Not all roads lead to Rome.

    After my last post, I made it to Tampa in a few days. My first night in Tampa I slept in some woods, the second day was spent mostly walking to where I wanted to be, and a lot of sitting, and finally uploading that video from the last post. That night I slept in an abandoned parking lot behind a Duncan donuts. The following night was Friday, so I got to somewhere where I was able to play Friday Night Magic, and when I was done, I met up with a woman who I met online and who agreed to host me for the evening

Beautiful Tampa

    I helped her with some chores the next day, and then met up with Brian. Brian was my age, and we had a lot in common and plenty to talk about. We went down to St. Petersburg to an outdoor art fair, walked around the Dali Museum, went to a casino to lose some money with his friend Nick, followed by us all ending up at a bar and watching Brian kill some people at Foosball. 

Me and Brian outside the Dali Museum

    Hanging out with a cool guy really made me miss my friends. I crashed at Brians for the night, and we split the next day, so I started doing some thinking. My plan for a while had been to stay in Florida for the winter and work, if I didn't like it, I was going to go back home to Texas to work and stay with my friends. I had been working lately on paying attention to what I wanted to do, not what I felt obligated to do, otherwise what is the point of freedom? I now realized that what I really wanted was to go see my friends, I was getting pretty tired of the loneliness of the road, already having had several huge waves of loneliness in the past few weeks.

Dali Museum

    So, being a free man, paying attention to what I really wanted to do, I got a greyhound ticket and figured maybe I should make it home for Thanksgiving. After about a solid day and a half of bus travel, an awful experience in itself, I made it back to Texas, where I am now. The plan now is to spend the winter here, and work on my future travel plans. Although I have to say, my plans are becoming less and less solid. Maybe next week I will feel like going back to slab city, and just hit the road.

Road Thoughts
   I have a lot of people tell me that they wish they were doing what I am doing. I have been telling all of them the same thing. Then do it, if you really, truly want to do it, then do it. I will help you however I can, with advice and resources, I might even travel with you if you are down. I will make sure you are prepared and I will let you know how capable you are to achieve your goals. But if you don't really want it, on an intrinsic level, if you are just subject to the all so common "grass is always greener", if as soon as I leave, you are not going to think about a life of travel at any serious level, then stop it. You aren't doing yourself any favors. All you are doing to yourself is pining over something you don't want, and taking value away from the things you have. If your world is more enjoyable to you than a life of constant travel, then you need to notice it. And if it isn't, then I will see you on the road.

Video Time !!

edit: It took way to long to upload this video, will try again later. 

     Thanks for watching my video. Unfortunately, a few more things have happened since then, so my video doesn't cover it all. After making that video, I ended up walking a few more miles, having to navigate a bunch of large road intersections around the Airport. That night I found a nice spot off the side of the road to catch some z's, only being awakened by screaming loud plane engines a few times.

Who couldn't fall asleep here?

    The next day I got up late, and found a spot to thumb it that was kind of rough, only got one ride, that didn't take me very far but got me out of Atlanta, where I crashed that night. The next morning a guy took me to a rest stop where he thought I would have luck getting a ride all the way to Florida. It was a long wait but he was right, a trucker named Jim came up and started talking to me, then offered me a ride. We were heading to get into the Tampa area that night, but disaster struck and Jim's truck had a critical failure. He was going to be stuck at a truck stop north of the Florida border for a few days. I tried to get a ride that night a little further, but there was little to no traffic and I ended up camping at the truck stop. Today I got up, waited out some rain, and got a ride with another trucker to Ocala Florida, where I am now.

    Earlier while I was sitting here on my computer, I heard someone saying my name, I looked around and saw Jim. Apparently he had got a patch job and limped it here to get a real fix. He bought me dinner and a shower, and we chatted a little more about how he was going to handle his situation. Eventually he had to get off to bed, so here I sit writing my blog.

    My goal right now is to get to South Florida, although right here is warm enough. I would like to find a place to stay somewhat more permanently for a few months down south, but I am not sure how well it will work, so I am still setting up fall back plans. Also if anybody sends me Disney World tickets, I will make a video of me singing a song of thier choice, and post it here for all to see.

3 years apart, now I am a legend.

Pics from this week

Classic Memphis Trolly, filled with non classic homeless people

Listening to jams in an Irish pub in Memphis, you jelly?

Always a good time around the kitchen table at Court House

We all went to a park and a bridge, and Bip looks like a train robber.

All the togetherness of Spencers van

Today someone threw pennies at me.

