Why Stop?

Thousands upon thousands of cars have seen this very picture: me sitting on my backpack or standing next to it on the side of the road. And yet only 125 of you stopped to pick me up and help me on my way. Why? Are you braver? Dumber? More generous? More open-minded? Less selfish? Lonely? Superstitious? In need of company and counseling? An optimist? Indebted to someone else who helped you? Have you hitchhiked before? Are you a traveler?

This page is dedicated to you... who, for whatever reason, picked up a hitchhiker (or simply helped, met or inspired one) and became part of Golf My Way Home. Thank you for making this experience so much richer and farther reaching than I ever could have imagined. - your new friend, John

Kris and Nicole - Prescott, AZ to the top of Mount Mingus

I had reason to be discouraged after watching a thousand cars go by in Wickenburg, AZ, but the magic began when John and his two beautiful children (Tessa, 2, and Scottie, 1) rescued me from the buzz cuts, brass belt buckles and ten gallon hats and drove me up into the counter culture country of the Arizona Mountains. It was here, in Prescott, that hang glider Kris and his beautiful wife Nicole picked me up on their way up to the launch site on top of Mingus Mountain.

I was going to camp up there with the hang gliding crew, but somewhere along the road that day, I lost my BlackBerry and decided it was best that I hitch down into civilization to try to get a new one (and call my mom so she wouldn't worry.) I caught a ride with Kathleen, the Jerome town librarian, and Klayton, an arctic researcher. The ride down Mingus Mountain through the red rocks and pine forests to Jerome, sitting in the open air in the back of their pick-up truck, was one of the most beautiful, peaceful and inspiring rides of the trip.

And Jerome is now one my favorite towns in the whole world: an old copper mining town built on the side of a mountain with narrow streets that zig-zag down through classic turn of the century square stone and brick buildings. These were the hotels, brothels, bars and jails at the heart of this boomtown and they've remained pretty much the same (if you substitute a boutique here for a brothel there) except now they're inhabited by a high energy mix of hippies, artists, bikers and tourists.

On the Sunday afternoon I arrived, Harleys lined the streets and impossibly huge dudes with anvils for arms played pool and pounded Budweisers in the bars along main street. Rock music pulsed out of the open doorways. I spent an hour or so poking around town and then hiked down the long curling road towards the valley. After the straightaway that runs along the ridge by the old high school where you can look back up and see the entirety of Jerome perched on the mountainside, I got picked up by the drummer from one of the bands that had been jamming in town. Rich was on his way home to Sedona to grab a quick bite to eat and change drum sets for another gig that night. 

When I told him about my journey and how I was planning to play the Sedona Golf Resort the next morning he said, "I live right down the road from the Golf Resort. My girlfriends' out of town and you're welcome to stay at my house, if you don't mind hanging out with my dog Otis." 

Otis turned out to be a lovable, slobbering chocolate lab... hardly an imposition. And Rich's home was located on a quiet street directly beneath the glowing red butte of Bell Rock in the Oak Creek neighborhood of Sedona. 

I didn't have time to buy a new phone that night, but when I signed in to email my mom, I found this note waiting for me from the hang gliding couple:

This is to backup you checking your phone messages without your phone. WE have it and are holding it ransom for nothing! Just call and give us a hint where to reunite you and your blackbuddy. I will try to fly to Sedona in my hang glider tomorrow and land on the correct golf course on precisely the hole you are playing. The universe will conspire to make this happen. 

- Kris and Nicole

That night Kris and Nicole had driven back to the very spot where they picked me up on the outskirts of Prescott and searched the ground in the glow of their headlights for my BlackBerry. Not only did they find it and contact me, but Kris flew it to me in his hang glider the next day. He landed five miles from the Sedona Golf Resort where Nicole picked him up in the "chase vehicle" and together they drove over to meet me. It was Father's Day and we watched Tiger Woods battle through a knee injury and drain a dramatic fifteen footer on the seventy-second hole of the US Open to tie Rocco Mediate for the lead. 

I knew the trip was going to be magical... or I wouldn't have done it. But this day surpassed all of my expectations.... and there were many more to come.

As Kris put it in a follow up email that night:

Great day on Earth! Once you've seen one golf course from 12, 000 ft. you've seen them all. An hour and forty-five minutes in the air, seventeen miles, landed way out in the rough. a five mile putt in the Millenium White Cloud (my rusty truck) and down the rabbit hole....par infinity. 

-Kris and Nicole 

Sonja Hughes - Columbus, WI to Hartford, WI

Two of my first three rides were with women and when Jeanette King dropped me by the desolate, dusty roadside of Rte 60 in western Arizona her optimistic words rung tantalizingly in my ears, "There are tons of beautiful women in Volvos out there just waiting to pick you up."

It was six weeks and 2000 miles before another one did.

OK, not exactly. Lita Byersly gave me a ride from Mexican Hat, AZ to Moab, UT but she actually drove by me first in Kayenta, AZ on the Navajo Reservation and stopped only after I then passed her in the back of a speeding pick up truck through beautiful Monument Valley. I guess she couldn't bring herself to drive by me again especially after I'd smiled and waved to her as we barreled past with a Navajo grandmother at the wheel.

