Step ##??: Hitchhiking Florida

Let the gaaaaaames begin! So after countless days of planning and preparation, endless to do lists, numerous packs and repacks, heartfelt goodbyes, and last minute scrambling, (Brooke, did you grab our toothbrushes?) the time had finally come. It was a pleasant moment of relief in the look that Brooke and I shared as we pulled out of the driveway of my parents Peachtree City home in Georgia. It replaced the other looks that come about after spending ten hours a day in each others faces working on two websites, setting up a non-profit and discussing (not arguing about) what is going to fit in two Gregory packs that are going to be permanently attached to us for at least the next year. “There is going to be a big “I told you so” when somewhere down the line we need that 16” cast iron skillet and there is not one to be found! If you just take out that king size canopy mosquito net, I am sure it can fit”

So after an awesome first leg, catching a ride with a long time friend, Mike D, we crossed the Georgia border into the sunshine state and headed to Gainesville, home of the National champion Florida Gators (sorry Carrie and Bryan). After a pleasant stay in the Newberry Inn, a motel critically acclaimed to be “The seediest stop in Florida” with the only offered improvement being the “need of a bulldozer,” Brooke and I carefully marked up our pieces of grade A cardboard and Mike dropped us off at the first gas station heading south. To our great surprise, it only took 15 minutes before we were pretending to know who the Florida quarterback was as we were sharing a ride with Chelsea, a really cool UF student and her extremely laid back cat I guess it is a complement when someone says “I picked you up because it looked like you couldn’t hurt anybody.” Luckily, our backpacks must have been hiding our bone crushing muscular bodies.

After going 20 miles out of her way to help us out, we parted ways with Chelsea at a gas station near the entrance to the Florida turnpike. The initial thought of “see hitchhiking is easy” wore off about four hours into our next leg, as we were still standing in the same spot sucking in gas fumes trying to juggle rocks in an attempt to entertain our way into someone’s car. I don’t think it was my boyish good looks that finally stopped the pickup truck of construction workers that crammed Brooke and I in the back and headed on down the road. We were psyched! Unfortunately our excitement diminished when the driver informed us that he was not taking us to Disney World or to Orlando proper. Oh well, at least we were headed south (I think).

Our next landing spot was still about 45 miles outside of Orlando and it was starting to get dark. The thought of spooning with one of the many gators we’d seen in every gas station on our way down or maybe with the giant pythons that swallow them whole, was giving us plenty of motivation to stretch those thumbs even further. And fortunately, as it has happened so many times, the perfect solution came to us exactly when we needed it. James, a structural engineer who lived only minutes past Brooke’s cousin, stopped for us after less than five minutes of being on the road. The ride and conversation was an absolute pleasure and it left us on the doorstep of our final destination.
So thank you to all of those people that opened up your hearts and doors and made this country just a little bit smaller through your kindness to strangers. (That even includes, you, the nice man who before realizing it, drove us a half mile in the wrong direction leaving us to walk back on the interstate to our original spot. It’s the thought that counts.)