10/19- Heading West

Now my time crunch head was back on, and I was trying to remember the lessons of the previous week to not worry and relax. I had twelve days now to get from one end of the country to the other and I was thinking it seemed quite feasible. If I could get from Denver to Boise in three days, I could certainly get from San Francisco to Springfield, Mass in twelve.

I got up early and nearly crept out of the house before Hea stopped me at the door. She left me a note to wake her that I'd missed, but it hadn't mattered anyway, she woke herself really wanting to see me off. It was really sweet. I gave her another big hug goodbye, and thanked her again for the visit. She reiterated that if I felt like staying I could for as long as I wanted. Later on, I'd get another voicemail from her, concerned I'd miss my train from the rain that day, and urging me to turn around and stay as well. I was really touched.

Alas, I did make the train I was after. Using up the last bit of Amtrak Gift Certificate I had, plus $1, I caught a train/bus combination to Auburn, CA to clear the sprawl. It also put me within 80 miles of the Nevada border. The day on a whole was fairly quiet since most of it was on that rainy train. By the afternoon I found myself in sunny Auburn and a library right down the road, so I went.

An hour later I put myself up on the ramp and stood there with my thumb out one more time. I was there for quite a while watching SUVs and mini vans come and go on to I-80. I had talked with my trucker friend, Victor, before wondering where he was at. It turned out he was in Vegas, but likely heading up Central California to Sacremento to head east. I looked to that notion as a safety net of sorts if nothing came of this on ramp. After an hour or so a truck load of yard workers pulled over and told me they were only going to Dry Creek, but they'd take me if I wanted.

Ten minutes later I was in Dry Creek, which is a completely dead, nothing there, exit. I had managed to strand myself. The brief ride was interesting though, they were a couple of Mexicans and the driver was really curious about me travels. In that brief span I told him about my thoughts on heading down to southern Mexico and what so he offered up some advice on areas to hit and areas to avoid.

At the Dry Creek stop I felt a little foolish. Maybe I was a bit too hasty in taking the first ride that came along, and maybe I should start being a little more critical of destinations. I liked the idea of just jumping in the first ride that came, but maybe that time had passed now. Either way, I was there for another hour or so before a lady brought me to the next exit, Colfax.

She was interesting, I can't remember her name, but she was going to pick up her son and other car poolers with him. He was 15 and she told me she was encouraging him to do something like what I'm doing. She actually wanted him to go out and hitch the country when he got out of high school. It somewhat reminded me of my Mom's unusual suggestion when I was 18 and talking about walking it. She thought maybe it'd be wiser to get a motorcycle and do it that way.

Anyway, ten minutes later I was standing on a new corner in Colfax by an on ramp watching cars go by again. Every place I left I'd look back on the positive elements of. Auburn had a heavy stream of traffic to pick from and places to camp if stuck. Dry Creek had ample places to camp though no traffic. Colfax had a bit more traffic but no where to camp. At least none immediately showing themselves.

After an hour there and watching the sun set I decided to get proactive again. I figured out there was a rest stop not too far ahead. If I could walk there I could have a place to bed down and the possibility of some good car flow. Finagling my way around the streets I finally worked out that there would be a road running parallel I-80 on the other side. When I made my way there, sure enough there was one, so I headed down it with my thumb out.

It didn't take long before a pick up pulled up by me. When I told him where I was trying to get to he told me I was definitely on the wrong road. Apparently the one I was on went up for about a mile or so then turned due north, rather than west. As I sat there in his door completely perplexed as to what to do next he then offered to take me to the rest stop regardless of it being out of his way.

I'm always amazed when people go out of their way for me like this. The fact that anyone's letting me in their car for a ride their going to make anyway is always fascinating to me, but when they take rides that are completely out of their way is a real kicker. He drove me about 15 miles up and wished me luck when he dumped me out. We had talked some about hitching and traveling, and if I remember right he had been a hitcher in his day as well.

As he pulled off I looked over the rest stop and it was quite different from the one in my mind's eye. It wasn't a TA, Flying J, Pilot or anything like that, it was literally just a rest stop. Bathrooms and picnic tables with parking and trash cans. Either way, people would be coming through. The sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. It turned out I was now pretty close to Donner's Pass, which I found somewhat amusing. I decided to just call it a night and wake up fresh in the morning rather than try futilely to hitch a slow rest stop on a cold, rainy night.

