LoveItaly

Hello artsnletters..love getting caught up on Scuffy..and I was thinking if he had needed a "couch" when in my city he would have been welcomed too. I bet his buddy West didn't look any stranger than one of my stepgrandson's who had the left side of his hair hanging below his shoulders and the right side of his head completely shaved off, lol. And the left side always had some bright color streak in it.

So where is Scuffy now?

artsnletters

NEW INSTALLMENT!!!

In which Scruffman Greg revisits Seattle, encounters a ghost from years past, and wends his way to...

So the Scruffman spent a delightful few days at the Starship Submarine, a communal household of musicians, artists, and social activists in Seattle. This was the group that had the all-night Beatles singalong. The Scruffman was born in Seattle and lived there until he was 10, when his mother (yours truly) removed him to the San Francisco Bay Area so he could become a hippie. Or something like that. So Seattle is familiar territory.

One day, the Scruffman decided to take an urban hike, from the Leschi neighborhood along Lake Washington through the Arboretum to the University District, in part because he didn't want to lay out funds for a city bus ride. At the end of the hike, waiting at a bus stop for a bus back to the Starship, he noticed a young man his age passing by.

"Doug???"

Yes, it was Doug, one of his friends from elementary school. Doug was easy to recognize because he's rather distinctive in appearance, having very wideset eyes and a (now repaired) hare lip and deviated septum. In kindergarten he used to entertain people by putting spaghetti in his mouth and pulling it out his nose, to the screaming delight of a gaggle of little boys. Anyway, Doug was wondering who this hippie guy was who knew his name, but Greg re-introduced himself and they caught up. Doug is now studying music at Oberlin, and he relayed that Greg's best friend from fourth grade was now at USC. (These are some seriously bright boys.)

The needed trip to REI (mentioned above) resulted in the purchase of a thermal mattress pad to insulate the Scruffman's scrawny bones from the ground. This turned out to be a really, really good thing, as we shall soon see.

Yesterday, Greg and West hitched a ride with a young female farmer who happened to be a couchsurfer herself. She took them as far as Issaquah, a suburb of Seattle, and from there they managed to wrangle a ride as far as Ellensburg, in central Washington.

Now as you may recall, Greg has a ticket to London on the 26th, and he wants to spend time with his best friend Emma in NYC before departing, so he wants to be there by the 20th. They are adamant that they don't want to spend money on transportation, but as time is now beginning to run short, our heroes made an executive decision to start heading seriously east, without the planned stops in Denver, Chicago, or Detroit. They have friends on the east coast and lots to do there.

Planning to hunker down under an overpass for the night, they decided to head into a nearby truck stop for a beer. Both being unusually sociable guys, they befriended a female trucker who was heading to Detroit.

She was amazed to find out that they were hitching (and roughing it) in October. Shaking her head, she gave them her cell phone number and told them that if they were still there in the morning, give her a call and they could ride with her. So they did, after a chilly night (around 19 degrees, I believe). Apparently her maternal instincts kicked in, as she bought them lunch today. And they stopped for the night in...

Little Big Horn, Montana!

where, as I was told, there is not much.

They are following I-90 and this is at the point where it takes a serious dive south into Colorado before bending east again.

Greg and West plan to bed down under an overpass again tonight, and they have the option of continuing with their trucker friend. It's going to be cold again, but the Scruffman soothed my worries at least somewhat with an inventory of the clothing he plans to sleep in (approximately everything he has with him, including snow pants.

He doesn't, however, have a pair of gloves. Apparently he's not feeling particularly in need just yet. Young people just don't have as many nerve endings as us old folks. I just hope they don't freeze their cojones off before they get to New York.

Incidentally, his total expenditures since leaving home 16 days ago (less the bus ticket I paid for) are about $260, including the $120 he spent for the thermal camping mattress.

Next report when I hear from Scruffman Greg again!

nelsonian

Sounds like that have everything sussed out, and will get to New York by the desired time. I am loving reading about the Scruffman's adventure.

artsnletters

LATE BREAKING UPDATE

Just got another call, as computer access has been scarce and the Scruffman needed to contact his next scheduled couch, in Detroit, by going through me.

