Un-American Long Distance Travel Options (Guest Essay by Hal)

I recently (Aug 4, I believe) joined up with Bear Bait for some high quality adventuring. The plan was to party it up at Reggae Risin’ for a few days, cook a bunch of food to earn our keep (just like the old days at the Coop), somehow get to Crater Lake, and then spend a week hiking. I was super excited, as I’d just finished up a summer geology course, and was aching for summer freedom.

Between Aug 1st and Aug 14th, I went from Billings to Seattle to Salem to Eureka to Crater Lake to Ashland back to Salem and then Seattle. I traveled by Greyhound, by car, by hitching, by hiking, and then by bus and then Amtrak back home to Seattle. In the process, I saw a good deal of our huge country, and folks from all walks of life. Along the way, I took an interest in how my method of transportation influenced my experiences.

I have always seen America as a country defined by cars. Anywhere you go, the infrastructure is designed primarily for cars. Take a look at how much physical space in any town is devoted to parking lots, especially the suburbs. Cars are our most obvious social status symbol. Sports cars, SUV’s, big ass ‘merican pickups, its all about the biggest and the best. So what does it say when a person is traveling by some other means?

From my experiences, I saw time and again that I was at a serious disadvantage, because I could not control how I moved from point A to point B. Going on the bus was an excellent lesson in just how inept a company with no competition can be. I took three Greyhound buses. The first broke down outside of Missoula, causing us to wait for three hours until a replacement showed up. The 2nd bus was just an hour late. The 3rd broke down before it ever got to the station (Medford, OR), so we had to wait three hours until the next regularly scheduled bus came through. The chicken buses of Latin America, ancient American school buses in actuality, perform far better. At each delay, people vented their frustrations in futile protest, as they had absolutely no control over when they would arrive at their destination.

The bus at least has a schedule. We hitched from the Reggae fest to Crater Lake, a little over 260 miles. This took us two and a half days, with a total travel time of roughly 28 hours on the road or roadside, for a Hitched MPH of less than 10 hmph. To say the least, we had no control over our travel. We were relying solely on the generosity and trust of strangers, although we did smile a lot to fool them. Standing on the side of a road, for hours and hours and hours (six in a row at one point), we understood just how frustrating it is to be powerless over our transportation.

There is another interesting aspect of power that goes with driving a car. Cars are just little mobile homes, and as a result we associate them with privacy. Just look over to the car next to you on the highway, and watch the person pick their nose, or smoke a bowl, or give road-head. You see what I mean? Privacy is the first thing you sacrifice when you go with any sort of public transportation. I have to behave as inoffensively as possible, which means no burping, farting or masturbating, and so does everyone else on the bus. Except for the obnoxiously frisky couple in the seat in front of me on the Billings Greyhound. So much giggling…

But from my point of view, that’s just the point. I have no power to prevent such obnoxious behavior, just like I can’t prevent the person behind me from shouting into their cell phone about how their ex-husband is fucking them over until, mercifully, the battery runs out. Taking the bus forces me to deal with the unpleasantness of the rest of the world. Hitching forces me to lose all control over how I will get to my destination. Well shucks, I think I want to go buy a car.

So here’s my shocking conclusion. Not having a car is a huge disadvantage in America. This means that anyone who can get one will. The only folks who don’t have one are the low income, or the very highly principled autophobes. And that is where I shall leave off for now, cuz I’m heading for the North Cascades early tomorrow morning w/ my dad and bro. I shall complete this thang next week, focusing on how hitchers (Me and Bear Bait) are perceived by the people driving by.