Stearns County, Minnesota | Just rented the movie, Into The Wild, which is a true story about a hitchhiker that died in Alaska. He thought he could make it "in the Wild", but did not realize how brutal the elements can be. He starved to death in an old bus, used as a camper--he at one time had worked in South Dakota, near Carthage. He was originally out of Virginia and had gone to college in Atlanta, Ga. He was pretty dumb when it came to handling the brutal elements that the North country can deliver. A few years back, I had an experience picking up a hitchhiker, in January, when it was 25 below. When he got in my truck, he had just a windbraker on and no cap or proper footwear. He was so stiff with cold, that he was almost unable to get up into the truck seat. Talking to him, I noticed that he had a Southern accent--I asked him where he was from--and he said Tennessee. I asked him , what the heck he was doing hitchhiking in this country in the wintertime. He told me he was an evangelist, and he was headed to ND to hold evangelistic meetings. He went on to say, that he never imagined that this country got this cold! I left him off at a Sauk Centre truck stop and pointed out a phone booth and gave him $20, and told him he better call the family that he was headed to in ND and come and pick him up, because he would not survive out on the highway with 40 below windchill. I never found out what happened, but at least he had money to eat a meal in a warm truckstop. |
January - Williston - Dickinson - Bismark - Grand Forks