He is currently in South Dakota, still traveling with his trucker friend. He says I-90 has been a pretty boring route. They passed within an exit of Mount Rushmore but didn't stop. He's sleeping out again tonight, but a little concerned because it's raining and he has to find an overpass with sufficient flat space for sleeping. However, he's taking the rain as a good thing - that means it's warm enough to rain rather than snow!

kerouac

Ah, the frustration of passing the monuments when you don't have a chance to stop! He'll get back to Mount Rushmore one of these days... (Of course, I myself have not made it there yet!)

Bokhara2

What a wonderful adventure for the Scruffman and you, artsnletters! I'm Australian and probably not surprisingly, in the "oh for Pete's sake, he's 21, not 12!" camp along with the Europeans, so will be following his journeys with much interest & cyber encouragement. Imagine if some of the men who headed companies & countries had this experience behind them! Wouldn't that bring some empathy, lateral thinking and an appreciation for different people, to the world? And the confidence borne of having successfully solved problems will stand him in very good stead throughout his life.

artsnletters

A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE ON THE SAME STORY

West's mother just e-mailed me with the update she got from West:

Just heard from West. They left Seattle last weekend — took them 3 hitches to get just to Eastern Washington. There they took refuge from the 14 degree weather in a bar in a small town and met a lady trucker from Ontario who told them they were NUTS, INSANE, WTF are you doing hitch-hiking across the country at this time of year for?! Then she took pity on them and is taking them along with her to Detroit. They’ve spent the past few days in this cushy 18-wheeler riding 10 – 12 hours a day and camping at night. She calls them at 6am and they pack up their stuff and meet her and get on the road again.

West called from somewhere in South Dakota — he said he was on a grassy median with a field full of corn on one side and field full of trucks on the other — very American. She’s going to take them all the way to Detroit (so they’ll miss seeing friends in Denver, Lincoln Nebraska and Chicago) but then they’ve got a couch-surfing hook up in Detroit and a LOT less ground to cover to get to NY in the next week or so.

West sounded really jazzed, and thinks that Eloise (the trucker) has really enjoyed their company. Their gear is keeping them warm at night, and they drove through the worst of the storm in the big fancy truck, so they are doing well.

As you can tell, West's mom and I share largely the same attitude toward our sons' travels!

kerouac

That is great!

kleroux

What a great learning experience. I"m a 68 year old woman and I hitch hiked alone through Europe when I was 17/18. I stayed in Youth hostels and met so many interesting people and saw so many things I never would have seen any other way. European and Asian kids are always on the road all over the world. I often wondered why so few American kids travel. When one learns that only about 30% of Americans hold a passport, it makes one understand some of the ignorance we Americans have about the rest of the world. Travel is wonderful. He's getting a good start in life, IMO.
Maybe you should start a new thread once he gets to Europe so this one doesn't get so long.

artsnletters

kleroux, I agree that this will be a priceless education. And yes, I'll definitely be starting a new thread for this tale once he changes continents.

sf7307

I think this is fabulous - both his travels, and your attitude. I traveled to Europe when I was 21 and had no contact with my parents for 10 weeks (there was no way to BE in contact back then). Traveled cheap, slept on floors and trains, in hostels and dives, etc. etc. However, now that I have my own 20-something children, I find it really really difficult to "let go" --- geez, I was worried about my nearly 25-year old son driving in light (non-sticking) snow this morning!! But I'm trying (and given that he lived in Africa for two years, believe me, it's me, not him!) The experience will be invaluable.

Katkak1007

I am so happy for your son and his friend. I always encourage young kids to do this. Heck I've even told my own boys that one thing they must do is throw a backpack on their back and hit europe for several months. I never had the idea to do something like this. I work with quite a few 20 to 30 somethings that have been able to do this and are thankful they did.
I will be reading your updates!!!

nelsonian

What's the latest on your son's adventures? Did they make it to New York?

janisj

And eventually to London???

artsnletters

In short - yes. I was hoping to get "the rest of the story." I have as much of the story as I'm going to have, so just trying to get motivated to write it up. I am doing heavy writing for work right now and struggling to spend my personal time writing. Coming soon!

artsnletters

NEW INSTALLMENT!!!

