10/23- Wyoming

I got a pretty decent nights sleep and was fully appreciative of my new method of grabbing cardboard boxes from dumpsters on my way to finding a place to bed down when I peeked my head out of the bivy to find frost on my bag. Inside I was still quite toasty. Seeing that frost, and feeling the morning air made getting out of the bivy a little bit of a chore, but eventually I did it. I put my boots on immediately to start warming them up for the day since they were absolutely freezing.

As I proceeded to pack everything up I kept thinking I should make myself breakfast for the day ahead. Its something I have a habit of forgetting to do, then suddenly I find myself feeling really weak and hungry. Very strange phenomenon, but I think I'm narrowing down its cause. Soon enough I was back down at the J and setting up shop with a coffee a picnic table between the truckers gas station and the door to the store.

I had finally busted out all the stops on my cold weather gear and was wearing everything. My long johns and thermal undershirt that I'd picked up at Penney's, my walking t-shirt, hoodie, rain parka, and winter jacket along with my jeans and rain pants over my long johns. I also donned my hat with the hoodie up under it and my winter gloves on. It was cold outside, but I was actually a little bit hot after all that.

I roamed around that general area for a couple hours just enjoying the morning. I had woken up around 9am again and was not feeling any rush, or at least, no immediate rush for that morning. In general, I was both a little bit nervous about my timing and my cash since Salt Lake had taken quite a bit of both from me with the two day wait and bus fare. With that lingering around in the back of my mind, I was doing quite well not feeling rushed at all for the present moment and quite proud of myself for being able to trust that everything would work out one way or another. In my mind, this was all apart of a series of lessons.

After a while I went off to have my breakfast away from the Flying J. I felt it was rude enough for me to be lingering around with only a coffee purchase for so long, so I may as well not cook up my oatmeal like a true hobo in front of their 24 hour diner. It was nice sitting off on my own for a bit anyway. There was no chance of thinking about hitching, so it felt like a lunch break to fully just enjoy my meal.

When I returned and washed everything up in the rest room I sat back outside for a bit. A guy had taken notice of me when he went in the store but didn't say anything that I recall. I sat there a bit longer then decided to get another coffee. When I went in he was walking out and asked if I'd gotten a ride yet. I told him no and he waved me on to go with him.

Peter was a really interesting guy on his own, as well as an interesting study in how people react to me. When I first got in the car and we headed off down the highway we got to talking about me hitching. I'm pretty sure he offered the ride because he thought I was down on my luck and stranded. When he found out I was hitching by choice he seemed to lose respect for me as one of Todd's trust fund travelers. I've had this reaction before and pretty much ignored it.

Once it seemed as though that was his image of me he told me he was sorry he was going to bore me to death and hit play on the tape he was listening to. It couldn't have been a more perfect selection as the audio documentary of Andrew Jackson continued on from where he'd just left off. It was even right at my favorite part of his presidential career of when Jackson takes on the Central Bank through his second term. This opened many doors for Peter and I to talk about.

Normally I'm not one to talk through a tape, movie, TV show, etc., but Peter opened the door with a comment and I ran with it. I started unloading everything I learned about how The Fed works, how Jackson's fight to remove the Central Bank was the biggest achievement on his watch, and all of my theories on what's going on with this down turned crap economy now. Much to my surprise I sounded like I knew quite a bit, and Peter was quite impressed as well. Suddenly the lost respect for me he had when I got in flipped 180 and doubled. He was soon asking me what I thought of the administration, government in general, how did I know so much about banking and the monetary system. All I could say was that I saw a really good documentary and recommended it to him. Money Lenders, or Money Changers, I believe it was called. Another good for content, bad by production, film is Freedom vs. Facism talking about how income tax is completely unconstitutional and illegal.

This took about half an hour for us to start getting into these conversations, and soon we were having really lively, intense conversations while pausing and playing the Jackson tape to really figure out what the world is doing now. It was a really great ride all the way to Laramie, and when he dropped me off at the library there you could tell neither of us were really ready to part ways. Alas, I thanked him again for the ride and he went off to his lecture.

An hour later I was heading into downtown Laramie a few blocks away where 287 crosses through town. The whole way walking there I kept running a debate in my head of whether or not to head south down 287 where I'd likely pick up a ride in no time toward the Front Range sprawl and hopefully Denver, or do I head north back to an on ramp by I-80 and try to make some miles east. I had a week now to get half way across the country and was thinking any more slacking off would keep me from getting there in time.

At the same time I couldn't help but notice all the Colorado plates driving around up there as I turned north toward I-80. I also passed within 100 yards of a desperately slow moving freight train with all the right kinds of cars to jump on to heading south. I even walked toward it hesitantly before turning back. Starting over the bridge toward I-80 a kid picked me up for a short hop and dumped my right by the exit. That was it, I was hitching east.

It was about 4:30pm now and I stood right at the on ramp until sunset with my thumb out. No one. Stunning view though. I decided that once the sunset and I was little more than a creepy guy in a hat standing in the dark under a single street lamp by the on ramp in a state its illegal to hitch in that I'd head down to the truck stop and get some dinner. One lady had stopped, and again, in place of a ride she gave me $7. That $7 convinced myself that I should have a $17 dinner of an all you can eat steak buffet. You'd have done the same.

It was the best damn meal I to memory where I stuffed myself silly with three or four courses, bottomless coffee, and was sitting in the drivers section by invite chatting with all the truckers as an obvious hitcher. The waitress roaming around was completely adorable too, that didn't hurt. After a good hour or so I had eaten all I could and saw no promising leads that one of the truckers I was chatting with was even entertaining the idea of giving me a lift, so I paid my bill and left.

Once again, I did not think about drinking tons of coffee along side going to bed afterward. I decided to sit out and hitch a bit more in front of the truck stop, but it was completely dead. I crossed over the bridge back to the one on the other side and just felt creepy over there. Returning back to my original spot that I'd had in the day time I figured that I was just going up there to wait out the coffee buzz and feel productive in the meantime, but really didn't expect anyone to pick me up in the dark when nobody did in the daylight.

A half an hour later Juan pulled up next to me to my very great surprise. He told me he was heading to Greeley in just enough English for me to understand. Greeley is 50 minutes north of Denver so I hopped in and started sending out texts to Ang and Loreli.

Both were ecstatic, which of course made me feel really good. I asked Loreli if I could stay at her place if I could catch a ride from Loveland down I-25 to Denver that night and she responded with "don't be silly we're coming up to get you". I was beaming the rest of the hour ride down with Juan as we decided to work on each others linguistic skills. I spoke in my crap ass Spanish to him and he'd respond and correct me in his broken but relatively fluent English. When our brains hurt after a bit of that he turned to showing me transvestite joke gifs that his cousin texted him that day. Good times.

I bid him adieu at a gas station in Loveland right by the ramp to I-25 and he went off another ten minutes down the road to Greeley to his family. As I waited for Loreli and Brandon to drive up I started talking with the guy working the register there. He was a pretty cool guy in from Brooklyn who was another who'd been converted to being strictly a Colorado guy now. It was a good way to pass the time, and he was an interesting guy with good perspective and insights as well.

By about midnight they arrived and we were cruising back down the highway talking about the weirdness about me just suddenly popping back by again. It was odd for all of us, but no one was complaining. At that point I was up for a good dose of home before continuing on east.