Ron Huber Travelogue May June 1981
Transcription from paper diary. Wherein I describes two hitchhiking journeys from Oregon to Maryland and back to Oregon, in May, 1981. I dub myself "the agent" and many other names Sometimes by my actual name.

5/23/81 Surprise! The agent is slouching toward Jerusalem (or at least Babylon) in an emerald T-Bird. It is 7:20 am Saturn-day, shortly before midmorning. He and his driver spent the night aboard his cabin cruiser, just north of Lake Shasta, while friends and lovers sang and danced in Ashland at the Siskiyou community center's opening night dance.

Dropped off by Nora on the southern outskirts of Ashland, Oregon, the peripatetic philosopher fruitlessly waves the discordian travel-aid sign at passing motorists.

A fellow traveler (from the darker side of the rainbow spectrum) comes walking past and huddles at the far end of the entrance ramp. Then another, and the trio hold an impromptu council, smoke a bit of ganga in memory of recently deceased Bob Marley, and sip from an Olympian ambrosia bottle. Party ends.

The haunted one, duffel bag atop his shoulder, puts down the ambrosia, says, "they" won't let him drink the rest. The agent, knowing all too well from the recent Eli case who "they" are, sympathizes, drinks it himself. The company subdivides into individual atoms again and before long comes the T-bird, aboard which the agent rolls toward Roseville, Cal, where he will get aboard I-80 and begin the transcontinental thumb.

Dropped in Roseville by Ted, who sports a week's growth of graying beard, the marathon man strolls over to the on-ramp, arranges his baggage, and begins a medley of old tunes. Passing drivers smile and wave, and finally one of them pulls over, He is going to Auburn, 20 miles to the east. A talky pair, husband and wife, they sympathize with Ariel's concerns over his younger brother, Before long the ride is over and Ariel goes through the hitcher's ritual again, with guitar blazing. An ancient Plymouth stops. It carries an elderly plump man, somehow reminiscent of Spiro Agnew, and his Pomeranian pooch. they take the traveler to Colfax, another twenty miles, and promise to take him to Reno if he's yet around when the errand in Colfax is complete. Very well.

In Colfax, the Intelligence Agent gets a flash of deja-vu. Is it.....? Yes! He'd been dropped here before, years ago. He recalls the seedy restaurant called Pink Elephant, Hm. Time travelling again.

The real struggle on earth: Northern hemisphere life forms possessing clockwise rotating DNA helices, versus Southern Hemisphere's counter clockwise spiraling DA life forms. (Or opposite.)

5.24.81 Central Wyoming. Bleak, inhospitable; dozens of what appear to be naturally formed, worn away Sphinx sculptures. Much like valley of the Kings in Egypt....

Old pigtailer takes the traveler to the far side of Reno. While carrying his belongings over to the on-ramp, Ed of Nevada pulls up in a pickup with Dynamite the Labrador on the truckbed. A long friendly ride with indole assist. (A trio of eroded pyramids sails past) Ed had made his own cap and ball pistol and is off to go test firing. Takes the Bemused One to Battle Mtn, halfway across the sage strewn vastness of Nevada.

Then Dennis breezes up in his tractor trailer loaded down with Valencia oranges bound for juice factories. He regales the now somnolent excursionist with multitudes of truckers' tales, makes a blackjack and coffee stop shortly before reaching the Utah border, and early in Sunday morn (4am-ish), leaves Arien in the Salt Lake City limits, where the agent crawls under some brush and into a bag for a few hours. Then awake by 7 am, walk down the highway paranoid of allegedly brutal Salt Lake cops and onto an on ramp near a Safeway depot. A brief burst of morning song (remember that liquid warble of the overhead bird?).

A short hop to a seemingly useless drop off point courtesy of a hung over fellow bringing gas to hapless friends who ran out 5 miles east of SLC. then aboard this one with Trina the Chow chow, enroute for Rawlins.

1:30. Skelly truck stop, Rawlins, Wyoming. Wired out. Testy old Trucker, skinny, irritably snaps away at Indian waitress: consistently polite....So what?

Crossings in the mist. Why does the haggard hitcher bother taking down the meaningless details of mean lives in the outback? Because they are there, as the mountaineer might say. Fleeting lives silhouetted agaist the vast nature presence that overwhelms the puny scrabblings of sentient primates on Turtle Island.

Ennnywhey: The agent speeds towards the nation's capitol, going downhill all the way to the Mississippi, riding gravity now that the continental divide has been crossed. His plans: Arrive. Ascertain the family resonances. Enter political state of consciousness. Scope out yog-sothoths's perimeter, Link up with DD. Hanta Yo!

The caffienated counseler walks to the appropriate entrance ramp, heading, again, east. Overhead, flotillas of nimbocumuli, swollen with H20 , move into position overhead, like some aetherial armada.

