Kate and I stopped overnight in Amarillo, on the plains of the Texas Panhandle, a few nights before Thanksgiving last fall. Fog descended on the area just after we got to our motel on the city’s western outskirts. The misty scene along Interstate 40 demanded an attempt to try to capture it, and the best camera I had for an immediate shot was my cellphone. I’m not unhappy with the result, though as usual I think about what I might do differently next time. For instance, I might make sure to charge the batteries in my “better” camera. Maybe someday I’ll remember to check before hitting the road.
What the picture makes me think about now, though, is the first and only previous time I happened across this stretch of highway during a trip that sounds a little crazy from the safe perspective of now.
It was in late December 1974. I had taken it into my head that during Illinois State University’s holiday break, I’d visit friends in Berkeley and San Francisco. Furthermore, I’d decided to hitchhike from the Chicago area, where my family lived, to Northern California. My concession to winter weather and the possibility of freezing to death while waiting for a ride somewhere along Interstate 80 was to take a southern route that followed the old path of U.S. 66, the “mother : first along Interstate 55 to St. Louis, then Interstate 44 through Tulsa to Oklahoma City, and from there along Interstate 40 to California. About 2,400 miles from door to door.
My mom drove me the first 30 miles or so from our place on the southern edge of Chicago’s south suburbs to Wilmington, a town on the Kankakee River and I-55. She didn’t say anything, or anything that I remember, to try to discourage me. I’m trying to imagine what she was really thinking as I climbed out of the car late on the afternoon of the day after Christmas. By this time, my brothers John and Chris and I had each done at least one long hitch-hiking trip, so maybe she was thinking, “Well, I guess he knows what he’s doing.” Just as likely, she was saying a prayer that I’d come back in one piece.
Looking back from this distance, I don’t remember most of how that trip came together — the relatively brief rides that slowly added up to distance and progress toward my destination. How did I get through Bloomington? Through Springfield? Through St. Louis? I can’t tell you. I’m sure it involved a series of short hops, and I can say for sure I don’t remember a single driver during that stretch.
I do recall riding in the back seat of a 1950s-era Chevy sedan with two couples who liked REO Speedwagon and played it loud. It was near freezing and raining during that part of the drive, late at night, near Joplin, MIssouri. I remember standing along the interstate in Tulsa, late the next afternoon, which had to be about 24 hours after Mom dropped me off.
The next place I see clearly is Amarillo, or rather a spot that was far enough out into the country west of town that I didn’t see any lights except for a gas station just off the interstate.
It was after midnight, moonlit and cold, with virtually no traffic along the highway. Looking out over the countryside, the moonlight seemed to outline ravines stretching off into the distance. The impression that’s always stuck me was of being alone in a vast, silent, mysteriously bleak landscape. I could only guess when the next ride would come.
It couldn’t have been too long. I got to Grants, New Mexico, about 350 miles west, near the Continental Divide, about 7 in the morning, just after sunrise. It was very cold — about 10 below zero. I wasn’t too worried about the chill. I was wearing a big orange down parka that was probably suitable for Everest base camp wear that kept me warm and made me reasonably visible to passing drivers.
I stood on the side of the interstate for all of 10 minutes before a later model Chevy sedan with California plates pulled over. As I climbed in, the driver asked where I was headed.
“Berkeley,” I said.
“I’m going to Oakland,” he said.
All of a sudden, I didn’t have to worry about the next ride for the rest of the trip. What a gift that was. I’m a little embarrassed to say that among the many details that have dropped out of my memory in the intervening half-century is my benefactor’s name. He drove straight through, stopping only for gas and a fast-food stop somewhere in the snowy Mojave Desert. Checking distances now, he drove about 1,000 miles after picking me up in about 20 hours, and he insisted on doing all that driving himself.
He wound up taking me right to my friends’ house in Berkeley’s Elmwood neighborhood, where I announced my arrival to a sleeping household at 2 in the morning. A voice called out from an upstairs window: “OK! We’re coming! We’ll be right down!”
There are stories to tell about the rest of that night and my New Year’s stay in the Bay Area, which included a rainy backpacking trip to Point Reyes. But they’ll keep. For now, I’ll just say that after a week or so in Berkeley, I flew back to Chicago and returned to Illinois State and another semester of underachievement. I had no idea then I’d be heading back west soon enough.
There isn’t a straight line between that moment of arrival in Berkeley and this one, which finds me living only a mile or two from where that trip ended. But in a way that I could never have foreseen standing in the moonlight outside Amarillo so long ago, that night along the highway, was a step on the path to everything that’s happened since.
