The night after my hitchhike to Denver I dreamed about flying across the country in the passenger seat of my friend's airplane, which I'm sure stemmed from my day on the road. Then my friend tried to do a backflip in his airplane and we crashed.
I got back on the road the next morning feeling refreshed after a good night's sleep. I got a ride out to Pine Needles, just south of Denver, and set up next to the bus stop. The bus was coming in about four hours, so if I didn't have a ride by then that was how I was getting back.
It's hard not to get frustrated when you see car after car go by with empty seats and they wont stop for you. Every one of these people were going the direction I needed to go-there was only one way to go-but most wouldn't even look at me. A lot of people even changed lanes, seemingly to get farther away from me. I was upset they would avoid me like this, but when I thought about it I probably do that to most hitchhikers I pass when I'm driving.
I did my best to keep smiling and thinking positive and after about half an hour and old man pulled over for me. He was only going about 10 miles, but that was 10 miles closer to home. Like everybody else, this guy had stopped for me because he used to be a hitchhiker back in the day.
I was a little disappointed at where he left me. Bailey is a very small town on a curved part of the highway and wasn't an area that people were likely to stop, but it turned out that he dropped me exactly where I needed to be.
Bailey was the first place on the trip where I really caught a break. I suppose any ride at all is catching a break but this time the car that pulled over was a couple Western State students heading back from a court date in Denver.
Alex and Erika are originally from Kansas and had transferred to Western a couple years ago. Like myself, Alex is a club sports athlete at Western so we talked about sports and shared recruiting stories from our old schools. They told me I was the first hitchhiker they had ever picked up. He said he saw my sign that said 'Gunnison' and 'student' and he pulled over.
They said nobody back home ever picked up hitchhikers because Kansas has a lot of
maximum security prisons and people on the road could be escaped convicts. So for any future hitchhiking travels, make sure to avoid Kansas (you should probably just try to avoid going to Kansas anyways).
This was the first point of the trip that I was finally able to relax. I didn't have to worry about the map or the road anymore. I just smiled, kicked back and enjoyed the ride.
I got back to Gunnison around three in the afternoon. I thanked Alex and Erika and walked to my apartment. It had taken an extra day, but I had just hitchhiked 400 miles. I saw some beautiful country, met a lot of interesting people and heard some fantastic hitchhiking stories. Plus I did it all without spending a dime on travel.
This was a very fulfilling experience that I will remember for a long time. And I don't think I ever want to do that again.
Hitchhiking is fun in areas like Gunnison that support hitchhiking, but if you're going somewhere else just do yourself a favor and find a ride.
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