Saturday afternoon after work I was over at my sisters new house along the BN racetrack in Downers Grove helping her fiancee and a couple friends finish up some drywall & trim work so they could get carpet installed on monday… anyway we finish up around 9pm break out the cooler of Coors and all hang out in the garage/driveway for a few hours talken about good times when 3 hippies walk up from the tracks asking how to get to Chicago lol they hung around for a little bit and one of the guys gave them a ride to 24hr diner
ANYWAY heres the interesting part!!! Two were from Portland OR and one from Oakland CA and they all got here by riding freight trains [sigh]
Was for me I hardly ever get out these days Im suprised I stayed after we finished working on the house. Plus not every day you meet someone who just travled 1/2 across the US on a container train. One of the freight hopping hippies was a semi attractive young woman though she could of used a shower the guy who ended up driving them all to the diner in the back of his pickup was hitting on her lol
I remember a couple years ago i saw couple hippies sittin at a gas station up in Freeport, IL and i stopped to talk to em. Apperently they were from Minnesota or NW Wisconsin and they hopped a BNSF train from up there and rode it all the way down to Savanna, IL forgetting they needed to get off in La Crosse, WI(thats over 200 miles past where they needed to be). They walked on foot from Savanna to Freeport, which is a 45 minute drive in a car at least. This guy and girl were headed to Milwaukee for a rock concert (where they were gonna try and get in for free by hoppin a fence, so they told me) and they were gonna take the CP rail outta La Crosse but missed their spot. I told em that they could hop a CN train outta Freeport to Chicago and go to Milwaukee on a train from there. They had a rail map with them and looked at it and said that the CN/IC Iowa line wasnt even on it and they didnt know it even existed.
Who knows what they even did…but it was all for a rock concert they didnt have tickets for and might not even be able to get into when they arrived in Milwaukee.
silly as it sounds…i have a old high school friend that after graduating in 1984 he “bo’ed” to San Fransico…stayed there 3 years and “bo’ed” back…went on with his life became a lawyer…and in 2001 he took a vacation out in San Fran…he hoboed it again!!! he has done it every year since…i think hes nuts…or lucky…he has a successful law practice and knows its illegal but…[X-)]