Traveling the American Highway is High Emotion

RVers are free spirits because they love to travel the American highways and byways exploring, anticipating something new up ahead and feeding their souls with the freshness of life that traveling so easily births. RVers see many folks on the road with their thumbs out - the international request for a free ride. It’s most unfortunate that you can’t safely pick up hitchhikers anymore. There was once a time when hitchhiking was an acceptable means of getting around the country, especially for servicemen in uniform. So, when I saw Tree Rain (yes that’s the name he goes by) standing on the corner with his thumb out and his guitar strapped around his neck, I flipped a “U” and got a free concert. You might think that Tree is a vagrant or homeless, but in fact he is a hard working construction guy who frames houses. His hobby is hitchhiking around the country by thumb, like Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan once did. He’s been doing it for eight years and loves it. He carries his camping equipment in his backpack, it’s free and he meets great people and sees the country. Work has lightened up so he’s headed out once again to explore. He told me that he’s had hundreds of positive experiences doing this. On the road, he said, “You can loose your woman or meet your woman, anything can happen, it’s just high emotion.” He said that one time a hot chick in a red convertible picked him up and took him out to lunch, “You just never know what’s gonna happen out here.” So when you see someone with a thumb up it could be a dangerous criminal or perhaps it's a free spirit like Tree Rain out to experience this great country the old fashioned way.

Jim Twamley, Professor of RVing, Dr. of RVology and ROAD Scholar