I'm back on the road and en route to South Dakota. The only states I haven't been to are South Dakota and Hawaii, and while a trip to Hawaii would be great, I think that a drive to South Dakota might be a little easier to manage at the moment. I left Deer Isle last week and have been slowly making my way through the rust belt to remedy this predicament.
I'm driving absentmindedly down I-90 somewhere in between Rochester and Sioux Falls when I see a young woman on the side of the highway with her thumb in the air and a ratty backpack at her feet.
"Didn't your parents ever tell you not to get into cars with strangers?" I ask her as I slow down.
"I'm not dead yet," she says with a smile, "and you don't look too dangerous to me."
"Hey, you never know who is going to chop you up into a million pieces and leave you in a basement," I say and she seems to brace herself for the self-righteous lecture she thinks is coming. "Well are you going to get in or not?" I ask. She looks up at me with a grin and opens the door and climbs into the truck.
We have been driving together for less than thirty seconds when she starts asking about who I am and where I'm going. "Well," I say with a laugh, "how long are you planning on hitching for because those are questions with eighty-three years worth of answers."
"I've got time," she says with a smile as she settles into the passenger seat and props her legs up on the dashboard. I raise an eyebrow at her bold move, but keep my mouth shut. I've decided that I like this brave and naive girl. Although she should really reconsider a new mode of transportation, preferably one with lower rates of kidnapping and death.
No comments:
Post a Comment