Broward Community College - Silver Sands Yearbook (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

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Just before turning off his agency flashers and crunching the :le in gear, he smiled and mumbled :thing about a few stops along the before his eventual delivery site just 1 of Amarillo. He also said it was to crawl back in the cab and go to i. which is exactly what we wanted ear. The next morning, the sun glared as the highway in Buford, Texas-- r 2.000 miles and 43 hours away . home. We had been traveling at an ige of almost 50 miles per hour. NThe talk resumed about California icheese omelets. The driver headed i the road, leaving us and a nmendation about the restaurant s the way. We settled for two scrambled. After breakfast and a half-mile walk jigh town, a farmer with overalls and 2 Ford pickup offered a ride to the limits. He talked about retirement, it how his sons did all the work at lanch and how he liked goofing off lay. picking up hitchikers. jThe air was motionless. The sun jd out of the 8:30 a.m. sky, but the hd was still cool. Another tractor lr screeched to a halt. The driver was fed for Uncoln, Nebraska. but we lneeded a ride to Highway 66, seven l away. He was a young guy who had il driving trucks for about three is. He carried a big whip next to him e cab and had a wild look in his eyes, in probably meant he was used to exciting things than just being on toad. ,Highway 66 looked deserted. We i the driver off, and walked about L block to the other side of a traffic . For awhile sitting on our sleeping :l was the only thing to do. We .hed for cars. Nancy leaned up against ilt pole. I walked in .circles and kicked ijs. We kept busy like that for a long 'l Elt was almost noon before a driver I stopped. Too stunned to move at I we eventually snapped out of our Ze and realized this was what we had ilwaiting for. The good Samaritan Id around and waved as we bunched .ags together. Our sign had read 5' Mexico since we hadn't decided ijt ride-greedy yet. The driver's tags read Missouri, but he was on his way to the Marine bootcamp in San Diego. He had just turned seventeen two months before, and had joined the Marines after his brother told him how great it was. He looked like a true believer. His uniform was brand-new-clean, and just as neatly pressed. Across the back seat were his other outfits, flashy enough to impress any drill instructor. The car was only a '68 Chevy, but it already smelled like a '65 can of spray starch. Our man in uniform stopped at every American station for the next 400 miles, and refused to go faster than 50. It was a trick he had learned from Johnny Cash on televison. After ten hours of watching everything go by in slow motion, we struck out on our own in Flagstaff, Arizona, less than four hours from the California border. It was cold and dark, and getting colder. Around Il p.m. we splurged on our hrst hotel room. Expenses for the first 2,500 miles had amounted to 58. The next day we waited almost an hour for the first ride. It lasted only two miles. The driver apologized, but it felt good just to be moving again. Then we kicked some more rocks. Nancy leaned up against her sleeping bag and waited for a car to pass. while I wandered further down the on-ramp. Twenty minutes later, a car approached. The driver probably won- dered about the sign which read Amarillo Nancy was holding up the wrong side. The Lincoln Continental with California tags, air-conditioning and AMIFM radio silently turned onto the highway and turned west. The sky became dark, and it started to rain. I zipped up my G.I. blue working jacket and shivered as the rain dribbled down my neck. Nancy opened her sea bag and pulled out a raincoat. A girl driving a Dodge pickup pulled over even before we had a chance to hold up the sign. Thirty miles later, we were out of the rain and back on the road-side. Two short rides later, a van with California tags pulled over. The bearded driver was headed for San Francisco, via Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, so we decided to tag-along. Heading north on Highway 99, the 100-mile red carpet to the American dream, the flow seemed right. After passing the Hoover dam and the Nevada border, the city glittered ahead of us in the distance. After passing billboards for the Stardust, the Flamingo. Caesar's Palace and of course, Denny's,

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Before returning to Virginia some three weeks later, my travels had covered nearly 5,000 miles. Expenses ran about S80, and I had crammed a lot of being alive into those twenty-two days. Other ventures followed, resulting in sixteen trips up and down the East coast, and three cross-country journeys as well. Adding up to more than 50,000 miles-42,000 of them recorded since April 1972. The last major hike took place in 116 1 AQf's'- -J ' - l -,.:.:.::.,-... . I-ii., ,- ,.j'4o-fc, k August, when Nancy Carta fa 1973 BCC graduatej and I covered the distance between Fort Lauderdale and San Francisco in less than four and a half days, including overnight stops in Flagstaff, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada. Starting out on the Sunshine State Parkway at State Road 84, we scribbled our names in red crayon on the back of the sign which reads, Turnpike Entrance Ahead and promptly got our lirst ride to Vero Beach. Almost before our bags even hit ground, a middle-aged, tattooed, ci chomping, all-American tractor tr driver pulled off the highway and offe us a ride to Mobile, Alabama. Coffee k the conversation going all night and af stops in Tampa and Tallahassee, arrived in Mobile at dawn. Nancy and I thanked him for thel and hopped out just west of the c limits where Interstate 35 goes north Interstate 10. Thoughts of Bob Dylan, and mama, can this really be the end, to be inside of Mobile. . ., but halfw through the second verse, a clean-shav crew-cut, 26 year old, going home leave to see my wife and kids, Ar pilot slammed on the brakes of his ' Plymouth Fury. r He was on his way to Ft. Wor Texas, and talked about how he'd bou the car brand spanking new, years ago. He seemed anxious to home and sleep with his wife again. closer we got to Ft. Worth, the faster drove. We raced the sun to the horizon ll at about 90 miles an hour. For a wh it didn't look like the sun was going win, but it beat our flying fury by an hour. The sky darkened even fastl Two cars passed and within minut it was night. The air was cool ag strangely still. Another car approachq dimming it's lights while streaking by.lI kicked at stones on the highway ag waited. Talk centered around cheese omele California and good places to roll ol sleeping bags for the night. A pairt headlights twinkled in the distance. 4 the semi approached, we thought abol all-night rides, kicked a few more storl and waited. Our sign read Amarillo. Il then it was too dark to even read it. Tl driver whizzed past at about 80 miles pl hour. Then he slammed on his brakt We gathered our things and rt toward the flashing tail lights. The driw threw open the cab door. Nancy climbt in first, handing me her sleeping bag all thanking the driver at the same tint Somehow, there was room for both! us and the baggage. After slamming!! door shut the driver seemed Texan al very friendly, but he said he was frot Oklahoma. I

