Lizards all the way down – A Hitchhiking Story 

On my first walk through the desert, I learned something about Americans. They’re all crazy.

Now of course not all of them are, but I have never met crazy like this before.

After a rough couple of days hiking with an injured calf, I gave up. Big surprise, I’m not a “purist”. After stumbling into the Joshua Inn, I decided to skip a bit forward to heal my leg and wait up for my trail family.

So as they walked on after some pool and a few beers, I stayed behind. And that’s when I met the locals. Funny lot, that. As the beers flowed we talked about all kinds of things, like how to make rattlesnake soup (something I’ll never try). And I met this Lady who offered to take me to Wrightwood the next morning! She seemed so nice!

So the next day, Lady came hungover as fuck to pick me up. I was, unsurprisinly also hungover. My goal for the day was smile, be polite and dont die. And the ride started nice, we chatted about ourselves, the trail and small matters. Like one does with strangers. Easy, shallow, and don’t say anything about politics or religion. You know, Swedish-style small talk.

Well that’s what I did at least, Lady jumped straight to the no-no zone.

You know. That Biden kills our country, JFK runs the country still from the shadows and all kinds of stuff. Oh! And that the queen of England and the king of Sweden are all lizards from outer space. Who knew?

So what do you do in this situation? Well I didn’t want to get booted out of the car, so I agreed. Of course. Probably the best thing to do?

Well after a few hours of insanity we got to the right place. We said our goodbyes, I thanked her for teaching me so much I was totally unaware of, and then I offered gas money. Which she promptly refused. And then she drove straight back to the inn.

Now I think Americans are some of the kindest people you can meet. Crazy? Yeah, some of them are. But they can still be kind.
I didn’t know that before.

// Lumberjack