The Self-appointed Grandfather and a Bite of Alligator

My parents left me at the side of highway 27, on the very outskirts of Miami. I’d just spent two fantastic weeks with them after 16 months of being apart and it was very sad to see them go. However, I couldn’t help but smile as I was back on the road, thumb at the ready, eager for some surprises that inevitably come with hitchhiking.

I was waiting for less than 2 minutes when a lorry chugged to a stop beside me. I climbed aboard and was greeted by the ear-splitting barks of a tiny wide-eyed dog. Nibbles was James’s vicious and easily transportable guard dog, and he evidently took his role very seriously. Throughout the 200 mile long ride, that little mite had his psychotic unblinking eyes fixed on me. If I moved suddenly, reached for something in my bag, even so much as looked at the mutt, he would erupt into a jumping ball of ferocious yapping, and keep me in check.

Meanwhile, James was a pleasant chap and we enjoyed each other’s company and conversation. We clashed on quite a lot of topics (he voted for Trump to give you an idea) but he did have some great stories from his days of hitchhiking in the US as a 14 year old runaway.

A couple more short rides got me 30 miles north of Lakeland where I was dropped at a petrol station. The first person I approached, Ric, 65 and local, said he’d be happy to give me a ride all the way to Homosassa where I had a Couchsurfing host lined up. He was retired and had nothing else to do that afternoon and so, after swinging by his house so that he could change out of his slippers, we set off. In Homosassa he took me for a beer and my first ever try of alligator! It was like eating fish flavoured chicken nuggets.

When he learned that this “friend” I was going to go and stay with was actually some guy off the internet who I’d never met, he insisted they meet. When Emerson arrived, Ric was 5 beers down and zealously proclaiming that he was looking out for this wonderful young woman whom he loved as a granddaughter. Ric recounted the story of how we’d met, 3 or 4 times actually, and soon decided that my life probably wasn’t in danger. After a big rib-crushing squeeze, he let me go.

778 rides

Somewhere on Highway 27, Florida