Day 50 - Why I Avoid Cities

Goodbye Iowa!

Now, don't misunderstand that title. I love cities. They have tall buildings, lots of culture, and are generally awesome. However, they're pretty miserable if you need to hitchhike through them.

Today's hitching began a little before noon, up in Ames, IA. Darian dropped me off near the interstate, within 20 minutes I had a ride, and I was off to Des Moines. I told my first driver, a union ironworker who's looking into working on a set of wind turbines a few hours east of Ames, and who had worked on the construction of the tallest building in Iowa, that a truckstop might be a good place for me. He knew of one on the east side of town, so he dropped me off there. The locations wasn't bad. Flow pattern wasn't ideal, but overall pretty good. Only trouble was, it was too close to the city. Two hours, and no rides.

Monarch on the road?

Finally, a guy who just got off work from Pizza Hut stopped and picked me up. He was an MP in the Army Reserve, and is studying Criminal Justice at the local university, with the hope to eventually make it up to the position of K9 handler. He was able to drive me to the next truckstop, partway through the city. It looked decent, but was still taking forever!

The next ride I got only took me one exit, to the third and final truckstop of Des Moines. I can't say too much about him, except that he was about my age, had a somewhat messy car, and was a very friendly guy. Quite happy for his help.

I found a park with all of the trees lit from beneath in Omaha.
Pretty...

I waited again, getting a ride from a guy who had also studied Criminal Justice (though he hasn't finished his degree) who was able to take me to the edge of town. Still, a bit of a slow spot. I walked along the freeway for the next mile or two until I got to a rest stop, where I finally caught a ride to Omaha with a man moving from Chicago to Santa Fe with his dog.

The time between getting dropped off in Des Moines and getting my ride out of the city was nearly six hours. If you're wondering why this happened, I can give two reasons: first, the original place I set up had a branching freeway in front of it, meaning passersby were not that likely to be heading to my destination, even when there was a high flow of traffic. Second, people inside of cities are generally only going as far as the next exit, and assume that hitchhikers don't want such a short ride (and often, I don't.) Sadly, these combine to produce long days such as this. Such is the life.

Trip Stats:
Total Distance: 177 miles
Total Time: +9 hrs
Google Estimated Time: 2:59 hrs
# of Rides: 5
Money Spent: $0.00