OH to AZ

What a trip it has been. I ended my last post in Huntington. So we will start from there....

I was in Huntington WV for a week. I stayed in a small one room cabin in the woods. No electricity and a wood stove. It was awesome. I had thought about leaving there before my birthday, 4/14, but decided I didnt want to be traveing on my bday. So I stayed there for my bday. It rained all day and the night before..Well the mountains where I was in Midkiff are all thick clay so it became extrememly muddy. I had a preetty decent time for my bday. But I sure miss popcorn. So I had to climb off the mountain because during that rain my friend Robbie got his Tracker put in a pond coming down the mountain on my bday. I had ran out of water and not much food left so I had to get off the mountain. Well I got off the mountain (not easy), then tried to find my way to Robbies house (I went the wrong way 2 times...blahh that was realy tiring. Plus where I broke the side of my foot while I was in college..was cramping horribly even before I left the cabin and walked down the mountain. Well I finaly made it to Huntington and walked to what I thought was towards the interstate that I needed but I found out I walked the wrong way..But I kept going anyways...Well I put my thumb out when i finally could in Ohio...And less than a minute later I had a ride. This ride was going to some town in Ohio that wasnt really that far..but he took me to lexington KY, which I thought was awesome!! Thanks Kevin!! Well Kevin dropped me off at a truck stop and within the hour I had a ride that was going all the way to the west coast. Now you guys know how much I want to see popcorn so I took that ride. It took 3 days for me to get from ohio to flagstaff...not bad for hitchin....Well so on that sat before i arrived in flagstaff I emailed popcorn to let him know i was coming. Cuz thats where he has been. So I waited there for 2 ddays. The first day I got to flagstaff it was 11pm and cold. I had no idea where anything was..and I still hadnt heard from popcorn in about 2 weeks. So I just used my intuitin..and it sure did work. I was led to an awesome park where I arrived around 2am and layed down cuddled up to a huge pine tree..but what sucked is I dont have any blankets...It was less than 32 degrees for sure..maybe around 27 or so...well needless to say i froze my ass off...but the next day i sat at the library in the park all day..at Wheeler park met some women from the mission there and was taken to the mission to stay...But damn it if I didnt want to stay in some shelter..I can handle the cold.. So I stood there for a long moment infront of the buzzer for the door to go in...With my head down an emo kids comes walking up past me and asks me whats in my black bag...well i told him it was my guitar..he said aww you play guitar I said yes..and he invited me to play that night there was an open mic night. I told him that i would if i could find a place to sleep that night. He asked what i was doing and I said i was a hitch hiker and had just arrived that previous night. He ran his fingers through his gotee and said I may have a place for you...We went right next door to a house there and that was where he lived. with several roomates...they let me sleep on there couch that night. Now lets continue the story from meeting the new friends. Well the one that offered me a place to stay was Ash. I found out that they were a very popular band there in flagstaff. They even had concerts in their basement, they called the house the cottage house. It was awesome! Well that night I played guitar and listened to lost of others play.Then we played some together it was an awesome adventure with crazy stuff on the projector (oh by the way we were set up outside).We all played the electric guitar. It was so awesome!!So the next day i was at Wheeler park watching to see if popcorn would show up to the library to check his messages when a man with a cute overweight dachsund that had a huge tung hanging out the side of its mouth...(always out the side of his mouth) well the mans name is ben and his dogs name is rusty..well we sat and talked for a bit and he told me that he had just left everything...so he was a newbie..Well he took me to McD's and bought me 3 burgers. Well we had talked aobut traveling together him, me and popcorn. Well he took me in to the library and i was able to check my email...well popcorn said he was in san diego...arrggghh!! well so me and ben decided we would go and get him..well while we were in pheonix az i got intouch with a friend of mine TJ who I have known for about 5 years now. Well we decided to take a 6 hour detour and that is hwere right now we are about an hour east of Tucson on I-10 in a smal town called Willcox. While on the way we had no money so I spanged for gas the whole way. We have a CB in the truck (a really good one) so I was bored while in Tucson and started talking on it and telling jokes to make the truckers laugh...well then I said what do you do when a gwoman is sittting on the hood of her truck playing guitar with pink tipped dreads and bright colored clothes on..well they did konw I said well you shove dollar bills in her shoes lol..and then i said that i was thinking about sitting on the hood and doing just that ...Because I was out of gas and needed some moeney> well I had a trucker come on there and say he had some spare change..Well long story short he bought me a coke and gave me $20. Well that got us here..and now I am sitting in luxury with an airconditoiner, a nice bed to sleep intonight..and food and even soda! Oh ya and internet and tv and movies...im a pimpin "foundatoin impaired" person!! By the way..I am surrounded by the most beautiful and wonderful ppl...everywhere i go!

