Tales from the Road

By Mark Kneeskern

I’m not afraid to play the fool. This is an advantage to a hitchhiker. To hit the road in the attire of a jester would not be inappropriate and is preferable to a clown outfit, which would probably scare the pants off at least seventy percent of motorists. I’d much rather make them laugh. Thus, I have employed a number of elaborate and amusing thumbin’ gestures. I’ve personally driven past hitchhikers who are slouching by the asphalt, hanging out their appendages limply, a sour expression on their mugs. They get pity rides, I guess. Personally, I prefer people picking me up because I look like a fun and interesting character, or someone with good stories to tell.

After a couple hours of fancy dance moves at the edge of the tarmac, a fellow named Craig stops to let me on board. He confesses to be a ski bum hooked on powder and has hitched many rides on his way to the slopes. Colorado is one of the finest places to hitch in America, and I have ice crystals to thank for it. Mainly it’s the snow freaks that have kept the art of hitching alive. They even have official hitching posts between Crested Butte and Gunnison.

Craig is also an avid sailor. He grew up in New Jersey and worked on tall ships up and down the East Coast for years. He says he didn’t need any experience to begin with, just a decent pair of sea legs. The idea of traveling by way of the wind is a romantic one, and Craig makes my own dream of finding the way to Africa on such a craft seem possible.

Just before Bailey, CO, Craig pilots his rig into a turnoff where a sixty-foot hot dog looms over us. We’re hungry swabbies. Craig says he grew up eating dogs in Jersey and this stand is up to his standards. Apparently, the huge frankfurter moved here from a different location recently, and I’m imagining the thing rolling up and around the bends of this little mountain highway on its own power, using an internal condiment engine. I’ve ordered a Smoked Elk Jalapeño Cheddar Dog, a local special. As we sit here, listening to a really bad 80s rock cover tune coming out of the weenie speakers, he recommends that I read Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley.

If you read last month’s entry, you might be asking yourself “What about the plan to go North through Steamboat Springs?” Well, when one is thumbin’ it, one must sail with the current, and this flow is going past Boulder. Embracing this philosophy makes for less worries on the road.

Back on 285, we sail over Crow Hill, past Tiny Town and a place I call Pneumonia Pond, a little man-made fishing puddle where I was dropped off on my way back to Salida two years ago. It began raining when I was dropped there and I hunched next to the pond trying to get all my stuff covered in plastic garbage bags. I’m never too good at preparing for times such as those and it’s always a bit uncomfortable and annoying … some day I’ll learn. I eventually got out to the road, carrying what looked like a body bag with straps. It stopped raining and the sun came out as if nothing had happened, and then a red Corvette convertible picked me up. Go figure.

While trying to glance over at my map, Craig almost smashes into the back of a large pickup, but he reacts quickly, jerking the wheel and instead, screeching up beside the truck. What scares me is that I don‘t have my seatbelt on. When I first got in the car, Craig said it’s been broken for a while.

As we cut across Boulder into Lafayette, his destination, Craig asks me if I’d like to stop at his friend’s place for a beer. I don’t usually indulge on these travels, but on occasion it just feels right. His friend and her dad are quite hospitable, which makes the Budweiser tolerable to this proud beer snob.

After calling my friend in Fort Collins and finding him too busy working on a thesis to be hosting a bum like me, I realize it’s time to employ my most plush poses and get my ass out into a Dodge so I don’t have to sleep in a garbage can tonight.