Two summers ago I caught a train from Seattle to Portland and then hitchhiked the next two days to San Francisco. I had all the other rolls developed a long time ago except for this one for some reason. Anyway, these are just some of the pictures from the train ride.
Tacoma Narrows bridge
crossing the river into Portland
This is 'Rider', a dog belonging to a kind and endearingly absent-minded older man who gave me a ride through almost half of Oregon. This is one of only a few pictures I took while hitching and it makes me sad that I didn't take more. But those two days were very hard on me both physically and emotionally and so unlike how wonderful hitchhiking can be and how it is so often portrayed as being. I had 48 hours to get to San Francisco to watch the start of a bike race and I remember standing hour after hour at every on-ramp sweating and sunburnt, watching endless cars pass me with disdain or indifference - walking along the highway even at some points just to be moving - and in my head doubting that I would ever make it down there at all and what the hell was I thinking trying some shit like this.
But in the end I made it and I am eternally grateful that I forced myself to leave my apartment in Seattle that afternoon and begin the trip. Because as always, things worked out in their various ways as they always do and of course looking back now and seeing how they worked out I think I've learned my lesson about not stressing and remembering that it will work out, and in a way I have, I suppose, at least until the next new thing.
