... and then some more!

Rain, rain, rain, rain! Or in other words: another horrible day for hitchhiking. Had to get up pretty early since everyone had to go to college but that wasn't so bad.
Since the courage to go up that crappy mountain was gone, I stayed put just outside the city. Holding my umbrella in one hand and sticking my thumb out with the other one.
It took about half an hour before someone stopped to offer a ride. The only problem was they didn't have place for me except in the back of the pickup truck. I agreed to sitting there since it had always been something I wanted to do.
Except for the fact that it was really cold, I really enjoyed it too! :-) And at that point, everything was better than standing in the rain freezing your ass off.

They dropped me off just outside of Raymond and from there on I got some small hitches towards Seaside, mostly by people going to work. I found myself in the middle of nowhere again, when an older guy stopped and offered me a ride. He had an appointment in Astoria (which is on the way to Seaside) at 4 in the afternoon and proposed that I stayed at his house for a few hours instead of walking in the rain.
While staying there, he started talking to me about his past life and all his experiences. As it turned out, this guy is by far the most interesting hitch in America so far!
He was an ex-marine (demolitions expert) who had to fight in Vietnam and unfortunately still has nightmares about it. Besides that he got incarcerated for killing a guy in the 80's, got arrested for cocaine abuse, used to be a Harley Davidson biker who got into bar fights for fun, etc…

Luckily for me, he's on the right path now and he wants to justify his mistakes in life by doing some good things before he dies (like picking up hitchhikers). He had a beautiful farm where he breaded full blood Appaloosa horses and a really big collection of parrots and parakeets (see pictures). In my opinion he really wasn't a bad guy but rather a victim of post-war trauma. Instead of dropping me off in Astoria, he bought me food and dropped me off right in front of the Seaside Hostel, where I spent the night.