... Gabriel Morrishitching until dark, since I wasn’t in the best place to find somewhere
to sleep for the night.
I ended up getting a ride with a neurotic, loud-mouthed and (so he
said) reformed alcoholic, who kept yelling obscenities out the win-
dow at all the other drivers. Other than that he didn’t have much to
say. I stayed with him on through Kingman, Arizona, and then to the
desolate turn-off for the Interstate heading south towards Phoenix
where he dropped me off. I was planning to go straight across Ari-
zona rather than south. Besides, it was getting late, and he wasn’t the
best company, even by hitchhiking standards.
It was past midnight when he left me alongside Interstate-40, and I
was exhausted. A soft motel bed would have really hit the spot right
then, but there wasn’t one in sight, and I couldn’t afford it anyway.
The best spot that I could find to throw down my sleeping bag ended
up being between a huge cactus and a barbed wire fence, right next
to the freeway on-ramp. Not quite what I had in mind, but oh well.
I tossed down my pack, unrolled my sleeping pad, pulled out my
sleeping bag, and then crawled in and attempted to get some sleep.
All night, trucks coming from Phoenix beamed their headlights di-
rectly on me as they made the turn from one freeway to the other
and roared past. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep terribly well.
I had been debating whether or not to see the Grand Canyon,
having never been there before. I decided to go ahead and check it
out, since I would be going pretty much right past it. Perhaps I would
hike down into the canyon, spend a few days in contemplation by
the Colorado River, and come up with a few answers to life’s big
questions while I was at it.
I eventually got a ride east down the Interstate, to the turn-off head-
ing north towards the Grand Canyon. The chilling realization of on-
coming winter overtook me as I piled out of the car with my pack, said
“Thanks for the ride,” and then watched the car continue on down
the freeway. I could see my breath as I stood there in the silence and
wondered if I had made the right choice to hop out at that point. Obvi-
ously, we had gained some elevation in the last hundred miles or so.