Go!

~Thursday 5/18 6:50pm~

Sweet Jane dropped me in Willow Creek early afternoon with skateboard, firestick, sleeping bag, and backpack. The first couple of hours were an inspired attempt at catching a ride to Ashland at the end of town. This proved difficult.
The demographics were all wrong. Middle-aged mothers with kiddie in the back seat nervously buzzing by in a shiny SUV. Smug rednecks in pick-up with iron-grated back window. Old folks...lots of old folks.
Where do they come from?
What are they all doing at 3:50pm due east from this quiet hillbilly haven?
The answers were far beyond me as I grumbled and spit in the dirt on a lonely shoulder of 299.

Everyone knows the signal. To the untrained eye it looks like a crude insinuation of sexual impotence, or a drive-by game of pinch-the-moon with hitchhiker playing moon. Thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart, an "oh-so-sorry" shrug.
I'm only going this far!
Ok. But I'll be god-damned if every single person is only going this far when the next town is five miles down the road and there's nothing to stop for anyways.
Some attempted to diffuse the situation by laughing and smiling, like maybe I was out there just for fun (was I?), or my sign said "I just farted." And maybe I did, but I wasn't laughing. Lord no! I intended to make Ashland by friday evening, and with this momentum...
Had I stumbled into some sort of hitchhikers purgatory, a roadside phantom until my karma was properly aligned for travel?
Had I forgotten how to do it?
Did I have a booger?!
Again, all questions better addressed to a higher power.

So I sucked it up and rolled into town for a beer.
Forks Lounge. Under ordinary circumstances the place would have plunged me into a slippery pit of depression, but today it was my sanctuary.
Nevermind the dim lighting, hopeless drunks, and auto-erotic TV shows.
The tall-boy of Busch put me back in my element!

I hit the streets for another go.
Posture, gait, grin; they all said "pick me up and I'll roll us a spliff!"
An hour later it said "WTF?!"
This was worse than the long day in Shelton with Mikey, the definitive day of roadside absolution. And then the unthinkable happened; a truck towing some construction equipment pulled over for me. Aha! I snatched up my shit and ran for that trucker like he was Jesus Christo himself.
The he hopped out and ran into the gas station for a bite, oblivious to my shattered hopes and dreams. Oh cruel fate!
So I scouted out the rooftop of an abandoned resturant and found it fitting for the night, need be. A few more hours hopeless on the roadside and I retired to the Forks Lounge.

Another Busch, more drunks, a lousy soundtrack. Beautiful.
The Head Drunk announces his latest philisophical epiphany every few mintues.
"Fuck the world!" Well, yes, sure. Why not?
But a few beers later, our friend was singing a different tune.
"God told me to be here tonight, man! I'm blessed, yes sir, I am blessed!"

Why does God only talk to the crazy fucks?