In which the Scruffman makes it to New York, minus a few accoutrements…

When last we left our hero Greg and his sidekick West, he was standing between a field full of corn and a parking lot full of semis in South Dakota, en route to Detroit in the company of Eloise the trucker.

The next call came from Lansing, Michigan, where Eloise had let them off. Greg was trying to connect with his Detroit couchsurfing host and needed me to check if he had received an e-mail message from him. Unfortunately the answer was no, and because it was now 3pm, he needed to make some decisions about what he was going to do. But he wanted to get on the road, so he hung up pretty quickly.

The next time I heard from him was a couple days later, at which point he was in another semi truck on the road somewhere in Ohio. He had gotten a ride from Lansing with Mickey, a good Christian woman who was willing to pick up a couple young hippies by the side of the road. How brave of her! Anyway, she had dropped them in Ann Arbor. Since they hadn’t heard from the host in Detroit, they’d decided to keep moving. The original plan was to go camp in one of the deserted areas in Detroit (yes, mom was not happy with this thought, but they did have specific information about where it would be safe to stay), but they hadn’t wanted to take their luggage along with them, so they decided to bag Detroit and keep moving.

In Ann Arbor, they were able to arrange an impromptu couch. Their hosts fed them two home-cooked meals and took them to a bar for dancing and beer (and the hosts paid for it!), and a good time was had by all. Now I have to tell you, the people he’s stayed with write reviews of him on the couchsurfing site, and the folks in Ann Arbor thought he and West were the greatest guys in the world and exemplified the true spirit of couchsurfing – which apparently is to be good company while your hosts take good care of you!

And the next call was from New York, where he had arrived right on time on the 20th. They had gotten dropped off in Lebanon, New Jersey and camped for a night. The next morning they were trying to hitch to New York but got hassled by the police, who told them, “For God’s sake, the bus to New York only costs $10!” So they coughed up $10 each for the bus fare for the last 40 miles. They were staying with Greg’s best friend Emma in Soho and were having a good old time.

I needed to mail him some important papers (passport, new driver’s license, new credit card which I had gotten renewed early s it would not expire while he was on the road) and his plane info for New York-London and London-Copenhagen and a bunch of stuff to help him get through passport control in London, and there was great debate about how to do this. Emma’s apartment building didn’t have a doorman, and she was certain that it would be stolen if mailed there. So in the end, I sent everything to General Delivery at the Madison Square Garden post office, and he picked it up the morning the day before he was leaving. I had also packed up a batch of his favorite homemade snickerdoodle cookies, and he enjoyed those immensely. (The post office has this deal where you can send one of their special boxes, about 15”x12”x4” but any weight, for $10.30, so that was great!)

BUT

Of course with my son, there is often a but. As it turned out, he had left his guitar, his iPod and his journal in Mickey-in-Michigan’s car. Now how you can forget that you have two pieces of luggage instead of one, I truly don’t know. But this is the price of ADD. At least, as Greg pointed out, he had only lost his fun stuff, not his important stuff. It does give me pause. However, other than one’s life and sometimes one’s health, there is very little that can’t be replaced, although sometimes with some hassle and at some expense.

However, he had for some reason gotten her phone number, so now efforts are under way to get his stuff mailed here so I can mail it to him in Italy in care of a friend who is studying in Florence. So eventually, I hope, he will be reunited with his stuff.

Anyway, to finish up, he survived all the way to New York.

Total cost of transportation from Portland to Seattle to New York: $10.

Total cost of accommodations from the Bay Area to Portland to Seattle to New York: $0.

And he didn’t even spend that much on food, as many of the people along the way fed him.

Greg and West parted company, as West is hitching back home through the south, and Greg flew off to London.

So this thread will pick up on the Europe boards, as he did in fact make it to London, without losing anything else.

jent103

artsnletters - I can't wait to read the Europe installments. You're a forgiving mom to mail a guitar to Italy!!

kerouac

Fantastic! He still has a place to stay in Paris if interested. (Well, maybe not for a month.)

Jackie

Thanks for the update; I'd been looking for it. Looking forward to Europe!

LoveItaly

Love it, artsnletters, and you are a good mom indeed! And it sounds like Greg was able to enter England, fantastic! I will look for your thread in the Europe Forum!