Hell, yeah!
Great fun. I used to hitch hike down to a friend's in Wolverhampton from Stoke, with a bit of bus at each end. One lift dropped me about 200 yards from his door. Which was nice
He and I also hitched to (and from) Stonehenge in '88, via Oxford because a previous lift had told us about a pub called "The Old Brewery and Bakehouse", aka The Brewie, so we thought we'd give it a try.
And I hitched to the Holiday Inn on the A2, can't remember the name of the town now, to work on the gas privatisation. One muppet insisted on stopping in the middle of the M25/M23 junction to let me out as he was going to Gatwick. So 8 miles of hard shoulder later (why is there never a policeman around when you want one?) I came to the services, phoned my mate who was managing the canvassing team only to be told that they were "celebrating" and I'd have to get the rest of the way as well
So it's 10:30 at night in January; it's cold and it's wet; I'm at the services on the M25 and it's another ~60 miles to warmth and bed, and ~150 back home. Then a
woman, with
three kids asleep in the car gave me a lift to the A2!!
I had a lump in my throat as I said thank you to her for her kindness.
I walked down the slip onto the A2 and a Police Rangerover kindly insisted on taking me the rest of the way.
I hitched down to Cornwall for the eclipse in '99 - another memorable occasion.
I met up with Mickey (Michaela) and Paul at the 1st services on the M5 (forget the name now) and he took us as far as Gordano near Bristol. We got talking (as you do) and ended up having a coffee there. When we came out, we found that there was quite a queue of people waiting to hitch from "the" spot, so we settled down, got chatting to various other folk, talked about lifts we've had, someone skinned up and we were all chatting away like we'd known each other for years! Brilliant evening, occasionally interrupted by goodbyes as someone got a lift
It was getting late by this point so various people wandered off in search of quiet corners of fields to pitch tents in - I found a horse's field shelter full of hay and had a warm, comfy and sweet-smelling bed.
Next morning after breakfast I got talking to a German guy who'd decided that he wanted to see the eclipse from where it first made landfall, so he'd hitched from near Dusseldorf, and one lift had taken him from about 10km from home and onto the M4 near Slough. Then down the M5 to the bottom. They breed sarky coppers round there btw. I grinned and held up my "St Ives" sign to a cop car and the passenger held up a "Police" sign, grinned and stuck his thumb up! Git! As I couldn't find the people I was supposed to link up with in St Ives, I went on to where Mickey and Paul were camping, coincidentally the same one my ex and I stayed at in '90.
And on the way back the A3 was crowded - it looked like the London rush hour had got lost. Necessity proved that it was quite easy to nip over a hedge, answer the call of nature (ladies too!), and gently saunter back to your car. And all the good natured conversations going on from one car to another was fun - "Haven't we met before?" "Yes, about 10 yards ago." type thing.
I got stuck at Gordano again. Each services has a MTBL - mean times before lifts. Keele and Hilton Park are about half an hour, Gordano is usually 3+ hours. There were six of us hitching from there, two girls, a couple and another chap. Then this old lady (just retired) picked up all six of us and took us up to the 1st services on the M5.
As she said, she's had many lifts in her time, so it's only fair to put something back in
Which is the philosophy I subscribe to.
