Everyone should read On the Road by Jack Kerouac and everyone should hitch hike across the country at least once in their life.


The Ride


We got a ride with a friend
Then a ride with a sailor
Then a ride with a guy
Who worked in construction
Who put us out
On the off ramp
To a grave yard
Where we sat
And we sat
For most of the afternoon

Finally we got
A ride with a mortician
Who talked about
Having sex with the dead
Than a ride in a van
With three runaways
From West Virginia
Who had nothing on them
But two bucks
And a blanket.

In Ventura we stalled
And slept by the HI way
Tell dawn came along
And we got a ride
With some surfers
Who left us in
Santa Barbra
Where we met a shirt salesman
Who gave us a ride in his
Powder blue Cadillac
All the way
To Oak...land.


We stayed for a week
With some friends
In Sonoma
Who gave us a ride
Clear through to Salt Lake
Over mountains and deserts
And mountains and deserts
And mountains
If you've ever been out there
You know what I mean.

Next day
We got a ride in a pick up
And then we got a ride in another pick up
And then we got a ride in a Chevy Impala
Which belonged to the diver's wife
He was only driving it he said
Cause his pick up was in the shop
But mostly the drivers were silent
Cowboys asking no questions
Mormons telling no stories.

And so in the evening
A soft spring evening
We got where we were going.
Well we thought we were
where we were going
But in fact
"...we had longer ways to go.
But no matter, the road is life."
We were only waiting
For the next ride.



Quote is from
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Part 3 Chapter 5






Poetry by Budart
Read 912 times
Written on 2011-04-14 at 02:30

Tags Hitchhiking  Memories  Youth 

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That is so enticing and mind blowing.
The only hitch is that it may not be so safe these days
to embark on something so wonderful as this.
What part of the country do? :-)
2011-04-14