    Today someone threw pennies at me. After my last post I actually didn't make it out of Hot Springs, starting my trend of slow hitch hiking that has plagued me for the last few days. I camped in the woods in Hot Springs, the next day taking the entire day to take me to the far side of Little Rock, today I spent all day hitch hiking and still didn't get to Memphis, still being about 40 miles outside of Tennessee.
    At my second to last spot today, an on ramp in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I was concerned about getting a ride there, because my initial responses from the drivers wasn't hopeful, and the traffic flow was pretty low. While I was there, a guy drove buy at about 15 to 20 mph, and took a hand full of pennies and straight up winged em at me.
    At me, not near me, at me, pretty obviously getting a laugh at pelting the hitch hiker with pennies. It also bothered me that they were pennies, although that is probably only because that is what he had when he was looking for something to pepper me with. It reminded me of a video I saw a few months ago, where a bunch of guys smashed a homeless womans' cake. Even though they compensated her for more than the worth of the cake, they were the kind of people who got of on hurting others, basically just grown up bullies. I have had situations like this before, where people shouted at me or gave me the finger, even once where a person pretended to run me over. But all of those people looked like they were in high school. This guy today was an adult with full beard.
    It is a strange feeling, to be a 22 year old man, getting bullied by a guy that is older than me, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas. I know it is a small thing, and I am probably just whining for no big thing, but I am just having trouble letting go of it. It seems like something you would see happen to Zach Galifianakis in a movie about how he is such a loser. It just seems so absurd to me and I needed to vent. Luckily I have a blog and you people read it so deal. Also here is a picture I took while riding in the back of a truck.

More New Friends

    Texarcana was a still a little wet when I woke up in the morning, having camped out in a grassy area between 3 parking lots. I reluctantly rolled up my wet tent and set out to get to Hot Springs. I walked about a mile to an intersection that I knew at first glance was going to be rough, but it was much farther to any other intersections. After a few hours I decided to try the bus, taking the advice of a local to where I could get a ride. He was wrong, and I again ended up in a spot where no ride was forthcoming. One more 3 mile walk and some misunderstanding of how new roads had affected the landscape, I found myself standing on the side of a highway with cars going 70 mph only an hour or so before dark. It was one of those times I really needed to be lucky, and turns out I was. Larry Butler pulled over and offered me a ride to a small town about an hour down the road, although he promised me there was a large truck stop there, something I know to negate the negative effects of small towns. Larry dropped me off as the sun was setting and I thought, "heck, maybe I can get one more ride".

Why does every cool sunset picture I take have a truck stop sign in it?

    Tom picked me up just a few minutes after I arrived, and my luck held, because he was going straight to Hot Springs. We chatted along the way and he offered to let me sleep at his boat club docks, and buy me breakfast in the morning before taking me around town. I gladly accepted. That night at the boat club I met a few guys who were there fishing, and we chatted a bit, but I was pretty tired so I had to hit the hey. I woke up to an active thunderstorm that was testing my tents water restiveness. Then Tom came buy to get me, forcing me to pack up my tent in the rain, making sure it, me and most of my bag were thoroughly soaked. Me and Tom had some "hot cakes" at McDonalds and he took me around town in the rain to show me the bath houses, the mountain lookouts, and so on and so forth. I asked him to drop me off at the bath house that had the cheapest bath, and we parted ways.

Beautiful foggy Hot Springs Arkansas

I feel like I had died and gone to "not cold anymore" heaven

    The bath house was nice, but pretty quiet so early in the morning. I started talking to the only other attendee who was around my age, and found out he was also a traveler. His name is Jerry, and he was staying up in the hills around the town. We decided to grab some lunch together, we then went to check up on his torioses that were traveling with him, and then decided to go get our $10 free play at the local Casino. I turned mine into $45 and Jerry decided to just hold on to his free 10 bucks. It was still to early to crash for the night, so we decided we might as well go see Enders Game (DON'T SEE IT, IT IS BAD)

Jerry  actin a fool at the bath house

    We went back to Jerrys campsite, ate a light dinner and then passed out. This morning we got up pretty slowly, and walked down to the road to find some internet and some lunch before I try to make my way to Memphis. We got some dried fruits and such at an old country market, and now sit here at McDonalds. My goal for the night is to get to Memphis, but I see that as pretty optimistic, hopefully I will at least get to Little Rock.

Our quiet secluded campsite in the hills.

Random Road Thoughts
    A lot of people who were also on the road have made some pretty broad statements about how "traveling is the land of opportunity". I always regarded such statements as pretty much meaningless, or non measurable, just fancy things that people say to sound wise. But I do notice myself doing a lot of stuff spontaneously, which I now realize is because of my lack of planning. Someone asks, "want to go to a casino?", "I'm not doing anything, why not?". I found that all the new avenues I am taking are available because I really hadn't thought of what else I planned on doing for the day. Maybe I should make more efforts to keep my plans even more open.

