Day 6 – The Kindness of Strangers

There are a lot of nice people in this world, more than a lot of people assume. All you have to do is give people the opportunity, and many of them will pull through.

Last night in Portland was awesome. I posted a message in Portland’s Emergency Couch group on couchsurfing, and quickly got a message inviting me to stay with a couple of awesome Alaska natives living in the area. There house was expected to be full, but they had tent space in their yard that I was more than welcome to have. So I took them up on it, and when things changed at their house I ended up getting a couch anyways. They also gave me a number of tips on where to go and what to do while in Alaska, like how you have to take a bus into Denali, or a recommendation to hit Thompson Pass near Valdez. This map book of mine is getting fairly well filled with notes and suggestions.

After a tasty breakfast egg scramble, I headed out to the freeway. D----- picked me up on his way back to Seattle after visiting family in Portland. He’s a laborer, holding down a variety of jobs that keep his employment fairly stable, even in this economy. Not a bad strategy. He also has a hobby of dumpster diving, something he’s been doing for decades. He used to be the only person in Seattle doing it, back when he began. It’s become much more competitive, and people have stopped throwing away as many things. He’s found rings and other jewelry, pieces of gold that weighed as much as an ounce. As he said, if he’d held on to all the gold he’s found till now, he’d be sitting pretty. But, that doesn’t matter very much, and doesn’t bother him. That’s just the past.

Bridges! I didn't stop in Washington

As we got closer to Seattle, D----- mentioned that he didn’t have any plans for the evening, and he had a bag of Canadian coins from his dumpster diving that he wanted to convert at the currency exchange near the border. Plus, he had this rental car till the following day, and there wasn’t any point in just letting it sit in the street all night. It’d been a while since he’d been to Blaine, the last city on this side of the border, so he’d go ahead and take me to the edge of the US. And he did. He drove over an hour past where he was going, without being asked, just to help me out a little bit more. It was such an awesome thing for him to do.
Of course, not everyone can readily believe that someone would go that far out of their way for someone they’d just met, with no compensation other than gratitude. This includes border police. We made a mistake, and missed the last turnout on the US side. D----- didn’t have a passport with him. We had to stop at the gates and go into the customs building, where they interviewed me, and then interviewed him. They asked me a bunch of questions about who I was, where I was going, and why. They asked me even more about why D----- had driven me so far out of his way, implying that there must be some reason for it. All I could say was, nope. A lot of people are just plain helpful, and this sort of situation isn’t as rare as people think. I was given back my passport card, and ready to be on my way. I hung out an extra half hour or so, while they ran D-----‘s passport and interviewed him. Then he was given a paper stating that he hadn’t been in Canada, so he could cross through the US gates, and took off on his way, while I went off on mine. He gave me the ziploc of Canadian coins he’d collected to use on my journey. Then I was across the border, caught a ride to Vancouver, and pointed in the direction I should go by a fellow light-rail passenger.

A lot of people like to help out others, even complete strangers. The whole premise of hitchhiking is based on this. But in our daily lives we so rarely get to meet these sorts of people, we so rarely experience this kindness. But now I do. For the past week, I’ve been almost exclusively with people who go out of their way to help others, and it’s infectious. I’ve found myself more willing to help others, and more actively searching for opportunities to do so. I love being on the receiving end, but perhaps even more I look forward to many days and chances to not get, but to give.

Trip Stats:

Total Distance: 304 miles
Total Time: 8 hours
# of Rides: 2
Total Cost: $9.00