Don't Panic

[Today is Towel Day, and in honor of that momentous occasion, I'm dusting off an account chronicling the only hitchhiking experience of my life. This post was written for the blog of my old improv troupe, Laugh Out Loud, and was originally published on June 6, 2007. Enjoy!]

And bring a towel. And all that other great hitchhiking advice from Douglas Adams's tremendous book and the highly underrated 2005 movie version (which featured the tremendous Zooey Deschanel) that I didn't think I would ever need...but I was wrong.

A few of us had quite an adventure recently. We got hired to do a show in the thriving metropolis of Afton, Wyoming, at the all-night graduation party of the Star Valley High (not to be confused with Sweet Valley High) Braves. The biggest drama on the trip up was Erica trying to figure out how to make a relationship work with her new, hot, would-be boyfriend, an MMA fighter (he's conveniently referred to by us, Erica included, as "Mark Fighter") who was leaving in a few days to start chiropractic school in Iowa. The show was a lot of fun, the kids were great (America's future is secure in the hands of these recent graduates, including the ones who almost didn't get to graduate after turning the halls of the school into a giant slip-and-slide), and they gave us some excellent chocolate milk from the Shumway Dairy.

It turns out I love parenthetical statements. (But really, who doesn't?)

The parents running the party arranged for us to spend the night with a family who lived in the outskirts of Smoot, Wyoming (population 193). I didn't realize a place that size had outskirts. As I got out of Fred's car, my finger somehow got smashed as Fred was putting up his power windows. If I was a worrier by nature, I would've hoped that was the worst car-related mishap we'd have on this trip; but I'm not, so I mainly just focused on how much my finger hurt.

After a great breakfast the next morning, we set off for home. We made it about 10 miles before Fred pulled off the road because the car wasn't working right. KC assured us, based on his travel experiences to and from Jackson Hole last summer, that the problem was altitude-related and if we waited a few minutes the car would work fine again.

KC lied.

After doing what tinkering we could, and getting what advice we could from a few kind souls who stopped to offer assistance, we finally decided the car probably wasn't going anywhere. The car that stopped didn't have room for any of us, but they said they'd send a tow truck our way when they got back to Afton (oh yeah, none of us could get cell service where we were stranded).

Meanwhile, Erica was getting antsy, because she had a flight to catch that afternoon so she could go home to Connecticut for Memorial Day weekend. She decided to hitchhike (when we play the game Story in our shows, we try to avoid having the characters "decide" things and try to have them just do things. I'm not being a very good story-teller here). I decided (dang, not again!) to go with her, for a few reasons: we figured it'd be safer for two of us to hitchhike than just Erica alone; I too was tired of standing on the side of the road; and I have an unbelievably awesome family (worthy of several blog posts of their own), and I knew that if we could get part of the way back, like to Evanston or something, someone in my family would come and get us and bring us back the rest of the way.

For the first time in my life, I stood on the side of a highway and stuck out my thumb. It seemed like much longer, but after about 15 minutes a truck driver stopped. He was on his way to Logan and offered to take us along. KC took some pictures of this meeting; he said he took them in case he never saw us again.

(I don't remember it being windy that day, but it must have been gusting--look how much my t-shirt is puffing out!)

Any fears for our safety were quickly laid to rest. The trucker, Jeff Mitchell, was an incredibly nice guy--that's why he stopped, and we're so grateful to him for his help. He's from Hinckley, Utah, which is just outside of Delta (Utah's answer to Smoot and Afton, Wyoming, respectively), so he's close enough to come to an LOL show some time (we invited him to do so, and I hope he accepts, so we can give him the ovation he deserves).

The next few hours were relatively uneventful, except for a few times that we had to stop because cows were being herded across the road. I think I saw Billy Crystal. Within a few miles, I got some bars on my phone and called my mom. She and my sister Julie cancelled a hike they had been planning for a while, and started driving north to meet us. Jeff decided dropping us off in Tremonton would be most convenient for all involved. We ended up getting let off at a truck stop where, almost 2 years ago, I had been forced to pull off the road while driving to Boise to do a show. My sister's car was there, parked right next to the stain left by my puddle of transmission fluid. Seriously. It was kind of eerie.

It was about 12:45 at this point, and Erica's flight left at 4:45. Good thing Julie was driving and not Mom. My sis was amazing: darting in and out of traffic, getting up above 90 mph when possible (uh, LOL does not condone any violation of traffic laws), but even with her her superb driving, we didn't drop Erica off at her apartment in Provo until 3:00. She still had one last mad dash ahead of her, but thankfully Mark Fighter got her to her flight on time.

So Erica's story had a happy ending (except the part about her dream guy moving thousands of miles away). But my day wasn't over yet. We had an LOL show that night, and Fred and KC were supposed to be in it! Allan and I kept trying to call them all day to check their status, but their phones didn't have service until late afternoon when they were on their way back (again, thanks to the kindness and sacrifice of some great people. I don't know all the details of what happened after I got in Jeff's truck, including any details about these other photos taken by KC, so hopefully one of them will blog about it soon).

They raced to the Tanner Building as quickly as they could, arriving after I had already started warming up the crowd. They came in and did the show without warming up at all, and it was one of the best, most energetic shows I've ever been a part of (except for Faster Faster, where we cheated and tried to redo the cow milking competition scene we did the night before in Wyoming because it killed, but in Provo it fell kind of flat. That's what we get for trying to script improv--we won't be cheating like that in our shows any more).

So much thanks again to everyone who helped us out in our excellent adventure to Wyoming and back. And thanks to anyone who actually read this entire, terminally-long post. You're just as benevolent as they are.