Sometimes I held up a sign, sometimes I didn’t need to do anything but walk. In rare bouts of goofiness I'd dance with my thumb out. There must have been something about my loaded backpack and the fact that I was walking entirely too close to the cars on a road that had no sidewalk. Each time a car would pull over and roll down the window a thrill of excitement would jolt down my back. Rarely was there fear- just the wind of the cars who blew past me as I approached my next ride out of town.
All I heard were rocks under my footsteps, and the passing cars that were once loud filtered quietly in the background. There was never a certain type of person who would pick me up while I was hitchhiking that short few miles between town and my current "home". Once a middle aged woman, another time an older Morman business man- he gave me a ride and I gave him directions. A quiet, non-talkative young-twenties couple picked me up in their disastrous car filled with the aroma of pizza on their way out of town. That day it took me a bit longer to catch a ride.
Every time I stepped into a new car I got to step behind the life of another American citizen living their life, and being generous. The fulfillment they seemed to get from “saving me” (as some would put it) “from the creepers out there” was no doubt contagious. Hitchhiking for those three weeks wasn’t just a form of transportation. It was an exchange of gifts between two people: the driver and the passenger. Each time the exchange would shine all the more hope on the goodness of what is in the human heart.
