Day 1 adventures

Today, a hitchhiking first.
As I was standing at the top of the entrance ramp at Monticello, my huge and heavy backpack at my feet and holding my little sign reading "West," dude on a huge motorcycle swerves to my side.
"Are you kidding?" I asked.
"Nah. Put your pack on the back. I've got bungees," he said.
"I don't have a helmet," I replied. That turned out to be maybe the dumbest thing I said all day. My driver, well-built in a powder blue muscle shirt, a constellaton of hardware in his face, wasn't wearing a helmet on his bald head and probably never has. (Found out later he doesn't wear sunscreen on his head either.
His name was Dale. He was going as far as the Clearwater exit, maybe 10 miles down the road, then to a church event where the congregation was giving away household belongings and serving hot dogs and ice cream to whomever showed up. He insisted I come.
"Nah, just drop me at the exit," I said.
"You ought to come. We'll feed you. You thirsty?" he asked.
I wasn't, and I'd just eaten. But he was still insisting.
I'd been realizing, in the first hours of this outing, that my approach to time was going to have to change. There was no schedule, only the mercy of drivers who were to pick me up. I could stand at an interchange waiting for a ride that might not materialize, or I could go see what this church event was all about.
"How long did you say you'd be there?" I asked.
"Oh, just a little while," he said.
"What the heck," I said.
He leaned into an exit ramp and we headed for a road I was familiar with, that paralleled the interstate to Clearwater. It curved and rolled along lakes and green farm fields. I turned my hat around. I have never ridden on the back of a motorcycle, much less a 1000cc model. Maybe it was even 1500. (A Yamaha Venture?) Open air, wind, leaning into curves. . .this was traveling, I thought.
Outside the Church of Living Waters in Clearwater, about a dozen people sat under a white canopy managing the cookout and what looked like a flea market, but at which everything was free. "Good Christian people," Dale had said on the bike, and indeed they were -- upfront about their relationship with Jesus and grateful for it, without trying to convert me. A few drivers stopped and picked through the free clothes and household items and had some ice cream and then it was time to take everything down. Naturally, Dale stuck around to help, and he was my ride, so I helped move tables and piles of clothes and disassemble the canopy. We'd been there an hour, maybe more.
As we were leaving, I took a few pictures and Dale told me a little bit more about himself. He'd just gotten out of prison in May, after two years of a seven-year sentence for drug violations, the abbrevation earned by going through "boot camp." The church has been a lifeline, he said.
He said he'd drive me to St. Cloud, and on the way, we stopped to help a kid push his disabled car to the shoulder.
"Planting the seed," is what he was doing, he said. It's why he'd picked me up he said. And truly that's always been reflected in my hitchhiking experience -- the people who pick you up often are born-again Christians, with an affinity for travelers -- maybe especially those who appear lost or poor or just clueless. And just as often, they're former hitchhikers, returning some long-ago favor. Replanting a seed, maybe. It doesn't really matter, I don't think -- whether out of a religious motive or a sense of basic fairness, the end result is the same. Someone gets helped down the road, and they'll likely do the same for someone else.

-------------------

The rest of the day -- not so good. Long waits for short rides. One visit from a Stearns County deputy with a lecture to get back to the top of the entrance ramp, where there was NO chance I'd find a ride, much less one going any distance. Then a heavy sky spread over central MN, threatening storms, and the mosquitoes came out to remind me I am no longer in the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District. I checked into a motel. I'm not more than 100 miles from home. Maybe not even. And much of that I covered by train. Hoping for an early start and longer rides tomorrow.