Category Archives: hitchhiking

LAX-SFO – SUMMER OF 1973

April 15, 2021 – 4:49 pm

Back in August 1973 I hitchhiked across country to Tulsa. My friend Neil was staying with a woman there. We had planned to drive to the West Coast in his BMW 2002, however prior to my arrival the Staten Islander had been distracted by a State Fair roller coaster and rear-ended a truck. The car […]

By Peter | Also posted in 70s, California, semi-fiction | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Map for Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD

October 13, 2020 – 9:02 pm

This map from Jack Kerouac’s diary detailed his hitchhiking across the USA in 1947. His itinerary included more stops than the classic hit ROUTE 66 sung originally by Nat King Cole. New York City, Chicago, Davenport Des Moines, North Platte, Cheyenne, Denver, Laramie, Salt Lake, Reno, San Francisco, Madera, Fresno, Selma, Los Angeles, Prescott, Albuquerque, […]

By Peter | Also posted in 50s, america, Books, myth | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

CHAPTER 17 – FREE AS A BIRD

September 3, 2020 – 1:46 pm

A humid dusk blanketed the air over Amarillo. The passing semi-trailers dragged diesel fumes on 75 mph slipstreams. AK and Sean stood on the eastbound shoulder of I-40 and a murder of crows clutched the top wire of a barbed wire fence, regarding the two hippies as future carrion. Off in the distant several dirty […]

By Peter | Also posted in 70s, Fiction | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Biloxi 1975

March 12, 2020 – 8:37 pm

An hour after sunset we passed through Ocala. The cowboy town looked mean and I drove the speed limit. Florida was a big state at 55. I joined the Interstate after Lake City. Old Bill drunkenly bitched about the trucks. “Not many other options.” I wasn’t keen on driving through the backroads of the Panhandle. […]

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MIAMI BEACH BLIND by Peter Nolan Smith

January 7, 2020 – 3:16 am

Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands In the winter of 1975 I hitchhiked west from Miami Beach along Alligator Alley. Rides weren?t easy, but finally a fruit farmer from Naples gave me a lift through the southern tip of the Everglades. Nothing, but swamp lined the four-lane highway. No snowbirds from the Northeast or Canada wanted to […]

By Peter | Also posted in 70s, semi-fiction, Travel | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)