8am, Dead Indian Road near Keno, Oregon and there isn't a car in sight.
I have 9 hours to get across the state if I want free homemade glazed donuts from a fantastic little bakery in a small resort town in central Oregon.
No cars means that there is nothing to do but walk.
The 12th car to pass decides to pick me up instead of leaving me stranded out here in the middle of nowhere. It's a Mercedes of all things, which never usually stop, and it's a convertible to boot.
Too bad he had the seat warmers on, I was already sweating my ass off from having walked out of the mountains where I had been stranded in a snowstorm for almost a week.
9:15am he drops me off at Highway 140.
I strip off a layer and hope that I don't smell too bad for the next ride.
9:30am Jeff picks me up, a sales rep for a major electronics company, he is headed to Klamath Falls to make sure the clerks in places like Wal-Mart and smaller cellular stores are up to date on product information.
10:05am I'm dropped off in Klamath Falls where I check my account balance.
$26.
But my luck isn't all bad, McDonald's has a booth with an outlet right near the soda machine. Wifi and Google Maps inform me that the best place to hitch from is no where near where I'm at.
1:20pm, finally north of Klamath Falls enough to start hitchhiking. Over an hour later I get my first ride. Couldn't tell you the time because my phone fell out of my pocket and broke open while I was running to the truck.
Short ride.
He drops me off at 3pm in the parking lot of the KLA-MO-YA Casino. No luck hitchhiking from there so I walk.
Eddy picks me up, he had seen me closer to Klamath Falls but there was nowhere to pull over. He is headed to Portland via Eugene and if I want to ride all the way I'm welcome to it.
But I have plans on eating homemade donuts if I can get to Sunriver by 5pm.
4:27pm he drops me off in Chemult where he has to take a left on Highway 68. I hesitate because he has been one of the best rides that I have had in a long time.
But donuts are calling.
And the bakery is only 30 miles away. I could still make it.
Not 10 minutes later some foreigners pick me up, going north, the wrong way to where they're going but they are out of gas. But that's a 10 mile ride that gets me into Crescent, Oregon.
5pm and I'm already too late for donuts.
My heart is crushed and I'm tempted to give up for the day and camp in the woods somewhere off the road.
But I get one last ride of the day from a guy who used to live in Mammoth, CA. He'd spend 9 months of the year climbing and hiking while collecting unemployment he told me.
You wouldn't have known it to look at him these days.
Where do people go when they get off the road? What do people do with their lives when there is nothing left to believe in?
For a while I had donuts, but even that was gone now.
A dream which I couldn't quite catch.
Is that what we are all doing?
Chasing illusive dreams?
162 miles, 10 hours, 6 rides.
