(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.)
Truckers. Contrary to popular belief, the depiction in the movies of truck drivers being a prime source of hitchhiking rides, just isn’t true. Maybe I’ve been doing something wrong all these years but in all my hitchhiking miles I’ve only been picked up by a trucker once. He explained that between company policies and insurance regulations, they’re not allowed to pick up hitchhikers. So, even though it won’t hurt to try, don’t expect to get many rides from truckers.
Comedy. Humor can also help get a ride sometimes. On a cold day in January I was headed for the Mexican border and beyond. My sign said “El Paso.” I wasn’t having much luck at the on-ramp that day so on the backside of my cardboard sign I wrote: “Costa Rica,” my final destination. I got a lot of smiles and thumbs up and plenty of incredulous looks, but I eventually caught a ride. In one car, as it was alongside me I could see a woman yelling to her husband, “He’s going to Costa R-i-i-i-i-ca!”
Prayer. As a last resort when nothing else is working, put your hands together in a praying motion and look desperate. Or if you’re so inclined, put your hands together, look desperate, and pray for real.
Expect the Unexpected. You just never know who’s going to pick you up or for what reasons. One time I was given a 200-mile ride by a guy who’d just had dental surgery. He was in so much pain he picked me up just so I could drive while he held his head out the window, letting the cold October air help ease the pain. Another time, I was so exasperated about not catching a ride, and my back was sore from standing, I was laying on side of the road propped up on my backpack. After four hours of bad luck, a busload of hippies delivering a school bus to another state picked me up hoping that I had some weed that I could share with them. When they pulled over I thought I was about to get trampled by a bunch of school kids so I was surprised when they yelled, “Climb aboard!”
Expect the unexpected, but if it gets you where you are going, then enjoy the ride. Stick your thumb out even at those vehicles unlikely to give you a ride.
SHELTER
I’ve almost never used a tent in my years of backpacking and camping, rather, camped under the stars and crawled under my groundcloth tarp if the weather turned wet. While hitchhiking, not having a tent makes traveling lighter, easier to sleep in inconspicuous places, and getting back on the road in the morning is quicker without a tent. And, the smaller your load, the more likely you are to get picked up. Sometimes however, we do need shelter from the elements. Most people bugging out will likely have some form of shelter with them but for those who don’t, here are some methods I’ve used.
If rain isn’t pending, the main criteria will be to be to find an out-of-the-way place where you won’t be visible to anyone. I’ve slept in cemeteries, in freeway right-of-ways, pastures, on beaches, in the bushes behind motels and luxury hotels, and once on the far-back lawn of a fenced place where people weren’t supposed to be after hours. A guard approached me at 4:30 am asking if I needed him to call the homeless shelter to get me a room and a meal. I asked what time it was and when he said, 4:30, I said thanks but I had to be getting down to the freeway to catch a ride south.
The time I was headed south from the Calgary airport, while sleeping along a fence line 40’ off the highway, the aurora borealis was dancing so wildly on my eyelids it woke me up. I’ve slept on lawns in the shadows at the farthest edges of rest stops, on the back seat while the driver slept on the front seat, and behind stacks of pallets. Other times I’ve slept at the side of a business that wouldn’t be opening in the morning until after I was up and gone, and several times, I was offered a couch and a meal with the kind people who had picked me up. More than a few times, I’ve caught some shuteye in a back booth of an all-night diner where a kind waitress let me sleep with my head resting the table.
When it was raining or threatening to rain, I’ve slept under freeway underpasses. Some have a concrete slope from the shoulder of the road up to just under the roadway, with a small flat area at the top. It’s out of sight and makes a good foul-weather sleeping spot. I’ve slept under rows of parked semi trailers which were waiting to be picked up. During one storm after I had arrived late at night, even though I knew I’d get run off, I said to heck with it and slept under the awning in front of a motel. It was a slow night with nobody coming or going and it wasn’t until three or four in the morning that the manager came out and asked me to either get a room or leave. As I was leaving, I apologized and jokingly said if I could have afforded a room I wouldn’t be sleeping under his awning.
