Hitchhiking: The Greatest Game I've Ever Played

Back to hitchhiking, VERY promply get picked up by a married couple of bikers with their young son. They're heading back to a big bike convention in South Dakota called "Sturgis". Oddly enough, we enjoyed more pot with them, while their child and dog were in the car with us. I felt a bit bothered by that, but I'm in no position to be a family councelor from ther. They takes us into Minnesota and drop us off about a half hour into the state. We thank them for their hospitality (read: pot) and we get back to hitchhiking.

It takes us about an hour because it's getting dark and people are a LOT less willing to pick you up when it's dark, but another semi ends up pulling over. I don't remember the guy's name but he looks like my friend Bobby, so his name is now Bobby. Bobby is a weird fucking guy. It was about 90 outside that day but for some reason, his cab has the heat ALL the way up with the windows closed. He also has an AWFUL hearing problem. I had no idea how difficult it is to make bullshit smalltalk with someone who can't hear. "Nice to meet you." "What?!" "Thanks for the ride!" "What the fuck did you say? You gotta speak up." "Ok, later" "Wait, HUH?!" Fuck it, he was going to St. Paul. We'd go through hell to be dropped off exactly where we need to be. I fell asleep in the sauna that was his truck and I can only assume that what happened while I was sleeping between Bobby and Bryan was a handjob, though he says they just talked. We called our friend Angie from our emergency prepaid cell-phone (I needed a phone because I was expecting a phonecall from my financial aid department during the trip and they wanted a contact number) and she came and picked us up.

It was day 6 and we made it to Minnesota. The absolute furthest anyone said we could go was Pittsburg and we destroyed that distance. We decided we didn't want to go any further and that we were going to use the remaining $180 to buy Greyhound bus tickets home. Turns out theres just as much, if not less to do in St. Paul as there is in Jersey, but it is fun to get drunk in a new location and the police force is virtually non-existant. Regardless, we spent the next week getting plastered every night and telling stories from the trip. The bus ride home (29 hours) was long and boring and unfortunately we were stuck spending a large majority of that time with a gothapotamus that almost definately wanted to screw Bryan. When we arrived in Philly, I gave away my emergency phone to a couple of women traveling to NYC who didnt have a cell phone that worked in the States.

I have never in my life had more fun and as long as you are in decent enough shape and not what the general public would deem as rape-able, I'd recommend this to anyone. If anyone does decide to try this, I would love to hear your stories. If anyone has any hitch-hiking related questions to ask, I'm more than willing to answer them and if you have hitchhiking stories, share them here. Thanks again for reading this mess.

That's it for this week's Goldmine. See you next week!

– Nick "Mayor Wilkins" Dunn