Louisiana to Evansville

I have been unable to resurrect my laptop so I'm finally rewriting what's happened up until this point.

Oct 25th- I put on my headphones and headed out the door in Cotton Valley, LA sometime much later than I had hoped. I walked to the edge of 'town' and found a spot in the shade for what I thought would be a long wait. Luckily I was only there for a couple of songs before I had a prison guard stop and take me to Dixie Inn, about 20 miles south and right on the interstate. There I waited FOREVER on the east bound on ramp as a half dozen cars or so maybe went by over the course of more than an hour. Eventually someone headed west stopped and told me that most people from Minden (the town a couple of miles up the road) got on at the next exit and I should try there. A solid two and a half hours to and through the town and I was at another on ramp, in the dark. Pretty exhausted and disappointed in traveling 25miles or so total for the day I didn't even bother trying to get a ride in the dark. The local highway, the interstate and the on ramp formed a triangle which was raised up enough that I was confident that no one would see me without looking for me so I setup a tent on the top of the hill and got on my laptop for a little bit and fell asleep. I did manage to find an interesting souvener beside the road, right at the beginning of the on ramp.

Oct 26th- This new exit wasn't a lot better. After about an hour of no rides again, I walk down the exit and stand along the interstate where all the passing traffic can see me- illegal in most states. It paid off. Not more than 10 minutes along the interstate I got a ride from David, he was on his way to Nashville TN to see his kids. Perfect example of why I like hitch hiking, we ended up having some very interesting conversations, exchanged emails and we still keep in touch. He ended up altering his route drastically to take me through Memphis where we would part ways. That ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of a 7 hour ride. By chance my dad was coming south and passing right through West Memphis so I met him at a truck stop and we got to chat and eat some dinner. At this point it was going to be dark soon so I walked down the road to another truck stop and went into the driver's lounge. I watched some tv and dosed off there.

Oct 27th- At about 5am or so a larger Mexican guy sit down beside me and woke me up. It was still early so I was trying to go back to sleep but he wanted to make small talk so I sat up for a minute to chat. When I told him what I was doing he told me he was leaving in about 20 minutes going the same direction I was and he offered me a ride, I didn't even have to ask. That seemed kind of odd but I had been talking to him enough that he seemed cool and I had a knife and pepper spray on me. Unfortunately he was either not very good with directions or was trying to dodge a scale I'm not sure, but he was getting off the interstate after only about 40 miles to cut across some state road which I did not want to bother with so we parted ways there. Now the sun is just beginning to rise and its raining. It was not the best start to a day, I was tired and now wet and cold. I contemplated waiting the rain out in the Walmart nearby but after checking the weather saw it wasn't expected to stop anytime soon. So I sucked it up, put my hood up and blasted the ipod. I got a ride fairly quickly there, from another guy named David, who I would also ride with for a couple hundred miles, and we also keep in touch. What are the odds? David let me out right near the Illinois/Indiana border where I got a ride from a wild old guy named Tom. He was a war vet, paratrooper with a ton of jumps under his belt. He had gotten kicked out of the army and was on his way into Evansville (my destination) to party and meet up with his black stripper girlfriend. Very interesting guy. Tom dropped me off at a gas station downtown where I was picked up by my couchsurfing host Blake.