My First Hitch Hiking Trip

By: Nick O'Neill

In 1987, I was living in Santa Barbara California and sharing accommodation with my best friend Jay. We came from different backgrounds, me being from England and him from Southern Cal, but among other things we both loved to go to Grateful Dead shows. One Friday morning Jay says to me, “Hey Bud, The Dead are playing this weekend in Mountain View and Mike next door has sold me some tickets, we’re going!”

All day I was eagerly anticipating our trip to who knows where to see this wild and crazy band that we’d both become fond of. When I got home from work at about 5.30pm I said, “how are we getting to the show?” “Easy, no problem. We’ll hitch hike,” was his answer.

I had never hitched before and the thought struck me as slightly ridiculous. As the sun was setting we headed down to highway 101 and stood by the traffic lights at Chapala St. I felt naked standing there at the side of the road, helplessly looking at the passing vehicles and hoping for a ride. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I said, “this feels like a waste of time.”

After about 30 minutes a pick-up truck stops and the guy actually says we can get in. We were off! The feeling was unbelievable. Exhilarating. Liberating. A stranger had invited us to ride on his vehicle, and we were headed down the dark and misty highway for an adventure. I was elated, more folks should try this, I thought.

“Okay Jay, where exactly are we going?” I asked. “Now here’s the problem,” answered Jay, “there’s 2 Mountain Views, one in northern Cal, the other near San Diego, but I’m pretty sure the show is in Northern Cal. Oh God, I thought, we are heading off to a place we’ve never been before, without a map, on the chance that a band is playing there. A couple of travel experts for sure.

After about a hour and a half we we’re in San Luis Obispo county and confident of making the show. The truck driver let us off at the road side as he lived nearby. Now it was time to get another ride. The fog was rolling in and there was a cold dampness in the air. We took it in turns being the guy who holds his hand out.

Jay, who was wearing shorts at this time asks me if he can borrow my jeans. I told him I didn’t have any spare ones. He said no, the ones I was wearing. I asked “what the heck am I going to wear?” “I’ll give you my shorts” said Jay. “Why would I want to wear your shorts?” I asked. “I’m cold,” said Jay “and you have more clothes.” Give me a break! Can I wear your jeans?! Is this guy nuts?

Jay followed that idea up with an even better one. “You see that motel across the freeway, Nick?” said Jay. “Yeah, what about it,” I responded. “Shall we ask them if we can buy a sheet? Then we can lay down for the night in the grass median.” I was thinking that my friend had lost his mind. Two guys huddling in the center divider under a sheet. How many minutes do you think it would take for the highway patrol to arrest both of us? My mood was at a low and I was not feeling in a mood to be most supportive of Jay. I was still under his wing and was uncertain to how this situation was going to evolve.

Suddenly, a semi-trailer indicated that it was pulling over. Yahoo! We ran about 70 yards down the freeway and tried to climb in. The driver looked surprised and told us he was just stopping to check his load. Oh boy, another disappointment. An hour later, a group of locals stopped and offered us a ride into San Luis Obispo. We knew that taking this ride wouldn’t do our hitching chances any good because you can’t hitch from a town center. “You boys would be better off catching the Greyhound.” they said.

As we were on a low moral trend and were also tired and cold, we accepted their offer and reached the Greyhound station. We bought tickets for San Jose, and sat around for about 45 minutes waiting for the bus to leave. The Greyhound really is a last resort for anyone traveling across the States. Long journeys, many stops, weirdos, cranky drivers and the annoying habit of turning on the lights at every small station and hollering its name over the loudspeaker. When ‘SAN JOSE!!!!!’ finally arrived we were both shagged and in a state of travel coma.

From the Greyhound station we walked to the local bus station and got a ride to Mountain View. We arrived at about 7:00am and looked for somewhere to crash. Mountain View is at the bottom end of San Francisco Bay and is a major hi-tech development place. On the weekend all the yuppie facilities are closed and you have an assortment of these office parks with their manicured lawns, all deserted. We stretched out on one of the lawns and got a short nap. Short because the sprinklers came on and woke us up. After taking a snack of bread cheese and some soda that we had brought, we did the next natural thing and headed for a liquor store.

Although we were hindered by a low budget we decide to go to a diner for a small snack. After that we picked up a case of beer and got the local bus to the Shoreline Amphitheater. This really is a nice place to watch a show because it’s outside and at the top of the amphitheater is a large grass area that you can mellow out on if the scene is too intense.

We wasted no time turning our $10 investment in Miller Genuine Draft into $24 by selling beers for a dollar each. We also had another 12 for ourselves.

The show was a blast and was actually over quicker than we imagined, even though the boys had played for about 4 1/2 hours. Heading out of the show into the parking lot, we had to find a ride back home. After about 50 minutes we ran into some surfer guys from Santa Barbara who were driving back. I had $15 dollars and offered that for gas. Jay had no cash and offered to drive. So there we were, 4 shagged out Dead fans all heading home after an experience that was out of the ordinary for everyone.

We headed down highway 101 and it was plain sailing apart from the moment when Jay fell asleep and nearly put the car over a cliff!

Lucky me got to sleep and poor Jay had to drive. My first hitchhiking trip was a success and in great part because of the person who showed me the ropes. He was willing to ‘get in the stream and let go of the bank’. When I followed everything started to flow!