The agent prepares to repell aqueous boarders. Then the Rawlins pyrotechnician comes over from his tiny stand nearby. He speaks of the many thumbers he'd met there at the skelly entrance ramp.

The agent solemnly thanks him on behalf of all hitchers. The pyrotech is bored; each Day slides past, varying only in the date and licence plates of his infrequent clients. He does read however, and focuses particularly on science fiction, for which the bard praises him, pointing out the necessity of reading such novels to keep up with the advancing flow of new creations climbing out of the human psyche. "Yeah, but its 3 to 4 dolalrs per book", he complains. And indeed, no library graces the gaunt town of Rawlins, population 13,000 (second largest city in Wyoming.)

Ariel scratches Bushrod, Pyrrus' half shepherd, half collie/bernard canine, behind the ears, pulls a shred of molting dog-hair from his neck, causing Bushrod to dance gratefully.

At length, Pyrrus retreats to his trailer, reluctant to face the storm. Ariel arranges his goods to prevent moisture damage. The storm hits, swells from a mist to full pelting showers, receds to mist, then stops. It is 3 pm.

Too many cars having gone by, Ariel decides to risk the wrath of the Wyoming highway patrol by walking up the ramp to I-80, and lo! an aged cadillac comes purring out of the truck-torn mist at 10 miles per hour.

It is driven by a 40-ish jowly Indian, hair swept back stiffly in an Elvis-style. Filling much of the capacious interior are a motley collection of long haired youths.

"Where you going?" asks one, riding shotgun. "Maryland."

"Climb aboard." They load the agent's gear in the trunk of the land yacht and the exhausted Ariel climbs in. The whale moves off at a dignified 30 miles per hour, our driver studiedly ignoring the speeding cars and trucks that flash past in the left lane.

Apparently, all aboard are hitchikers, except of course, Bill Hatfield, the driver, who seems taciturn. They move along and Ariel dispenses Lorien granola to the famished passengers. There is a dead rabbit in the trunk, which Bill hopes to cook later. Bill, veteran of electroshock and miscellaneous psycho ward treatments, is angry at the callous behavior of one of the passengers and occasionally pulls off the road, muttering to himself of past atrocities he'd witnessed or imagined. He steers to Cheyenne, drops off three of the hitchers and continues on to Denver, finally dropping off Mark, bound for Ohio, and Ariel, now absolutely stoned on lack of sleep, before disappearing into the misty streets of Denver.

Denver Ariel and Mark repair to a supermarket, where the agent purchases cheese, french bread and tomatoes. Mark digs into his duffle bag and produces a tablecloth which he covers a box with to create a reasonable table, over which the pair dines with gusto, oblivious to the curious stares of passing locals. Then off to a freeway bridge, under which they crouch, troll-like, and speak of their pasts and futures. Exhaustion finally claims the agent to troubled sleep and he dreams amid the roar of passing tractor trailers. Shanti.

5-25-81 Denver outskirts Aha! Mark's graffito, emblazoned on a shock absorber crash barrier at the I-25 / I-70 junction. Its a bitch of an intersection, clearly made without input from hitchhiker lobbyists. A brief fruitless stab at thumbery and then the shithammer gently taps on Ron's noggin, incarnated as a Denver's Finest. He rapidly, efficiently tickets the hapless voyager. Upon asking a means out of the shoulderless cloverleaf, the agent is told to walk along the interstate until he reaches 45th avenue, some unknown distance south, cross over and hitch at the Pedestrians Prohibited sign. (!) Fine. He dawdles around indecisively after the cop leaves, then another appears, athwart a motorcycle. Told of cop Potter's plan, he frowns, but departs to his spotter tower overlooking the junction without doating a ticket.

He walks down the freeway, dejected and weary. Comes to an overpass, Skinnies through the fence via a culvert. Climbs uphill for a look: No good. Next visible intersection 38th street. Back onto the highway, picked up by an indian who drives him about the mestizo section of Denver, then to an accessible on-ramp. Good. Next ride takes Ron to Havana, home of the county jail on the eastern outskirts of Denver. Utterly wretched. Deserted road. Vacant warehouses. Occasional jet ponderously lifting off Stapleton Airport, passing along with the hours. Finally, the voyager gets desperate, gets on top of ramp, tries for a ride direst. Zzzzzzap! The motorcyclop appears (or is it another? They really DO look alike, these Denver fuzzies.) lays another ticket on him and tenders him an invitation to the jail if found again on the interstate. Brrr. He stumps back down to the legal hitch zone, watches ants clamber about on their hills and wishes a car would go by....

Fuck it. Can't take the wait. Goes to the westbound ramp. Waits for a tourist car to leave the hitchzone. Then a quick ride (always easier to go west, somehow) to the airport highway entrance.

