Out and About: All up the Seething Coast

Sorry for the lapse in update friends, I have been traveling a lot, but I still feel like I could have squeezed one in and didn't. As a side effect this post might be kind of long, so buckle up.
After I started walking out of McKinleyville, I grabbed a ride with a nice woman named Sharron who took me to Trinidad, telling me how I should be careful of people who pick me up that they might be crazies or something. I think its always funny how I am picked up by nice people who warn me against the bad people, yet have never been picked up by someone I would think is a bad person. It just seems mildly ironic to me. Anyways she took me a few miles to Trinidad, where I waited maybe 2 hours to get a ride from a young guy who said he would take me a few miles up the road, where he thought I could get a ride, and I agreed.

Not exactly hitch hiking central

Turns out that the place he thought I could get a ride was really nowheresville, with a small rv park that was closed and a touristy little barn store that was also closed. So I thumbed on the side of the road, knowing that if a nice police officer drove by that I would probably get ticket, and finally snagged a ride with a youngish couple going fishing who said they would take me to Klamath. A shortish ride that took us through some nice country, and froze my hand as I held on to my bag that we threw onto the wood piled in the back, sticking my hand through the tiny window on the back of the cab. Klamath wasn't so much a town as it was a stop, I bought some rammen from the gas-station/store and went back out to the road to try my luck. It was getting kind of late at this point, and my hopes of reaching civilizatoin that night were pretty dismal. But walking back into the gas station to go to the bathroom, I saw a girl about my age pumping gas who had an Oregon license plate. I asked her if she was heading back up to Oregon and she said yes, to which I asked her if I could have a ride which she thought about for a moment and then said "sure".

Hold bag, HOLD

Bernadette is 25 and from Portland, and has awesome taste in music. We missed our exit early on which lead to a drive being longer than planned, so we jammed out, found some cool rocks on the beach and checked em out, saw an awesome sunset that my camera fails to do justice to, and just had a cool time on the drive. Bernadette offered to let me crash at her place, and when we got there about 1 she made some pasta for me. I am lucky to run into such nice people all the time.

Damn you camera, damn you

Bernadette on by the rocks

So after everything Bernadette had said about Portland stitched together with other stories I had heard, I decided to try and see if I could stay for a while, maybe make some money. I left Bernadettes place after a nice sleep in, and took the bus to the nearest hostel to ask about there work trade program. Turns out that they don't have one, a quick internet search and some phone calls from the local Starbucks lead to the discovery that no hostels in Portland did work trade. Dreams shattered I walked down the road to a local card shop, and met some cool guys to play EDH with. I cooked some Raviolli in the stores microwave, and played some magic and had a nice time. I asked one of the guys playing if he would mind giving me a ride out of the city with him, to have a better chance to find a place to stay. His name was Jeff and along the way he offered me his basement for the night, which I gladly accepted. We played some more magic and jammed to some tunes and hit the sac. Jeff woke me up in the morning so he could give ma a ride to a bus stop or something before work. So I had him drop me off at a starbucks so I could try one more time to find somewhere to stay, but to no avail.

Ed and his one of a kind playmat

This is where my penance for Hardcore modes on games comes in. I had decided I was tired of spending money on buses for once, so I challenged myself to see if I could make it across the entire breadth of Portland without paying any money, something I was pretty sure was going to be thoroughly difficult. This is also the beginning of the day of 8 rides, (Jeff included) so I will try to sum it up some. I walked a few miles to the nearest highway, sat in the grass and made some ramen for lunch, before I grabbed my first ride with Mario. Mario said he would take me to the next highway, and bought me a snickers and a powerade. At the next highway intersection I got a ride with a man who never told me his name, but was nice all the same and took me to the I-5 so I could get out of town. Unfortunatly for me, where he dropped me off was somewhere that was next to a river, so if I didn't want to break the law walking down the interstate, (which I didn't), then I would have to take a 3 mile detour around the river. My detour brought me to the next on ramp, where I met a nice pan handler named Darwin. I waited for a few hours with Darwin until a young guy stopped to give Darwin a smoke, he offered me one to and I told him I would rather have a ride. He said he could only take me a few exits and I said that was fine. So off we went, his name was Adam and he was just a little older than me.

