As the sun rose we had crossed Ohio, the USA was going past in a dreamy grey haze. Most times I had no idea where we were, we just stayed on the highway, moving. There is a strange kind of satisfaction when you’re hitchhiking just to be moving forward, and as long as you are you will put up with nearly anything. The worst is the waiting because then the questioning starts, am I on the wrong road, hitching from the wrong place, would it be better up the road, am I gonna have to smile more, do I need a sign and, eventually, where the fuck are all the cars? Your expression should be serious and pleasant with just a hint of desperation, you need help after all. I would swing my thumbing hand around just ahead of the car, as if showing them where to pull in, eyes fixed on the driver with a vaguely pleading look. Resting against my legs was my blue rucksack with the Union Jack out front, denoting an interesting traveller. A pick up is a split second decision, it all has to be right, you’re not here for the scenery but to get somewhere. It requires attention and determination, there are no time limits, you can’t just give up. Each car is evaluated, families never stop, luxury cars rarely stop, women are too intimidated, basically you are looking for lonely men. At some point you will be willing the cars to stop as if you had some psychic power over them, then thinking – what’s wrong with me? Probably not a good look. OK then, start walking…
Somewhere near Chicago we got a lovely long lift from a good honest couple, Joseph and Sue, headed west to Omaha. The main event was the most incredible storm I have ever seen. The day literally turned to night, first there was torrential rain, then an appalling hailstorm which I thought would break the windscreen, the highway turned into a river and we were forced off the road as the car was buffeted by incredible gusts of wind. It was black as night, there was not an automobile to be seen, in fact you couldn’t see anything, just feel nature unleashing its force. Everyone stayed calm, but I was expecting our tin can of a car to be swept skyward by a giant tornado. My reference point for this was obviously The Wizard of Oz, but despite the battering there was no tornado, just buckets of rain. After the worst was over I helped somehow to fix their car aerial and took my first photograph of the trip, which only shows the aftermath of the storm. Joseph and Sue had obviously experienced such storms before, but to me it was apocalyptic. By this time we were out on the flatlands of Iowa, with hundreds of miles of totally straight road. The Romans would have loved it, but I was glad I wasn’t going to be sticking around. The breadbasket of the world, the boredom, the boredom…
Another locus of boredom was the maximum speed limit of fifty five miles per hour. Following the oil crisis in 1973 Richard Nixon and the US congress had mandated this maximum speed to save petrol, which seemed ridiculous to me in a country where people drove huge gas guzzling cars with V6 engines. Indeed fifty five miles per hour is so slow when travelling huge distances on an Interstate that most people just ignored it, especially at night. Apparently the law hardly dented the consumption of gasoline, but was only finally repealed in 1995.
Coming out of Omaha, heading into Nebraska, we had a lift from some students in the late evening who had just been to a rock gig. They were on fine form asking lots of questions about gigs in the UK. I was just bemused by the idea of rock gigs out here in the Midwest, didn’t seem appropriate, little did I realise that rock had already conquered the western world.