Hitchhiking

We felt it was necessary to test the waters since neither of us had hitchhiked before so we decided to go to Red Wing for a rootbeer at a new restaurant and bar called The Stag's Head where the drummer from Hüsker Dü, a seminal band in the Minnesotan music scene (or so I've heard), works as the head chef, but I digress. Less than fifteen minutes down the road a young guy in a Jeep Wagoneer pulls over for us and nearly gets in an accident trying to stop on the shoulder of a road that has no shoulder. We get in anyways.

"You guys smoke weed?"
"Uh... sorry, not really."
...silence...
"Where you headed?"
"Red Wing."
"That's all?... Well, where are you coming from?"
"Hastings."
"Oh..."
...more silence...

At the start of our looming journey we were dropped off on highway 316 in the rain, and began walking. We strained to see the expressions behind windshield wipers and kamikazied raindrops as we held our thumbs up and walked backwards to face our possible benefactors. I thought maybe now I would regret having slept outside in the cold after the AZL celebration, after too many swigs of too many kinds of wine and whatnot and whythehellnot. I could feel the cold brewing in my chest and it was probably delighted at the prospect of a long walk in the wind and the drizzle.

It was not long, though, before we got a ride from an ex-cop who sold aerial photographs door-to-door of people's own houses. He took us all the way to our first stop in LaCross, WI. Ignorant and as wet as we were, we were elated at how well hitchiking was working out so far. The road was a huge unknown world for us and if the first person we meet in it was kind enough to pick up two soggy fools with absurdly huge backpacks in a small car already filled with picture frames, then it couldn't be too bad, could it?

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