That there be Washington.

where were going we don't need sidewalks

Nothing like trespassing in graveyards

Adam dropped me off on the side of a highway that intersects with the interstate, with no real way to get to an on ramp. I ended up hopping over some walls, or as much as I could with my backpack, and walking a few miles through a historic military fort to the next on ramp. Right as I got there, another guy, looked about 35, had just started hitching there. I didn't think he was going to get a ride, due to him looking exactly like the kind of guy you don't pick up. There is no harder way I could think of to get a ride than to try to do it next to a hitch hiker like that, I settled down in the grass and took a nap. After a while he gave up and walked away, and I took a nearby spot with my better attitude.

Not exactly what I expected to find today

    I got a ride in 20 minutes. She was a nice lady who also didn't mention her name, and told me about how the republicans were gutting the government workers retirement and how they were all evil jackals, and dropped me off at a truck stop around Salmon Creek. I was successfully out of Portland and a good chunk into Washington now. I waited at the truck stop, intent on hitching until the light faded, until a truck pulling a trailer of garbage pulled over. I ran over to my new ride, who just hopped in the trailer to stomp down some garbage, seemingly oblivious to my presence. Confused I said "oh sorry, I thought you pulled over to pick me up".
    "Sorry bro, I didn't see you, where you going", after a short exchange he said he could take me all the way to Kelso, and to get in. It was 3 of us in the front seat of his truck with my back on my lap. The 2 other guys never told me there names, and didn't even seem to think I was there, as they went on with there conversations paying no mind to me. They dropped me off in Kelso and there was still some light left so I kept on keeping on. In less than an hour a truck drove by, stopped and backed up. David and Mandy were also as nice as they come. They were heading up to Rodchester to go to a Casino, which I must admit is turning into a real vice of mine. I said I would join them, David bought me some chicken for dinner, and we drove into the night, telling stories and such. We spent a good amount of time at the casino, I made about 2 dollars in the end, and David and Mandy lost all they spent on slots, I guess hitch hikers are only good luck for themselves. They dropped me off back by the interstate and David gave me a few bucks, I thanked them for everything and then they were gone.
    I left a local McDonalds to find a place to sleep and set up behind the dumpster enclosure behind a Quiznos that wouldn't open till 10, plenty of time for me to be out of there in the morning. Unfortunately right as I was taking off my shoes to go to bed, a Sheriff pulled around the building to work on some reports. I can't complain though, they were nice and didn't give me a ticket, one even told me of an old abandoned trailer park where I could set up for the night. I packed it all up again, and was on my way. I found the trailer park, but the sound of generators told me it was not as abandoned as previously thought. I set up for the night anyways and crashed.

Some guy in a tent: Public Enemy #1

I woke up in the morning, and as I was getting out of my tent, a neighbor asked me "who the F*&% are you?". I apologized for my stay and told them I would be out of there in no time, which I was. Back to the highway in no time and picked up a ride in about an hour with a good guy named Brian. Brian ended up taking me to Tacoma, where he took me to station and said I could grab a train for just a few bucks, which he gave me. I thanked him and went inside, bought my ticket, and found out the train wasn't going to be there for a few hours. I ate lunch, checked out the nearby shops, and finished the Clout Atlas on my Kindle. The train showed up eventually, I caught some Z's on the ride, and soon we were in Seattle.
Because I am tired of writing and I am worried that you reader are tired of reading I shall be super brief. After the ride I hung out at Starbucks trying to find a place to stay, ended up taking a bus out of downtown, had a nice guy give me food, took another bus, a local told me where to camp out, and I camped out for the night. The next morning I packed camp, walked over to my neighboring food bank for some food, and came to Mcdonalds to update my blog.

I will try to keep this updated more often so that the posts aren't so long, and as always, stay tuned for BONUS PICTURES!!!!!!

Bonus Pictures: