Hitchhikers are an Alaskan special. We have seen and picked up more hitchhikers since we've moved here than ever in our lives.
Around Homer, I see hitchhikers almost daily. Most of them are heading one way or the other up East End Road. Occasionally they are heading out of town up the Sterling Highway. Enough of them are regulars that you can tell they use hitchhiking as their main form of transportation to or from work, as they often show up at the same time every day. Many times they are people I know--store clerks, students at the college, etc. Some are men, some are women. Some are well dressed, while others look like bums or backpackers. Their stories, when we pick them up, are always interesting and it ends up being a bright spot in my day. Others I don't pick up because I don't see them in time or because of heavy traffic or because there is no place to pull off. Other times we don't have any room in the car. There are a few hitchhikers that I still think of and regret not picking up.
Hitchhiking is not something I have ever been comfortable doing, so in a weird way I admire these people. It helps me appreciate having a car and being able to come and go at will. We are blessed to have wheels, and the money to afford gas!
Well, it will be quite sometime before I will be able to pick up someone of those hitch hikers seeing that the back seat is full of car seats. :-) When we lived at Lake Tahoe it was the same thing. You saw a lot of the same people everyday at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a teenager there were always people hitchhiking. I never did it myself, but I know friends who did. Sometimes we picked people up, though. I think it would be dangerous nowadays -- in fact I think it is against the law on some roads here.
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