Still its not every day that I have a chance to lobby a woman twice and by the time I reached Columbus, WI I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that solo women weren't going to stop. I don't blame you ladies. I know many of you wanted to. I could tell by the countless sympathetic smiles, helpless shrugs, and whispered apologies.

I became so accustomed to women passing me by and the little split-second ritual waves and commiserations that when Sonja Hughes actually pulled over I didn't quite know how to react. When I jogged up to her car I think I said, "Can I help you?" But she didn't seem nearly as surprised by the whole thing as I was... partly because I was holding up a sign with her hometown written on it and partly because she'd already passed one hitcher that day without stopping and couldn't bring herself to pass another. Sonja's also a nurse who's accustomed to helping others and I was the lucky recipient of her compassionate discretion.

What began as a simple 35 mile ride in a straight line from Columbus to Hartford ended as a bad blonde joke..."How long does it take two blondes to drive 35 miles in a straight line?" Let me just put it this way...the "straight line" ended up looking more like an outline of the state of Texas or Florida (see below) and the "35 mins" became 2 hours.

In our defense it all started with a downed bridge - a result of the catastrophic flooding in the Midwest earlier this year. Having not been to Wisconsin before I now understand how crippling these floods can be. Its not just a matter of waiting for the water to recede and getting to work repairing the businesses, homes and roads. Before you can even get to work you've got to begin reassembling the jigsaw puzzle of broken bridges over the rivers and lakes that are so plentiful here the land seems more like an archipelago of islands than the heart of a continent.

In the end, with the help of the GPS on my BlackBerry, Sonja and I eventually made it to Hartford and she kindly invited me to join her for dinner that night at her parents' house. I'm hoping this is because she was as sad I was to part company after our goofy two hour adventure together, but I'm guessing it's because her dad wanted to meet, "that hitchhiker" she picked up on her way home from Madison.

The direct route between Columbus and Hartford

The "blonde" route

Gary Piercy - Gothenburg, NE to Council Bluffs, Iowa

I've received several emails expressing feelings of gratitude for being a part of "Golf My Way Home" but none so eloquent as Gary Piercy's (pictured here with his kids Bella and Cooper.) Following the email is the story of where I was when Gary picked me up and the details of our ride together from my perspective.



"John-



I hope this finds you well, and the road has been kind. Life here is returning to normalcy, but I find you and your venturesome journey are never far from my thoughts. It's tough to study another credit memorandum when I keep wondering what cracked windshield you may be looking through or where the road is taking you today.

I was trying to explain our encounter to a co-worker of mine, and he tried to characterize it (somewhat dismissively) as some tired journey of self discovery. What he doesn't get and I was unable to articulate is that this trip is not for you, not even completely for your Dad. It is for people like me, who needed to put a face to what boundless joy for life looks like - what possibilities exist for all of us? what stories might we someday tell? how can this zeal manifest itself in mundane places like Nebraska? (owls in ancient trees, and fireflies dancing in the corn) But mostly, I believe your trip is for all those people that were so close to pulling over and giving you a lift, but just couldn't let themselves live a few moments outside of their comfort zone. What a great few moments they missed, something I hope they learn from your narration of the experience. The best thing about your journey and the hope that radiates from it is the fact that it likely will mean something different to everyone you meet along the way, and I feel blessed to have a part in it.

Well, I'd better get to bed. Tina (my wife) is giving me grief about going on and on about our encounter. But, I think she is smitten with your intrepid spirit as well, as a check of her internet history reveals she keeps clicking back on golfmywayhome.org, so keep the updates coming!

Peace!


GP

p.s. - Here's a pic of me and the kids, Bella and Cooper, so you can get a sense of what motivates ME every day"

Gary Piercy picked me up around noon on a Sunday in Gothenburg, Nebraska on his way to play Wild Horse Golf Club. I'd somehow miraculously made it from eastern Colorado to Gothenburg the previous evening for the sole purpose of playing Wild Horse thereby adding an extra dose of gritty spirit to the journey by exposing myself to hitchhiking-unfriendly Nebraska for the sake of good golf.

I stayed at the Super 8 motel out on Interstate 80 and after working on the website all morning began walking the three or four miles across town to the golf course. The skies were threatening rain and I'd had some serious problems getting rides from Nebraskans the previous afternoon so it probably would've been wiser to take a cab, but I hadn't "cheated" (cabbed it) the entire trip... besides I was curious to find out if the locals would override their anti-hitchhiking DNA and pick up a kid wearing a J Crew polo shirt and sky blue Ralph Lauren Bermuda shorts, carrying a golf bag on his shoulder and walking in the direction of the only golf club in town. I was what you'd call an "open book" and if you'd made me bet, I would've guessed I'd have gotten a ride in five minutes/ten cars tops.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I walked about halfway to the course as the skies roiled and rumbled overhead and car after car drove past - the drivers giving me the usual array of expressions: sympathetic shrugs, bemused smiles, mistrusting glares, curious stares and, my personal favorite: avoidance of eye contact altogether. Regardless, the result was the same: "Fughedaboudit!"