When bugging out via hitchhiking, we can’t be too picky about things. Where we sleep will have to be in the whatever-works category. When sleeping in non-traditional locations, we’ll need to be extra careful to maintain situational awareness, and use common sense and our gut to keep out of trouble.
One more comment on the weather. In many cases, unless we’re standing under an overpass, the better part of valor might be to get out of the rain for your own sake, and because a potential driver is thinking a wet hitchhiker is probably less desirable in their passenger seat than a dry one. There are times however when the weather can work to our advantage.
Once, I had to take care of some business that could only be done in person. It was warm when I left so I was just wearing a heavy wool shirt the next morning when I was trying to get home. It was November, I had 200 miles to travel, and it was snowing. I had to be back to work a graveyard shift so weather or no weather, I was hitchhiking that day. It was one of those windy days when the powder snow is coming down at an angle and collecting on your clothes and in your hair but not melting. I didn’t have a hat so I had my head down to keep the snow from going down the front of my shirt. It wasn’t working too well so I tried sticking my tongue down into the open V at the top of my shirt to see if that would help. That wasn’t working either but I started laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Then I couldn’t stop laughing, “Nobody’s going to believe this story.” When I finally looked up again, I was still laughing and a car stopped and gave me a ride. He said the weather was so bad he felt morally obligated to stop, and he also wanted to know what could possibly be so funny.
So, in some situations like cold and snow, the weather can work to our advantage and drivers who otherwise wouldn’t stop for a hitchhiker, may feel compassionate enough to stop and offer us a ride.
CONCLUSION
Remember, people are generally good and want to help others, more so than we probably give the general population credit for.
The most exotic place I’ve ever hitchhiked in was China, just above the border with Laos. I was in a tiny little village and nobody was leaving town that afternoon. I ended up crashing in the jungle 20 or 30 feet from the road where I could roll out my fleece sleeping bag and be out of sight, hoping there weren’t any exotic death-inducing reptiles nearby. Early the next morning, I heard an old truck slowly rumbling up the winding road so I grabbed my pack. When it came around the corner I could see it was as old as it sounded. I stuck my thumb out, hoping that it wasn’t some sort of an obscene gesture in China, and grinned as wide as I could. Without a second thought the driver stopped and motioned for me to climb in. Conversation was non-existent but we both had grins on our faces at this unique experience. When he let me out, I handed him a little money which, as I expected, he refused. I finally made motions of eating so he’d know I wanted him to buy lunch on me. He understood my signals and finally took it, and we were both chuckling as he drove away. Needless to say, it was a good day for each of us, knowing we’d have a great story to tell the family when we got back home.
People want to be good and help out strangers. Sometimes we just need to know how to get them to take a chance on us.
Those preppers who’ve planned far enough ahead so they have a retreat to bug out to, should also be ahead of the curve and see the bug-out signals before it gets too late. The sooner bug-out procedures are implemented, the more likely it is they’ll get to the retreat without too much delay. For those with no other viable means of travel who must leave right now, hitchhiking may be a practical solution. The closer the retreat is, the easier it will be to get there by thumb. Hopefully, most will be thumbing only a few hundred miles or less, a distance easily hitchhiked in a single day.
For those of us who are sheltering in place as the world is falling apart, perhaps we can make a judgment call and be charitable in a situation where someone needs a ride from us. If we’re armed as we should be when we’re at the brink of TEOTWAWKI, the risk should be very minimal.
I’m a big fan of testing our preps, so keep in mind that this hitchhiking prep is just as testable as all the rest of them. If it’s too intimidating to stand on the side of the road waving your thumb in the air, maybe you can work the other side of the equation. Perhaps someone, like me last year after the tow truck drove away, could use your help. Or the guy carrying the gas can. And I’m certain that gal carrying several bags of groceries and walking the half mile towards the public housing would be most grateful for a lift. It’s more likely she’s carrying Russets than a Ruger so she’s probably not much of a risk.
For those who are planning on bugging out to get to their SHTF retreat, be sure to have some backup plans on how to get there, including hitchhiking as a last resort.
It’s impossible to say how things could develop as the world is falling apart, so we need to be sure to have alternate plans to our alternate plans. Hopefully, we won’t need them, but if we do, we’ll be ready for whatever comes our way.
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