Loving you all
Alicat

Please dont forget to leave comments...I want to know what you think..I want to know if you guys want me to continue to write....

Here are the posts from the other website...

I am not having a good time with wordpress...i dont have the time to try to work with it...so i will be coming back to this site...but i will try to maintain both websites....so here you go...

welcoming you to our lives
February 17, 2009 — skinthathippy
hello all! we are welcoming you from destin fl we started 1398 miles ago. ok, we started in northern arkansas right after a really bad ice storm. one of the worse storms in ar history. it dumped like 2″ over night then like another inch the next day. we were stuck in this old house that used to be a hippie commune and hadnt had anyone there for a long time. all we heard was trees fallin and branches hitting the roof as they fell.

i know thats not much but the wife and i just picked our feet up about 3 weeks ago. we are headed for ocala national forest for the ocala gathering. after that where we go is a mystery.

life in general is a mystery and its nice to wonder whats going to happen. im glad we dont try to ruin it all by guessing! when u guess whats going to happen or you try to MAKE things happen its so damned stressful. worrying just doesnt do anything for you besides shorten your lifespan

well in the beginning of our travels we stayed withthis pretty cool couple but they were not the cleanest. they kept telling us they would hookus up with a ride out of town (conway ar) we ended up staying there for like 2 1/2 weeks and they werent even home half the time they were doing drugs and such instead. they would get home and fight so we were kinda kidnapped instead of the original plan. they were good pplthough they were just caught up with all the lil stupids things in life which mean nothing (what type of clothes they wore, cars, ect…..) so just slightly lost.

so we hitched from conway to the middle of no where in the rain. we got stuck in little rock for a few hours and it wasnt the best situation but it was fun we were able to touch some lives there. a woman approached us as we were sitting infront of the library (im breaking up butts tryin to roll a smoke and she was takin off her pack to go inside) and said we were very intresting people and her husband would like to paint us. wow!!! i didnt know i was modelworthy, yay!!!!!!!!!!

well we r sitting under this bridge trying to stay dry and i have some money (like $1.60) and i start to ask people if i gave them a gallon of gas worth of money would they give us a ride to outside of town. well like the 13th guy we ask says he would but last time he did something like that he got robbed and hijacked so he couldntdo it but he could give us some money. he gives us this $ 20 bill and as i go to get it hes really skittish and nervous so u know hes telling the truth.

why do people treat each other like that? i dont understand. those assholes stole that guys innocence and heart because they were prob too worried bout their crack habit. i cant believe that the animal, aka the human, could be this way to fellow members of theyr kind and good ones at that. what has happened to our species? have we brainwashed ourselves to the point that we think thats normal and ok? yes!!! how could we allow that to happen? selfishness and lack of unityand community. we arenta peopl anymore we r indivduals who are so obsessed with ourselves all we see is the inside of our anuses

well we get to the outskirts of little rock on a bus and its pouring down rain. we walk like 3 miles and the people who drove past us would seem to speed up as they past like we would jump out in front of them or something. we keep seein the interstate and need to get to it but to get there we could walk straight (and parallel) or cross a swamp. we keep walking. ok so we get to a spot we can cross. so now we r on the interstate and same thing zoom past zoom past. we walk like another 1/2 mile. oh yeah a bridge up ahead. somewhere dry.

we get under this bridge, its like 10:00 pm, cold, and finally dry. lay out the blanket, hurry!!! so we do. the incline under the bridge is so steep we keep sliding down. shit!!!!! oh yeah, i have a shovel!!!! so we dig out these little shelves for our butts to fit in (naked by the way, burrrrrrrrrr!!!) well, sleep comes (kinda). wake up time, still so cold ok we can stay in bed! ope its like 3:00pm and not raining, lets run!!!

ok we get everything picked up, on the road, and sticking the thumb out. yes, a ride!!!!!! please take us to the nearest truck stop. pine bluff, ar. pilot. drying off, and this lady who works there gives us a shower and starts crying because she wants to help so badly! well she takes us home with her. o wow!!! two blunts and two joints later we r sleeping on her floor. next day she takes us to walmart and spends like $30 on US in food and tobacco plus gives us a ride down the road.

we walk a few miles and some one brings us a ways to the south. we r in this very small town wondering how we r going to get accross the mississippi so we sit at a gas station, and get some energy drinks and this lady gives us $20, wow ty so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! we takeoff with intent of crossing the bridge on foot walk like 3/4 a mile and figure screw this lets go back and try to get a ride. well we wait like 10mins at the store and i ask this couple if they would take us accross for a couple dollars they did but told us to keep the money.