Luisiana Deadland

     Do not be dismayed friends, I am alive. I have not posted recently, but do not worry, there was nothing to post about. After leaving Santa Fe, I made my way to Lubbock, and stayed with some friends while I restocked on some of my supplies and gear, and just vegged on my friends hospitality. After leaving Lubbock, I picked up a ride with preacher who drove me to Dallas, along the way telling me his extremely long testimonial, and even going as far to get his wife and son on the phone to confirm it. I stayed with my friend in Dallas for 2 nights, and headed to Florida, where I still plan to spend the winter.
    After leaving Dallas, 3 rides got me to Shreveport Louisiana. That night I was making my check in phone calls when my parents reminded me of an upcoming family gathering. Seeing as I was only a little ways out, I decided to turn around and attend. So the next day from Shreveport, I started heading south, to Lafayette. This is when I found out that Louisiana is not the best place for hitch hiking. 2 hours wait for my first ride, 2 hours wait for my second ride, and I ended up in the middle of nowhere, hitching for 4 hours without luck. I then got a call from my grandmother, telling me she had bought me a bus ticket to get to her house, and I could get on back in Shreveport. So I turned around, somehow made it back to Shreveport, and slept in the bus station for the night.

My girl caught me slippin at the Greyhound station

    I wont bother you with the boring details of my family time, but I ended up staying longer than planned. I finally hit the road again on Saturday morning, the 2nd of November, and boy did it feel good. It didn't take long for me to don my formal jacket of road dust, and I was back in my element.

Who knew there was anything nice in Waco?

Glad to be on the road again, this is my kind of magic

    My first day of travel got me to Longview courtesy a racist and a drunk. My next day was not so fruitful, only getting me to the intersection of I-30 and highway 259, maybe an 8th of the distance I covered the day before. So I set up my tent for the night, in the middle of nowhere, and went to sleep.

Me and my cloud fetish

    This morning when I woke up, it was raining, so I decided to sleep in, when I woke again, it was still raining. After some reading, some eating, and some laying there bored, it was still raining. I didn't have a problem packing up a wet tent, but I didn't really feel like standing out in the rain waiting for a ride, especially since where I was had a very low flow of traffic, I saw about 5 cars in an hour the night before. So I spent most of today in my tent. When the rain finally ended, it was about 4. I decided to try and get out of there, and after an hour I got a ride with some guys working for the state who were doing road work, who took me to Texarcana.

The most beautiful of truck stops

    Some of you might be asking, "Woodrow, if you are going to Florida, why are you going through Arkansas?". Well I will tell you convenient question asker, it is because Louisiana sucks for hitch hiking. I had nothing but trouble getting rides, and even got a stern talking to from a cop, something that hasn't happened to me since Oxnard California. I had heard rumors that Louisiana was rough, and I had assumed it was just some hitch hikers having bad personal experience. Now I am more inclined to think it is a pattern, so I am not going through there again. '
    Now that I am back on the road, I plan to make the updates a little more consistent again, and I am sorry for anybody who worried about my current status of being alive. Take care friends.

The Nuclear age and a new Friend

    So I left Albequerque in a few different rides, didn't really expect to make it to Los Alamos that day, since I left kind of late, but I eventually made it as the sun was going down. My ride into town was one of the fun conspiracy types, but he knew all the secluded places so he dropped me off by a nature trail where nobody would bother me and he was right. A little cold but a good nights sleep, I went to Starbucks to charge my camera and then to the Bradbury Science Museum, the main reason for my visit to Los Alamos.

Model of "The Device", the first ever nuclear bomb

    I have had an intellectual curiosity for the atomic bomb for a long time. I have read many articles and a book about them, so the museum near the lab where they made it should have been a sweet visit. Half of the small museum is dedicated to the science and history of the bombs, while the other half is for the other works still being done at the laboratory. I thought the museum was in a great place to talk about the issue of nuclear proliferation, the difference between weaponized nuclear power, and nuclear power used to produce energy, lowering existential risk, and having an objective opinion about the use of the bombs on Japan. NOPE!

Model of "Fat Man" the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki

    There was nothing on existential risk, the only talk about the ramifications of the technology was in the comments of the scientists who built the bombs, nothing on the difference between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and the use of the bombs on Japan were relegated to a corner where 2 groups not affiliated with the museum were allowed to put up completely biased displays. One side basically playing the flower child, and the other, I would say being slightly more fair, talked about the casualty estimations of an over land invasion, compared to the loss of life of the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This didn't stop them from pointing out that the Japanese were also huge jerks and probably deserved it. Swing and a miss.