Lots of cars passing. Finally a ride to Chambers Road, where appears the perfect replica of Mark, clad in cutoffs, skinny as a rail. He'd been there for hours. Mad Ron opts to try going east by going west to a better ramp, where lurks a Denny's. Quick pick up. Hopes riding high.

Disaster. Wipeout, dud. For five hours he and a mixed bag of fellw wanderers are trapped in the twilight zone. Nobody'll stop. The agent tries a dash to the highway, hoping to luck out before Big Brother manifests. Wavs his thumb energetically, to the scornful delight of passing motorists, who ape his worried signing with cruel glee. Inexorably, the police appear, pull over, turn on flashers, and out pops Officer Danhour and his sidekick. D's a polite rookie, apparently. Carefully, in a disconnective voice, he explains Colorado highway hitch theory, gives forth a ticket, and runs the violator's ID # through the Beast. Like a whistle, of course. Volunteers the information that unpaid ticket will wind his name in the Colorado crime computer, so he'd better, heh, heh, pay off, y'know?

Fine, fine agrees the agent. Tis nice to be wanted, but not by the state of Colorado, yep, haha...

Back to the Ramp of Wretchedness. Neuro-energizing, along with an overtired pair of voyagers, both recently parted from their posessions and bound for vague potential jobs in Kansas or somewhere. Such pathos.

The intoxicated intellectual buries his stash lightly in the sand, vowing not to forget it, which he promptly does when a pickup pulls over. Aboard, he learns too late the driver is going onto Rte 225, rampless and very illegal for triple ticketed travellers. Very well. He decides to go down 225 to a truck stop in Castle Rock, but then opts to go to Colorado Springs with the truck. There he's dropped at the entrance to Hwy 24. Caffienates, goes to ramp. Gets a quick ride to Peyton, tiny nowhere town in Colorado heartlands.

It's 10 o'clock, dark, misty. What am I doing here? he wonders to himself. A car passes, vanishes in the distance, then reapears and takes him to Limon. Young Minnesota trucker and 2 gals. Foreigner rocks on the stereo. Double vision, indeed.

Now 2:12 am, Tuesday morn, Five cups of joe. Time to go....where?

The Fool shivers about for 1/2 hour, Then the tire fixer at the Limon truck stop takes pity on the wastrel, stones him on a smidgeon of pot, puts him to sleep in his car.

He can't sleep: far too much coffee bubbling about in his duodenum. He hallucinates, dissociates, discusses his life flow with a pair of smugly scornful intracerebral entities. Finally drops off to sleep, awakened all too soon by the friendly tire-man.

It is 7 am. Eyes grainy and sagging with exhaustion, he staggers to the ramp. Shuffles about grouchily.

A car stops. 76 blue Hornet wagon. Nearly paralyzed with fatigue, the Huberian hitcher stammers out thanks, gets in. the driver's destination? Ohio!

Hooray! For 24 hours they soar, groggily at times to be sure, eastward. Eastern Colorado is gone in a blurry flash. Kansas hangs in there doughtily, but at last is vanquished and falls behind. Missouri is more cunning, takes advantage of the pair's road weariness, tries, via reckless Missouri drivers, to hug them deep within her chthonic bosom. To no avail. They escape Kansas City, and later St Louis, with nothing more than a few near misses. They roll through the night. Steadily passing through Illinois, rain drenched Indiana and finally into Ohio. There, barely 10 miles into the Buckeye state. they pull off at a rest area, where the Spaced Traveller collects his cargo, shakes hands with the noble charioteer and dismisses him, bidding him good fortune.

Walking over to the entry way, the minstrel stops off to pass the time of day with a pair of serfs; good natured and cheerful, they wish him godspeed. And indeed: God speeds a chauffeur to the agent. This one 26 yrs of age, purveyer of "grain systems hardware" made by the Quonset Co. He employes the traveller as a neuroenergizer/facilitation aide. This done, they travel across Ohio to near the eastern edge of the Buckeye state.

[[ A dream of a quite elegant bawdy house that had its own ramp on the Interstate. I'd stopped there, unaccountably and proceeded to make the acquaintance of the people there, who formed a society unto themselves. At length, I realized I was near broke anyway and got unceremoniously asked to leave, having receIved nothing but a massage and geisha-like aesthetic satisfaction. ]]

Yet travelworn, the peripatetic pedestrian arranges his junque, thumbs away and hooks a ride that zips through Ohio, Southwestern Pensylvania, Western Maryland, all the way to College Park, in fact. The Camaro, driven by Reverend Racetrack, purrs to a smooth halt on Rte 1. From Route 1, the traveller waits fruitlessly for bus ride. No luck.

Then a van driver seeking route 50 offers him a ride if he'll show him the Rte, so...next stop Cheverly's newest stop light. On foot again, Ariel steps quickly and lightly through the sleepy streets, avoiding a small knot of people on Kilmer Street, finally hits the Huber Yard, drops his pack in the back yard, slides inside.

The journey is over.