well we r now in ms, yay!!!!!! the couple give us anouther $20 and we r talking they find out i tattoo and so now they take us to their house. i give a tat and gorge myself on hamburgers and other great food. the next day they bring us to greenville ms. we eat at a t-stop and as i pay i realize we r $28 shorter then we were, thank the gods we had $50!!!!!

we r walking to indianola and get picked up by this nice old couple and they drop us off at walmartsaying they will be back with a friend who will give us a ride to fla, yay!!!!!!!! well we wait like 3 hours never show up. damn it!!!!! so we start walking we get out of town and its now like 7:00pm, DARK, and swampy damn it there is no where we can make camp so we gotta keep walking. we get picked up by a trucker @ like 8:30 and he takes us to a pilot in winona, ms.

we sit at the t-stop for like 3 hours and now this old man (trucker) is talkin to us and we tell him our story so he now is trying to help us find a trucker who will takeus some where closer to here, but alas no one seems to be going that way. another trucker is now standing and conversing with us. he needs to go to decatur al. wow man can we catch a ride? yep, yay!!!!!!!!!

ok so we reach decatur and drop his load, so as we r with him he picks up his load info and he has one from decatur to n.c. and they gave him 4 days to get there. wow, he can bring us to fla now and wants to!!!!! yay!!!!!!! he wanted to have some fun instead of just drive and liked the company.

so here we are in my cousin ninas house in destin fl visiting before we gotta pick up and finish the trip to ocala. o wait, u wanna see the beautiful white beaches and 70 degree weather? we are right now!!! wanna wait a bit before gotta walk through more swamp!!!

well ty for taking the time reading my babble. and i hope u follow our travels from now on. the rest wont be so long (hopefully!!!!!). leave us msg’s and comments. wanna know what u think and would love to read your adventures too!!!

truly,

popcorn

ali too of course!!


Traveling Up and Down the East Coast
April 8, 2009 — skinthathippy
Hello all, Sorry I havent been able to keep you up to date. Its really hard when you dont have access to internet. Well lets cut the chitchat and start the story….I am going to skip alot of stuff..

I traveled from Pittsburgh to Midkiff WV (thats near Huntington). I went down I-79, Snow the whole way. I started out around 10am or so. I hitched all the way, alone. It was a wonderful experience. Met alot of great ppl. I got 8 rides, 2 apples, a banana, $45, 4 dbl cheeseburgers from all the wonderful ppl. It pays to hitch. I want you to know up front that i do not beg from money. I do not even ever ask for money, food, or anything beyond a ride. I am extremely greatful for everything!

I was standing on the onramp, it was snowing hard. I was still happy. I kept singing and laughing the whole time! I love to have fun no matter what I am doing.

Your prolly wondering, where all have you been? How did you get there?

The last time we talked to you we were together in Destin, FL. Now were seperated (but still together just different places). We went to Ocala National Forest like planned. The gathering was pretty good, nothing bad happened. Then we left with some friends to the next gathering in Acola national forest near Tallahassee. On the trip we stopped at a Hoddy (hotel) and took showers. God was I ever dirty, water was running black (not exagerating). Well from Acola, Popcorn decided that he wanted to go to the Grand Canyon with a caravan of ppl. But i still wanted to do what I had originally planned. Follow the east coast for a while then slowly make my way inward then to the west coast and do the same there. So Popcorn left and I traveled for a while with a guy named Aries. i am not going to go into alot that happened becase I dont want to talk mean about someone. Aries and I split our ways in NJ at the Vince Lambarti truck stop where I went to Pittsburgh and seen some of my great friends Sol and Rae and Helen.

While I was in Philly (for a week), I got to hang out with Chris from 721sandwiches. That was absolutely awesome! Chris is an amazing individual! I want to say thanks..Thanks Chris!!

Since I am leaving alot out of the mix because of Aries and a very sad and angry man named Wolf. I will tell you I traveled and stayed in Savanah (GA)(St. Patty’s Day parade),Baltimore, Philly, NYC, West Palm Beach (FL). There might have been more places but i cant remember.

I left FL mid march i think, so i have done alot of traveling in that short amount of time. Now I am in WV seeing an old friend of mine Danny, whom I havent seen in 2 years or so.

i was very excited to be coming this way. I havent been to WV in about 3 years. Its lovly country here and everyone is so very nice. its almost like being at home…with the exception of thicker accents here. I am fixing to leave to go to the hunting lodge out in the middle of the woods. Thats where I am going to be staying while I am here.

Well I hope that sates you for now….