I drove from Seattle to Los Angeles and then onward to Austin.
I picked up a couple of Russian hitchhikers in Tucson and they kept me company for the next 1,000 miles or so.
I was a little incredulous at their plans to sleep in a tent out in the desert.
“We are from Russia. And sleeping outside is good for you.”
They’re on their way to Cuba and then South America via New Orleans and Ft Lauderdale. Any other week I would have taken them the whole way but its a company holiday, I’m off all week, and I have plans for Thanksgiving.
We swapped stories and they told me about working as harvesters out in the marijuana fields out in California and all the strange addicts and miscreants they’d encountered along the way.
“Oh boy, and then you ended up in a car with me.”
I’m glad they’re experiencing the America that I know and love. 😉
I appreciated having some company because Seattle to Austin is a long, long, long time to be out there alone on a highway and lost in your head.
Their English was decent enough. One of them coined the term “minery,” as in a “mine,” and this prompted me to come up with ideas like a “minery tour” where you drive a convertible around the back woods of West Virginia and stop at every mine for a coal sample.
That sounds fun. I’d totally do that.
I had a sad, and it was beautiful all the same, when one of the girls sang along to Anna Nalick’s “(2am) breathe.”
I told them that was the album/song I was listening to when I was moving out of Key West.
I’d barbacked at the 801/New Orleans house and one of our DJs (Junior) played the Blake Jarrell remix of that song all the time.
They asked where they could set up a tent and I don’t really do that sort of thing, so I took them up on the top of the 360 bridge overlook and I found them a clearing in the woods. It was pitch black out, and boy aren’t they in for a surprise.
