windsofchanges

I’ve done this a lot throughout my life. My favorite that jumps to mind was right after I moved by myself from my birthplace, Philadelphia, to Santa Cruz (with no particular specific destination in mind there either). I rode down Hwy 1 with my cassette tapes ablarin’, and ended up in the back hills of Big Sur, on a crazy twisted mountain road. I also stopped at Nepenthe and met some unique individuals who shared lot’s of insider knowledge of the area : ) I don’t think I spent the night away on this trip, but I was on the road from sunrise to midnight or so.
I love travelling alone because you’re more open to meeting people than when you’re socially occupied.

I was visitng a friend in the San Juan islands, off of Washington state. I don’t know what wild hair overcame me, but I made a completely impulsive decision one afternoon to catch the short ferry to the mainland, catch a ride to Bellingham and stow away on a ferry to Juneau. I had not, heretofore, ever heard of anyone doing such a thing and I really have no idea why I thought I could get away with it. I had lived in Juneau a few years prior, only for about 8 months, and wasn’t even sure if I still knew anyone there. I had all of $40 in my pocket!
When I got to the dock in Bellingham, there was a line of cars waiting to drive onto the auto lot. Folks who want to have their ride on the other side can pay extra to transport their car as well. The lower deck of the ferry is a parking lot. Passengers are required to show their tickets before drivng onto the ferry, but once parked, you’re on the boat. You just head on up to the upper deck and enjoy the ride. So, I started knocking on car windows, explaining to the drivers that I really really needed to be on this ferry and would they possible consider letting me hide in their vehicle. The first eight or so cars said no, and the guy in the ninth car, an open bed pickup actually, said ‘I don’t know’ which I feared was as close to a ‘yes’ as I was going to get : ) so I jumped in and laid down in the back of his pickup with my guitar and small backpack on top of me, and nothing else to cover me. I lay very still and practiced being invisible…and it worked! By the time I sat up, the truck was locked in on all sides in the parking lot, and I was able to scurry up to the main deck with the rest of the passengers.
When I got to Juneau, I hitched into town and beat the shuttle. In fact, by the time the shuttle got to the Heritage coffee shop downtown, I had gotten a job there and I was waiting for a dear friend who was on her way to pick me up. I ended up staying in Juneau for a few months, and I paid full price on the way home.

I spent a whole summer climbing in the Rockies, from Glacier Natl Park to Rocky Mtn Natl.. The tallest mountain I climbed was Long’s Peak, at over 14,000’. We started at about 4 am and hiked it in one day, roughly 14 hours total. As if this weren’t challenge enough, we had met a bunch of yahoos in a camping ground the night before and ended up getting ‘stupid drunk’ with them. The first few hours, hiking in the darkness and still drunk, was not at all pretty. Needless to say, by the time we summited, the alcohol was completely out of our systems.