Yeah, yeah, it sucks out there right now. But what are you gonna do the second the weather turns? Like two Sundays ago—remember that? Next day we have like that, where you gonna drive to/camp/drink/roast bacon on sticks? Intrepid Stranger correspondent Ernie Piper just did a whole bunch of driving and ferry-riding and semi-legal camping and abandoned-military-bunkers-exploring and wine-drinking and roasting bacon on sticks, and he has all these stories to prove it.
It begins:
My dad spent many years of his youth hitchhiking, train hopping, and sleeping in open fields. He would occasionally impart travel advice. "Boys," he said, "when I was traveling, there were a number of bad situations where I got out of it by hitting someone very hard in the head."
"Really?" my brother asked. "How often?"
"Maybe 18 percent. Twenty."
"Jesus."
"Yeah, one time we were sleeping on a beach with some other hoboes, and this guy was hassling my friend Pete, so I hit him in the neck with a piece of driftwood."
As you can imagine, I always daydreamed about a life in which I'd have adventure stories to rival my dad's.