The anti bomb side.
Read: we should really feel bad guys

Pro bomb side, a little more coherent.

    I left the museum not satisfied, but looking forward to meeting up with TheWindAnRain, a redditor I had been talking to on r/hitchhiking who was in Santa Fe. I didn't expect to be in that day, but my luck worked out, and I even got a little bit of time at the Black Jack tables, and learned an important lesson about quitting when you are ahead.

A fun book were stupid people get to write inane opinions.

    We met up in his spot behind the McDonalds, watched a movie, and swapped road stories all night. He is much more traveled than I and had a lot of good advice to give. In the morning he split, and I am now waking up in the McDonalds we slept behind, getting ready to hit the road again. My current path is not super well laid out, so I might just end up on a dirt road in the desert, although I hope not.

See you all next time.

Arizona again

    After I left the restaurant in Provo I got a ride in about a minute, which was cool but not very long and only got me to Spanish Fork. The next few days I spent nickle and diming it out of Utah, with my last ride being with two girls who were going to Phoenix, and dropped me off in Flagstaff. The night in Flagstaff was BRUTALLY cold, the coldest night I have endured so far. I guess that is what I get for sleeping in a wash near the University of Arizona. The next morning I had some breakfast at Dennys, still trying to get over my cold, and got back on the road.

In some places they paint the cattle guards on the roads, I found this immensely funny

    An hour or so hitch hiking got me a direct ride to Limbo. The intersection I got dropped off at had no east flowing traffic, we are talking about 6 cars in 4 hours. The reason for this is that the highway the intersection was built for, goes to a small town and then connects back to the interstate further east, so nobody has any reason to drive west to go east. I unfortunatly accepted my lot and life and figured even 6 cars in 4 hours was some cars and eventually I had to get a ride. Luckily for me a nice police officer came up, started talking to me, checked my ID to make sure I wasn't a murderer, and then said that I had no chance of catching a ride here, and that he would let me walk down on the interstate a bit so I could try to catch a ride there. Awesome

My Limbo

    The interstate is no hitch hiking picnic either. The cars are going very fast, and have little incentive to be looking out for pedestrians, since it is illegal for pedestrians to be on the road. I also have to think there is a little bit of the bystander effect going on here. Just as it was getting late and I was getting desperate, I got a ride from a nice guy named Ted who took me all the way to Winslow. Ted bought me dinner, let me sleep in his auto shop, and bought me breakfast in the morning.
    The next morning I got a ride from Winslow to Gallop, unfortunately when I did, my small capsule with my SIM card and my memory card for my phone fell out of my pocket. The idea for this capsule was that if I was robbed, I could give the robber my phone, go buy a $10 go phone at the dollar store, put my SIM card and my memory card in it, and I would still have a phone. But silly me I forgot to think about just losing the capsule, leaving me with a non working phone. So anybody who I like to call, or who likes to call me, please resort to email.
    Later I got a ride from where I was further into Gallop, and then finally a ride into Albuquerque from a nice guy named Emo. Emo let me take a shower, helped me with some laundry, gave me dinner, and I was out like a light bulb. The next morning I walked across the street to the mall, where I now sit, writing this blog post.

Its the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque

    I don't really have any solid plans right now, other than that I am heading to Florida. I would like to also go to Los Alamos, to the museum there for the atomic bomb. Possibly Rock City, but I don't know how it has been effected by the recent shut down. I am not very familiar with the southern corridor beyond Texas, so let me know what the cool and fun stuff to do down there is, so that my rides to Florida aren't too boring.

Me and the big guy at Temple Square

Random Road thoughts
    I have had a rougher time hitch hiking lately than usual, my stops getting longer and longer, I hope this is just a hiccup, but in my frustration I have stopped thumbing when lone Mustangs drive by. Why is this? It is because I never have, and believe I never will, get a ride from a Mustang. I have noticed a trend in all the rides that I get, that nobody is rich. The people who take me and give me rides seem to range from having enough to get buy to comfortable. I have only ever been taken in for a night by one person who I would think had quite a lot of money to sling around, and that persons wife was the bread winner, not him.
    So why is it that nice cars and rich people don't give me rides? Are they worried that my big backpack my scratch their interior, or that I might stink up the leather? It is easy to say that rich people don't care about us vagrants, which might be part of it. But I have come to think that the most likely reason is that they have probably not been in my situation before. Many of the people who pick me up tell me about their adventures hitch hiking, or just say "I have been in your spot before". These people have an earned empathy that many others in society don't. I know that my experiences will lead me in the future to pick up hitch hikers, and help them in any way I can, and theirs did the same for them.
    I still will not thumb for individual Mustangs though. I recon those guys are just full of themselves.

A collage Natasha made of our time in Seattle