In previous posts I have written of my enjoyment of hitchhiking as a legitimate means of travel. Indeed, with a loaded bicycle and no private car there are few alternatives when I want to cover more miles than the 9.5 miles per hour pedaling pace will allow. I have also come to learn that the best prop to use when I hitch is indeed a bicycle. This works for three reasons, of which the third is most important:
– I don’t often get stuck in a bad spot, as I can ride to a better one;
– At dusk a bicycle makes it easy for me to disappear for the night;
– And the main advantage is one of driver perception. The decision to stop for someone along the road is usually a split-second and subconscious one. A hitchhiker is typically perceived as questionable, dirty, broke, and potentially dangerous. On the other hand, a cyclist is healthy, self-reliant, clean, and possibly broken down. So I have learned that I gain far more rides because of the bike than I lose because of it. I have many times been told that the driver stopped because of the bike. Of course, with both loaded bike and trailer, the benefits are outweighed by the sheer size of my load to a few pickup trucks and other vehicles with carrying capacity.
So on Sunday I met my match. I had hitched back to Don and Kelly’s home a few days previously, as I had revised my entire itinerary and needed to shed gear, resupply, etc. I set out about 6 am on Sunday to beat the heat. I rode along lovely country roads, and then on a bike route that paralleled I-205 through the eastern suburbs of Portland. I rode about thirty miles, stopping on the freeway just shy of the Columbia River, which is also the Washington state line. Hitchhiking remains illegal on the freeway in the urban areas, but I took the chance that no cop would patrol the last couple of miles, as it would require crossing the river and state line. In an hour or so I had turned down about five rides that were only crossing the river when a Portland cop stopped near me. I was told kindly but clearly that I couldn’t hitch here and would have to get off the freeway. Oh, well…
Returning to the urban bike trails, I soon crossed the river into Vancouver. But once across, I discovered no accessible on-ramps. Ultimately. I tried three different on-ramps, all bad – small cars, new jacked up muscle trucks, minivans full of family… I camped that night, disappearing in the trees to set up camp. I got a good ride the next morning to Tacoma, then a short ride a few miles further on and I was able to catch a municipal bus through Seattle to Everett.
What the photo can’t show is that these whimsical boys are spinning. Small PV modules are visible that spin this street art along the I-205 bike path in Portland.
This is the occasional downside of hitchhiking -the indeterminate wait, which is often quite short but can drag on seemingly forever. In this case I ended up spending one more full day than I had expected or planned getting up to the area north of Seattle that was to be the next chapter: visiting some of the manufacturers of the main products I have used for years in my PV Systems.