The middle yellow line disappearing under the hood of my car, scenery passing outside my window and the wind whipping my hair. Ah, heaven.

My wanderlust comes from my dad, who received his gypsy blood from his Yugoslavian-born mother. He was in Lake Shasta when I was two. The picture shows him sitting on a rock by a river, shirtless with long blond hair, a beard and beautiful blue eyes. Me, I’m dark haired and eyed, waiting for him in Orange County. When I was nine, he was in Boca Raton. I was in conservative Orange County of the 1970s, craving adventure. At 13, I hitchhiked two whole miles, from the outskirts of town, where I could have gone either way. But it scared the crap out of me, turning the dream of hitchhiking across the country into a distant, unreachable fantasy.

By the time my dad died, he was in Mississippi. I was in “The OC” trying desperately to find the courage to break the monotonous spell of an unhappy marriage and start living out loud again, which I did four months later. Now, three years have passed and on each road trip I stare in wonder at hitchhikers. I imagine pulling over, swinging open the door and letting them into my world. But each time, I worry about my safety and usually, my car is piled with so much gear or kids, there’s no room for anyone else.

Then last month, I left Ashland, Oregon with a kiss and a wave to my boyfriend and drove onto the freeway, heading for southern California. At the end of the ramp there was a young kid holding a sign that read “CAL.” I glanced to the back of my curiously empty backseat and decided this was it. After a moment’s hesitation, I pulled over. I tossed the stuff from the front seat to the back and watched him throw the sign to the ground and run to my car.

Darren, twenty-two years old, is blond, with watery blue eyes and smelling of smoke. He wore a cap sideways and the baggy clothes of a rapper and smiled broadly as he got in the car: quite polite and very grateful for a ride. It had taken him three days to travel from his mom’s in Portland – a five hour car drive – travelling to California’s Central Valley. He’d be with me four hours – a bit longer than I anticipated, but he would get home tonight and I would get an adventure.

I shared some Hot Tamales and Darren shared his story. He works on a carnival in summer. He spent nine months in jail for carrying a hatchet under his jacket that a friend had asked him to buy to chop wood. When he got out, he hopped the trains, traveling as far as Colorado, Texas, Idaho and back to California. Mostly people give him food or money to buy food, but he does have food stamps. Sometimes he has to panhandle. His favorite sign reads,” Ugly and Hungry.” Once in Sacramento, he made $183 in one day. But he doesn’t like to beg, it’s humiliating. Before he went to jail, he used the money to buy drugs, but then a stranger gave him a Bible and now he doesn’t take heavy drugs because he feels, that if Jesus was willing to die for him, he should be a good person. His sister called on the cell phone his mom pays for to make sure he’s okay. He laughed and said he’d be home in half an hour.

Even with the chance to buy a car, Darren said he wouldn’t. He liked hitchhiking. He liked meeting new

people, the freedom, and the unpredictability. I couldn’t agree more.