I was left in the middle of nowhere. A man picked me up and I drove his car 100's of miles for him while he slept in the passenger seat. About fifty miles before El Paso he wakes with a start, sits straight up, looks at me. Then the other way and speaks. I can not understand what it is that he is saying.
"What?" I say
He looks at me, I see a side that I have not yet seen. His crazy eyes are unfocused, he dose not speak, just looks at the window and pounds on it pointing at his reflection. I know that as soon as I get somewhere or anywhere I need to leave the car, however it would be very dangrous for me to leave now. There is nothing around, I have little water. If no one were to pick me up I could die of dehydration.
He grabs the wheel and pulls a little, "Pull over here!" he demands. I don't want to, at the same time I can't drive with him pulling on the wheel. My mind goes to mybackpack. I can not loose this, it has everything, my cell phone lays forgotten on the front seat. Before I know it I am standing in the vast desert with very little water, no phone and no ride.
That is where this trip starts. I soon get a ride from a trucker, it is not common to get a ride from a trucker, most of them don't want to give a ride. Most that do, can't and are scared for their jobs. Most companies will fire the driver if there is a hitchhiker caught in the cab. But once in a while you will find a trucker that will toss the rule book out the window and pick you up. I found one of those and got a ride all the way past El Paso.
I got a ride to a little city called Van Horn. This is a small town on the west side of Texas, it seems that most the people who once lived here have moved onto other towns. I would guess that in the next five years that this will be a ghost town. Most the buildings are empty and no one can be found in the center of town. One truck stop is by the only onramp in the city. Trains run through and blasts its horn.
The next day I once again get a ride from another trucker, I go all the way to San Antonio. I spend a few days walking the river walk, I see the Alamo and other things in the city. I stay with a man in a wearhouse. He offers a place for me to stay. The wearhouse is not nice or clean. It is a place for me to have shelter from the people of the city. I am entering San Antonio from the bad part of town. I feel as if the area has almost no white people. Not to be racist I just am not used to the feeling of seeing people point at me as I walk by and make comments about my skin color.
Once I pass my few day in San Antonio I start to move onto Houston. It takes me hours to find a ride. When I find one, it's a drunk guy "Warm beer in the front, cold beer in the back!" He says as soon as we get onto the road. I look down at my feet, there is two six packs at my feet, I look back and there are three six packs in the back. One is missing a few beers. I look back at the man that picked me up. He is a man in his mid 40's, his teeth are crooked on the bottom, his face is very skinny, his eyes are sunken back into his head and his hair is wild. He picks up a 44 oz fountain drink from a convence store, as he drinks it and sets it down I smell the beer inside it. My eyes are glued to the road.
He tells me that he can bring me about 30 miles down the road. I think to myself that I can handel that, I ride a very nervous ride. His drunken-ness worries me not only because of driving, I fear that I may end up again on the side of the road in the middle of no-mans-land. The good thing is that there are more people on this part of Texas than near El Paso. I take all my stuff and make sure that it is always either in my pockets or in my backpack so that I will not forget anything if I am once again kicked out of a car.
He calls his son on the phone and we pick him up, His son looks just like him and they decide to take me all the way to my friends house in Houston, 180 miles out of their way one direction, 360 round trip. I arrive, safe and sound.
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