salt Lake City, it was the only phone call I had made during the entire trip.  I called my family when I got back to my apartment.  My mother said she was glad I had a nice time.  She had plenty of other concerns with 4 of her 6 children still at home; ages 15, 14, 13 and 5; girl, girl, boy and girl.


We had hitch-hiked by car, truck and school bus 4,600 miles in 7 days, endured a 20 hour, 1,400 mile brokered car ride, and paid to be flown 500 miles in 2 hours, for a total of 6,500 miles in 8 days.  We had crossed the continent to touch the Pacific Ocean.  We had passed through 17 states and part of Canada.  We had been bored, amazed, embarrassed, entertained, frightened and awed.  We were well treated by our countrymen.  We had experienced much of the good that the United States has to offer.

 

 In the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 From his

 “Ulysses”


 “I am a part of all that I have met;

 Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

 Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades

 For ever and for ever when I move.”

...

 “Come, my friends,

 ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

...

 “We are not now that strength which in old days

 Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

 One equal temper of heroic hearts,

 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”