I walked out to the University Ave I80 onramp from Kristin's house and caught a ride in four minutes. A big scary survivalist named Bruce stopped, and I hopped in his 1/2 ton pickup. The suspension was so stiff without a load that riding felt like sitting on one of those "Magic Fingers" beds. The first thing I saw when I opened the door was his huge hunting knife sitting on the divider. He caught my glance, casually picked it up, and put it under his seat.

He explained that he was going out to the woods for a week or so, with only a little bread and minimal camping gear, Jon Muir style.

"You take the average city dweller and put him in the woods, he'll be dead within a day. You take paleolithic man and put him in a city, the same thing will happen. Knowledge is what counts."

He dropped me off in Hayward, explained he had some errands to run, and that he'd pick me up again if he saw me standing on the onramp when he returned in about 20 minutes. I danced around on the island in front of the onramp for about 20 minutes, turning down a number of short rides that wouldn't have gotten me to the 5, and hopped back in Bruce's truck when he returned.

I took Bruce for the violent, painfully isolationist, serial killer type - but it turns out that he has a wife and two children. When I asked what he was raising his children to be, he looked at me with deadly cold eyes of suspicion and replied "Staunch Conservatives." I didn't give any indication of disapproval, so he started his 30 minute tirade against liberals and liberal ideology.  Eventually he really got going and started talking about how blacks and mexicans are naturally inferior.

He dropped me off at the I5 interchange: "Well Mike, what we really need is a Friday night and a six-pack of beer so that we can sort all this out. So maybe I'll see you on the road again some day and pick you up."

The onramp I was standing on was probably one of the worst places I could have been dropped.  It held a beautiful view of the California that I always hoped to find, but the only other thing in sight was a single gas station. I thought I was probably going to have a hard time hitching out of there, but the first car to drive by stopped before I even put my thumb out.

"You going all the way?"
"All the way."

This guy, Richard, was one of the best rides I've ever gotten. He's a psycho-analyst, but turned out to be pretty profound and interesting to talk with. We didn't stop talking until he dropped me off in Santa Monica. He told me all kinds of stories about hitchhiking across the US, running drugs, and being a kid in the 60s-70s.

One of his most interesting thoughts was on the nature of his generation.  I asked him why he thought hitchhiking was so much easier in his youth.  He said "Now, a lot of it probably has to do with public perception of safety in this time, but I think there's a larger factor.  It's hard for me to convey the signifigance of this to people, but I was a baby boomer.  Before WWII there were 140 million people in the United States.  When everyone came back from the war and had children, there were 90 million of us.  The population of the United States almost doubled.  When I was a kid, everybody was a kid.  We had comradare, we had community.  If I was hitchhiking, another kid would drive by and pick me up; you don't have that."

I walked around Santa Monica when I got in, but it was pretty late and not much was happening. Eventually I walked out on the beach and tried to sleep.  I didn't sleep much, because the night was full of sketchy characters walking around or hovering over me. At one point, I woke up to a huge roaring sound. I opened my eyes, and a giant sand groomer was about to run me over!