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FRYll'i ' I I I I I I I I 1 I I I I I r I I I r I I I I we were surrounded by it all. Dr. John came on the radio singing something about being in the right place at the wrong time, and we wondered how he knew. Circus, Circus was the place Io be, so we ducked inside a Texaco restroom and did our best to freshen up, a la very freaky, but very nch, young, punk cocaine dealers from L.A. in town for a big night. There are no side shows in Circus. Circus or anywhere else in Las Vegas for that matter, The whole city is part of a main ring, front and center, liver-thari-you'll-ever-be 24-hour freak show, As Tom Wolfe puts it, Such colors! All the new electrochemical pastels of the Florida litteral: tangerrne, brorling magenta, livid pink, incarnadine, fushish dernure, Congo ruby, methyl green, vrridine, aquamarine, phenosafraine, incandescent orange, scarlet, fever purple, cyanic blue, tessallated bronze. hospital-fruit-basket, And such signs! Circus, Circus was good to our driver, He crawled back into the van about 4:30 the next morning with S200 more than Ire started with. Spending six hours playing roulette and drinking scotch and water seemed like more fun than work. After a 779 breakfast of ham, three eggs, wheat toast, hash browns, orange juice and coffee, he headed north for Tahoe and the California border. The 450 miles of Nevada desert were a still photograph that didn't change until eight hours later. Just outside of Tahoe. the land turned green and showed signs of life. Our driver headed for a nearby campground, as we went on our way. to Highway 50 and the San Francisco area. Three hours later. we arnved in Oakland where we planned to spend the the with friends. Eighty-two hours and 3.300 miles before it all seemed so unlikely. Hitchhrking has been around for almost as long as the wheel, but unlike unlike proverbial horse and buggy, hitchhiking endures, and despite current laws in Ft. Lauderdale, hitchhiking is legal just about everywhere else, l'vc traveled through New York, New Jersey, ,fi :ix 2 N. . . P Ml ffipl, M' ff1.,.- li' Delaware, Maryland. Virginia, North z South Carolina, Georgia, Alabai Tennessee. Louisiana, Mississippi, Te: New Mexico, Arizona. California, Neva Oklahoma. Arkansas, Missouri. W Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ol Pennsylvania and throughout most Florida without a single problem vi police-except Ft, Lauderdale wht personal experience verifies the fact t the city reallybdoes handout S12 tiekr On at least two occasions-once ji north of Atlanta. and again in downto Jacksonville-Highway Patrol officers ha helped me out with rides to bel interstate on-rarnps. Avoiding problems with the law largely a matter of staying fai coherent, being courteous during rout ID checks and doing what you're tr when hitchhiking laws are enforced. When reduced to its simplest terr hitchhiking is nothing more tl common sense. coupled with a ba instinct to survive. The old boy sci adage. Be prepared. is excellentj follow when it comes down to actua hitting the road. A sleeping bag, knapsi or suitcase. and at least one change! clothes are considered musts for travel in excess of 500 miles. Althot. a raincoat is not absolutely necessa there is nothing more uncomfortable tlt standing along side a road in wet clotli It probably goes without saying that I more resourceful you can rrrake yoursi the better, Sleeping bags can I improvised from blankets. while plas garbage bags can be used for grori covers and a thousand other things, frtl dirty clothes to makeshift tents. Bot- like llow to I,1'i'c in Ilrc ltf'oods,1 Bradford AllglCI' are lull of survival ti for hikers who plan to do a lot of sleepi in the open. 5 lt's also an excellent idea I hrtchhike with a clearly lettered sit, Although magic markers are mi commonly used. ordinary crayons I! both cheaper and waterproof. Carryl' extra cardboard along is another gd idea. The importance ofa sign. howeti cannot bc over emphasized. On at Id six different occasions, l've gotten ri in excess of 800 miles for no other re than the driver happened to be going same place l was. 1 Although not essential, it canl helpful to carry maps when traveling' I r