Lost Theologian

My day had begun with much more luck . I had woken up under the impression that I would have to postpone the whole idea of hitchhiking. My GPS tracker wasn't cooperating, and without that, my folks would be worried sick about me while I was out. But, to my surprise, when I had checked my phone, I had found a message from my father telling me to leave without the GPS, to have fun, and to check in regularly. My sister drove me to the intersection of US rt. 45 and I-80, as she questioned what exactly I was doing and why. " Where will you sleep? ", " What if you get hurt? ", " What if you don't come back? ". All questions I had asked myself several times in the week before. I told her I would camp outdoors, and that where there is a road, there is a hospital. As for the last question, I didn't really know what to say. What if  I didn't come back? What if I became a statistic? What if I became another story on the news? These were questi...

Stranded. I knew I shouldn't have taken that last ride from Iowa 80, the world's largest truck stop. I made the terrible mistake of getting too sick of standing on-ramp way too quickly. So when my fourth and final ride of the day came around, I was eager to go wherever it was that she was going. The woman I ended up taking a ride from was going some 60 miles to Iowa City, which I figured would be populated enough to keep me going on my merry way. But in hindsight, I know now that if I had waited outside Iowa 80 until I could catch that one golden ride, I probably could have been in Oregon by now... And well, now here I am in the middle of nowhere, Oxford Iowa. Although I had ought to count my blessings, traveling 221 miles in one day, all while only spending two bucks on lunch is not too shabby for a first-time hitchhiker. Her name was Jen. She was a nurse from Iowa who lived just outside of Iowa City who decided to give me a life because I looked like her son-in-law ...

"Maybe we should just wait here."  My dad and I had just finished our small weekend hike of twenty-something miles on the Appalachian trail between West Virginia and Maryland. What we had expected to be a two day trip through about 26 miles or mountain ridge hiking ended up being a one say trip with some time to spare. So we stayed at our destination to take a break, then later doubled back some 5 miles to find a nice place to set up camp before it got dark, only to return to our destination in the morning. We stood around for some time weighing out the pros and cons of waiting. We had arranged for one of the locals nicknamed "Strings" to take us back to Harper's Ferry for a small fee. But we were way ahead of schedule, and Strings wasn't answering his phone this morning. To be honest, I was against the idea of waiting around and hoping Strings would pick up the phone, but I suppose my Dad has a lot more confidence in people named "Strings". ...

I've been hooked on this idea for some time now. My folks and friends all say I'm going to wind up dead. When I share it with people they look at me like I'm crazy. And frankly, maybe they're all right, but I don't think I am going to let that stop me this time. What I've been dreaming about doing for the last year or so is to pack my bag, hit the road, and hitchhike out of the southwest suburbs of Chicago and make my way over to Oregon. I'm pretty set on doing this. I spent the last Summer working hard, earning money and buying up some gear that I'll likely need along the way, and probably in May of 2014 I'll make my way over to the on-ramp of some highway and stick out this thumb of mine and wait. It really doesn't matter if I make it to Oregon or not. I love Oregon, in fact I'm infatuated with the idea of having West Coast beaches and  mountains in the same place. I'm in love with the Painted Hills, I want to see Crater Lake,...