Free Ballin’

If the Orlando Magic weren’t hooking me up—media/concourse tickets for Friday’s Magic/Hawks game—I’d let forth some bile about Florida, from the utter indifference of Miami Heat non-fans, to the outrageous prices of Ferrari rentals in Miami Beach.  $3,000 a day?  What do they think I’m made of money?  (Yes, I checked.  Figured, you know, maybe there was a sale.)  However, since I have very nice plans for tomorrow and promising couchsurfing through the 14th (when I depart for Atlanta) I will simply grumble a bit about their terrible treatment of honest, hardworking, law-abiding (um, sort of) hitchhikers.

Since hitchhiking is my primary mode of transportation for my profession, I think of myself as a hitchhiking commuter.  My commute changes every day, of course, but I don’t think it’s any stranger than taking the train to work.  OK, yes it is, but the concept of strangeness has rarely influenced my decision-making.  However, I must admit that I do feel a bit ridiculous, because, well…how many other hitchhikers carefully consult local authorities on the legality of hitchhiking?  I suppose maybe there’s a touch of irreverentdisregard for social norms inherent to hitchhiking.  It does seem to connote a certain post-adolescant Fuck Authority! statement.  But me?  Hell, I just want to get from point A to B, paying with my time rather than my money, of which I’ve so little.  Well, I did some researching and it looks like if I fight the law, in Florida, the law will win.

This morning I called the Miami police department, who informed me that there was a city ordinance against hitchhiking, and they arrest us poor travelers.  Like a 50lbs pack isn’t enough weight without the Law pressing me down?  OK, I’m a law-abiding citizen (because I have to, since Mom and Dad aren’t diplomats) and I can get out of Miami-Dade County on public transportation, so no sweat.  So I called the police in West Palm Beach, same answer.  But OK, no sweat, I can take public transportation into Jupiter.  Unfortunately, Jupiter has no public transportation, so I called the local police department to find out about hitchhiking.  Not only is it illegal, but the officer checked and it’s illegal all the way up I-95, and Florida Highway Patrol arrest hitchhikers on sight.

As I said, I don’t hitchhike for the romance of it (as one friend of mine so bashfully admitted he does) I hitchhike to get somewhere.  And at this point, it seems the US map is only dappled with areas where it’s legal to hitchhike.  Well, I actually don’t know that.  The issue is that state law tends to be somewhat permissive; none of the laws explicitly allow hitchhiking, rather it’s illegal on the interstate and where there’s no shoulder on which cars can safely pull over to pick you up.  However, all the major cities where I’ve looked to hitchhike have city ordinances against it.  And I really don’t have the time or money to get arrested.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up hitchhiking, not hardly.  It means that I will need to hitchhike in fairly limited circumstances, namely: rural areas, truckstops, and on entrances to the interstate, at the bottom (only) of the ramp, and college towns, I think, especially on roads exiting campuses.  Now, I can get tens of thousands of miles out of this strategy, but it complicates things, and makes East Coast hitchhiking especially difficult.  So my couchsurfing/craigslist rideshare requests are going to have to be planned way in advance, in places where I can’t hitchhike.

Whatever.  So be it.  This didn’t promise to be a quick and easy solution to getting around America, and I’ll make it work.  But I’m not too grumpy; I’ve got a game tomorrow.