Adventure #3

For my final adventure, I met a man named Andrew who spent an entire year after college traveling the United States on his motorcycle, Molly.  Andrew would drive from place to place taking in the surroundings he passed through, and would pitch up his tent when it got dark in whatever appropriate location he could find.  Throughout this journey, he grew an enormous, untidy, impressive beard, found himself in many sketchy situations, and developed mild schizophrenia and experienced confusing hallucinations.

One of Andrew’s most incredulous adventures included a run-in with drunken hill-billys.  After exiting Yellowstone, he began to drive towards South Dakota.  Since the sun was setting and he had been driving for quite some time, he decided he should stop somewhere in Montana and get some sleep.  First, he tried to pitch his tent on the front yard of a large house with a quarter-mile long driveway.  However, as he was setting his tent the owner’s dog came out and angrily began growling and barking.  Initially Andrew was feeling brave because he was wearing his heavily padded motorcycling gear, but after a few minutes of acting strong the dog’s intimidation worked and he made his way back through town.  The town ended up being completely deserted, making for a creepy drive until he found a house that looked like a good place to pitch his tent.  He knocked on the door of the house, and an old lady walked around the back of the house and quickly denied his hope for a place to sleep, and suggested he go up the road to a nearby creek.  When he reached the suggested location, he pitched his tent and tried to fall asleep.  Shortly after dozing off into a peacefully, much-needed slumber, a large truck full of drunken men pulled up and started honking and shining its bright lights on the tent.  Andrew stayed inside the tent, quietly freaking the hell out, when the car suddenly went silent.  Then, breaking the silence, a soft “I love youuuuu” was uttered from one of the men in the truck, and then the truck drove off.  Still uneasy, Andrew tried to return to sleep, but then the truck returned.  This time, he exited his tent and the men exited their truck and circled him.  They yelled at him, walked around him in a circle, and then left.  Completely frazzled, knees weak, arms heavy, he packed up his stuff and drove a brutal, 8 hour nonstop ride to South Dakota.

Besides encountering creepy rednecks in Montana, some of his craziest experiences included odd hallucinations.  One day, toward the end of his trip, Andrew decided to stay up all day and then attempt to drive straight from Key West Florida back to his home in Texas.  He pretended to have room in a hotel and used the hotel’s hot tub and bar during the day, and then when midnight struck, he left for his return ride home.  Two hours in, he began to feel extremely tired and decided to sleep in a parking lot.  Andrew parked his motorcycle Molly in a parking space and used the parking bumper as a pillow. Although the parking space was incredibly comfortable, according to Andrew, just before falling asleep he heard voices coming from a nearby bush, whispering, “They found you.  They’re going to get you.  You have to go.”  Listening to these mysterious voices, he left the parking lot and continued driving.  He realized short after that those voices where not real.  So he found another parking lot, but the same event occurred and Andrew once was convinced to get back on the road.  Eventually he came to his senses and determined he was way too tired and decided to stay in a super crappy motel with dirty sheets and weird holes in the walls.

Overall, Andrew enjoyed his Chris McCandless-like adventure and recommended a similar journey.  Although he still has problems sleep walking and hearing voices due to the adventure, his motorcycle Molly is still in decent condition and Andrew has a solid job at Google, and has an intern that knows way more about Google-type stuff than he does.  I did not realize how awesome of an adventure listening to his story was, so I did not take a picture.  So instead, here are pictures of Montana and potato salad.  Actually, there is no picture of potato salad because that would be a nonsensical addition to this Adventure Journal entry.