The Magic of Maine

If You Want To Believe...

So my day started at about 7:30 in the morning. When you sleep in a tent, you get up with the dawn. There’s no alarm clock needed really (although when something is pressing I still do it. Habit I guess.) Today I was already up and starting to get dressed when I see two hear footsteps approach me.

Now this is the first time in any place I’ve slept in, Canada or the states, that anyone ever bothered me. It hasn’t happened since. I was sleeping between a car lot and a forest. At 7:30 am there were already a lot of cars in the lot. I’m sure my tent was a curiosity and an embarrassment to them. Fortunately, even before they decided to show up I had already started packing up, so it was incredibly easy to try and cooperate.

They were two gentlemen, who were half trying to be sympathetic, half full of shit. Carsalesmen have earned their reputation more often than not, and these two weren’t that different. But at least they were civil and nice about it. And I was already leaving anyway. I told them I needed about thirty minutes and I’d be good.

In warmer weather it’d be twenty, but the one surprise about the tent was the metal bars. They were sometimes ice cold in the morning. That said, today it seemed things were moving my way a touch better. The bars were tolerable and it was as if the tent came undone itself.

I had rolled up the tent and had finished putting it in the bag when another person interrupted me. It was a woman in a business suit, and she wasn’t as nice as the other two gentlement who were encouraging me to leave. At this point I was out of need to care. I was literally attaching my tent to my bag.

“What are you doing?” Her eyes were hard and she was doing her damnedest to add that hidden air of authority behind her voice.

“Leaving,” I answered. And I really was. If she wasn’t busy talking, I’d have already been on my way.

“Were you sleeping here last night?”

“I did.”

Now there was this full blown smile on her face that didn’t match her eyes. “You can’t do this ever again. You understand?”

I chuckled. “Lady, you’ll never see me again. I wouldn’t worry about it. Are we done?” The absolute wonderful thing about my situation was that I have nothing to lose. I’m coming and going as I please, and as long as that’s the case, there’s very little I care about. I’m only worried about where I was going to be. I didn’t give a crap about reputation of the lot, or any authority anyone has. I’m the wind. I come. I go. There’s not much to worry about for me.

All I worried about today was that I was going to be in Portland, Maine. That was the goal. I had made my sign and was going to use it here. I walked down, plenty of dunkin donuts timbits in hand, leftover coffee and a full day of daylight before me. I headed to the edge of the city with the macdonalds and started to wave my sign. I was determined to find a ride.

Hitchhiking is a process. I figured I’d find a ride in a few hours. In the meantime I held up my sign, waved at cars at the traffic light, and began. So the beautiful thing about the traffic light was that people had to look at me where I was. They had a good look at me.

One guy looking at me sign yelled at me.

“Hey! You want a big mac or something?” I still had plenty of donuts from Dunkin so I declined. The dude was in a blue truck. He respected my wishes and proceeded to Macdonalds. He came back around once he was done with the drive thru. He drove up beside me and handed me twenty bucks.

“Good luck buddy.”

It didn’t end with him. Almost immediately after, an elderly gentleman walked up in front of me from the cigar shop that was across the street. He walked up to me.

“I’m not giving you a ride, but here’s five dollars. I wish you the best man.” He walked back in his shop and I kept going. I had a couple of cars stop by. Not rides per se, but people that were curious. One guy nearly killed me by giving me a dollar and driving at the sudden turn of the green light. The other was a teenage car, trying to talk me into a homosexual experience with his buddy in the back. His eyes widened, not because I told him no, but because I told him how far I’ve been.

I was going to get to Portland.

Hours had come by, and while the money was nice I hadn’t gotten a bite for someone offering me a ride. I was wondering if I was going to spend another night in the city. If I was, where would I go?

“Hey! Come here!” A woman’s voice talked to me from across the street. She was in a little brown car, short hair, a little younger than me. Very pretty. I approached her a little cautiously. She got out of the car and looked me in the face.

“Why are you doing this?”

I told her. I told her about my backpacking. The miles I had wandered in Canada, a little bit about why I wanted to do it. My story touched her. She pulled out 25 dollars and debated what to give me. Out of nowhere I got the money.

“Good luck okay?”

I had done nothing but wave a sign in front of people for hours. My reward wasn’t a ride. I didn’t get to hitchhike across. What I got instead was a ticket. I had enough money from this to buy a ticket to portland. I looked at the watch at 2pm and realized I had to go buy the thing. I saw that bus was back in the downtown area I left the day before, so I went back there.

I have told people that this journey has restored my faith in people. This is why. I never in my wildest dreams expected that. I hoped for a ride and got something better. I had to stay an extra evening, but that’s not a bad thing. I’ve been truly blessed with kindness and unexpected helping hands throughout the journey. There’s so much good out there. Go out there, and you’ll see it. I’ve seen it time and time again.

I went back into the city after I went inside to do some freelancing. Once I was done I went back to downtown and went back to the same bar I visited two nights ago. They gave me back my missing phone charger. Magical that, and I went off and sat down and had a beer at another bar.

I then after my ticket was purchased found a place to sleep. I made it. I was off to Portland.