Around the back were some nice paths, and in there I picked out a prime camp spot. I slept well and was up and packed by 9am the next morning. Hauling my stuff back to the picnic tables by the lot where I could be seen I had a nice leisurely breakfast of oatmeal with agave. I was back in relaxed mode and in no rush at all.

Once I washed up I sat on the benches by the rest rooms so that everyone could see me as they came and went. I spent a good while there just writing in my journal and even tried calling my Mom on the pay phone that didn't work. Having chatted some with one of the workers there he became annoyed with me that I didn't have any pot for him, so a little while later I moved over to the exit ramp. I was there maybe twenty minutes before one of the truckers honked their horn and waved me over.

Jorge was only two hours from having left his house that morning on his usual three day circuit. He told me he never stops in at this rest stop that he passes twice a week, but today he'd had some indegestion from breakfast. I don't know why he picked me up, but my only guess is that he just wanted company.

He was heading to Salt Lake City before he was going to turn south to Arizona. Utah, and particularly its capital Salt Lake City, are hitching deadzones by reputation. My thoughts, however, were of the possibility of Victor coming along behind us going from Sacremento to Cleveland. Also, I just didn't want to pass up a ride that long. I was greedy for miles.

As we drove off we got into talking about his trucking life and the ways of the world through those eyes. Truckers have an interesting vantage point as the movers and shippers of all the goods the country buys. When the economy is good there's a lot of stuff being moved, when its slow, there are less loads to haul. From Jorge's tales the economy was still in the shitter, but getting slightly better.

The most interesting story, as I heard them, was about how truckers work. Every December Owner/Operators have to shell out thousands of dollars in taxes to be able to use their rigs commercially the next year. Last year, with all the business in September with the Lehman Brothers going under and everything, the economy tanked, but by December people were hopeful it'd blow over so the truckers went about business as usual. January and February are generally slow since everyone just blew their wad for Christmas, but when March hit and it was deader than ever the nerves started going. By June people were selling rigs.

Over the summer it was still pretty dead, pay was low as truckers undercut one another just to have something to haul. According to Jorge, who already sold his other two rigs, it was only in September that pay rates started getting back to something even remotely considered reasonable, though still quite low. Having met him toward the end of October with that still being the case he said many of the truckers are just not going to sell their rigs and move on to some other vocation. This will leave a shortage of trucks on the road. Not sure what that will do for the world, but I'm curious to see. If truckers can charge high again to recoup their losses from this year then I suspect the price of things will go up as well.

The other story was of the brokers. Jorge told me of how he believes they are the ones to blame for low pay rates. He told me of a time he was stuck in Denver looking for a load home to California and didn't want to take anything else. His dispatcher called saying a broker was offering $600 to haul something to Billings, and he turned him down. A bit later the dispatcher called again saying he was now offering $900. Again, he said no. A third time offer went up to $1,200. Finally Jorge told his dispatcher he really doesn't want to go to Billings, he just wants to get back to California to see his family for the weekend. He told his dispatcher to relay that he'd take nothing less than $2,000 for that load knowing there's no way the broker would take it and would finally leave him alone. The broker went for it, so Jorge did the job.

Thinking about that, if the broker is paying out of the pay he's being offered from the client and he can afford to pay $2,000 why did he first offer Jorge $600? I think its fair to assume that the broker isn't going to pay him anything out of his own pocket to get the shipment there. Jorge just lucked out on being the only truck in Denver at the time, and his resistance to wanting any load other than a California bound one. Anyway, more food for thought on the workings of the world.

Other than these topics Jorge also was telling me about coming up from Mexico when he was 15, and the mentality behind that. I hadn't realized back in WWII the US invited the Mexicans to come up to fill the war time shortage gap of workers. When the war was over, and everyone returned, the Mexicans were no longer invited, but after four years it had already become apparent that this was a good living. Since then fathers and sons have been arriving as their fathers had, and its only been relatively recently that the US has had a problem with it.

These were the sorts of things he and I talked about on the way through Nevada. We stopped in at Winnemucca for lunch which Jorge insisted on treating me to, even though I told him I'd get lunch and was trying to give the money to the cashier. Around 10:30pm we got into a Flying J 20 miles west of Salt Lake. I was now committed to Utah completely. It was time to see if the rumors were true.

I got out with many thanks for the huge lift he'd given me, the great company and the lunch then set off to a table by the truck stop. I called Todd and talked to him a little while then wandered into the sage brush for bed.