Finally when I got to the outskirts of town and felt like I should be nearing the course, I came across a guy washing his truck in his driveway. I asked him how much further it was to Wild Horse.

"Oh a good two miles or so." he said.

I asked him if he thought a local would eventually give me a lift. 

"Not very likely" he said. 

Out of guilt or karmic obligation or just plain goodwill he offered to drive me the rest of the way himself. I thought about it for a second (it was tempting), but decided to keep hoofing it and see what happened. I genuinely wanted to know if a local would pick me up... and one finally did. Well, kind of.

Gary's from Omaha - over two hundred miles from Gothenburg - so I was still able to gripe about the stingy, sequestered, scaredy-cat locals. And it was funny because when I asked Gary why he picked me up he told me he was worried that if he hadn't pick me up it might cause him bad luck on the golf course .

Now that is exactly the kind of thinking I can relate to! Forget about bleeding hearts and cultural biases...what about the cold, hard trickle-down economics of karma? Pick up the kid or suffer the consequences! If only everyone thought this way.

And there was another bonus: my determination to hoof it to Wild Horse and test the mettle of small town Nebraskans instead of accepting the ride from the guy washing his truck also earned me a lift all the way across the state to Omaha after the round. In fact, at midnight Gary went over an hour round trip out of his way to drop me in Council Bluffs, Iowa so I wouldn't have to hitch through the city in the morning.

In short, I never did find out the true extent of the anti-hitchhiking sentiment in Nebraska because Gary got me out of the state in one fell swoop. 

Video of Catching a Ride

Want to know what it's like really like to hitchhike? Join me on the roadside as I philosophize about French Canadian women and catching rides to funerals... and then get picked up by a French Canadian couple, my new friends, Eric and Martine.

When Isabelle (the beautiful French Canadian girl I describe in the following video) saw this, she wrote, 

"You know what is funny about this, the way you write and the way you tell your stories, is the way I talk and the way I tell stories, but in French. I've showed the video to some friends, and they were laughing because the story I've told them, was the exact story you told in the video. How odd is that !  

Well I hope to meet you on the road again !

Take care,

Isabelle." 

And Eric and Martine, who picked me up and took me to a traditional Quebecois concert (some footage included at the end, so hang in there), invited me the next day to go wild mushroom gathering and eat moose fondue. So this short thirty minute ride ended up opening a beautiful window into French Canadian life. I managed to capture a little bit of it- the roadside, our ride together, our evening picnic by the lake and the concert - but then it was time to turn the camera off and just enjoy it. So the moose fondue must be left to your imagination :) 

Music by Quebecois artistes: Eric Guay; La Botine Souriante

Pick Ups

My favorite rides were those in the back of pick up trucks because you can really feel the land you are traveling through - the sun on your face and the smell of desert, pine, prairie or ocean in the air. These rides are closest to the spirit of hitchhiking - the freedom and adventure of it. And when I'm in the back of a pick up I'm always reminded of that classic chapter from On the Road that begins:


"The greatest ride in my life was about to come up, a truck, with a flatboard at the back, with about six or seven boys sprawled out on it, and the drivers, two young blond farmers from Minnesota, were picking up every single soul they found on that road — the most smiling, cheerful couple of handsome bumpkins you could ever wish to see, both wearing cotton shirts and overalls, nothing else; both thick-wristed and earnest, with broad howareyou smiles for anybody and anything that came across their path. I ran up, said "Is there room?" They said, "Sure, hop on, 'sroom for everybody."

     I wasn't on the flatboard before the truck roared off; I lurched, a rider grabbed me, and I sat down. Somebody passed a bottle of rotgut, the bottom of it. I took a big swig in the wild, lyrical, drizzling air of Nebraska. "Whooee, here we go!" yelled a kid in a baseball cap, and they gunned up the truck to seventy and passed everybody on the road."

It reminds me of a ride on Day 6 in the back of a pick up through the Navajo Reservation - going a hundred with five Navajos in the back, bumping around and smiling, a grandmother at the wheel and her son and grandson in the passenger seat. We blew by all the Subarus and Toyota FourRunners with their mountain bikes and kayaks on top, all headed up to Moab to bike the red rock trails and run the Colorado River... the same cars that had just passed me and now I was smiling and waving at them from the back of the speeding pick up with the Mario Andretti grandma at the wheel. And when I hopped out on the edge of the Rez near Mexican hat, a woman in a Subaru who'd passed me once and could do it again with a clear conscience, pulled over and took me clear to Moab.

Most of the time there was room in the car, so these rides were rare. I'd caught another glorious one down Mingus Mountain just two days earlier, described in the first post on this page. And I would catch one more on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia on Day 44 with three high school kids - Grant, Patricia and Dylan - who were "cruising" the Inverness "strip" in Grant's vintage, bright orange Ford pick-up. Apparently bored with the five blocks of downtown Inverness they took a spin out into the country where they found me with my thumb out.

Some time later, I received an email from Grant that read:

Hey, it's Grant from day 44.  I thought you might like a picture of the truck: