Victoria, British Columbia....Canada?

It’s a capital, not a state capital, but a provincial capital. So it doesn’t count against our 50 capitals in 50 days, but why not inject some international capital flavor into the project?

So why are we here? It’s time to graduate from university. This afternoon is our graduation ceremony at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. We know, it’s pretty crazy to take a day off to do this in the middle of our project, but we wanted to make mom proud. Hopefully this won't come back to bite us near the end of the project.

Linda and Erica saved the day again. The overwhelmingly generous duo from Alaska/Horizon Airlines scored us some free passes this morning from Seattle to Victoria.

After landing in Victoria we hitched a ride with the local news van from A-Channel Victoria. Howard and Kirk interviewed us in the back of the van while we drove to the ceremony. Photos and videos from this are coming sometime tomorrow.

I’m sure lots of good photos and stories are on their way from today and tonight. But for now Steve McKay needs a job. He’s creative, lanky and a pumpkin carving champion. Can you help him out?

So we’re returning to Seattle tomorrow and getting back on track. We are looking to go to Salem, Oregon through Olympia, WA. It’s the weekend, anyone heading that way?

Time to go find a gown and mortarboard…

Juneau, AK

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Globetrotting isn't just a hobby, it's a way of life. Whether you're adventure seekers like Lewis and Clark or Scotty and Fiddy, or just business travelers, it's important to have travel information at your fingertips. Lodging, air travel, train schedules, booking agents, passports and insurance are all things to consider when planning a trip. The world is a marvelous place, filled with exotic food, interesting people and beautiful landscapes. Learn the best travel tips and travel well!
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First off congratulations to Josh and Rachel from Gulfport, MS. They had a baby girl a couple days ago. Way to go guys.

Now, back to Alaska. Sorry to all the other capitals we've been to, but Juneau is the best yet.

We awoke today to a perfect sunny day, apparently a rare sight around here in November. After doing some interviews in the hotel we got out to have look around Alaska's capital. The city is positioned on the ocean with a towering mountain range behind. Across the water is another mountain range, making the city of Juneau accessible from air or water only. It’s an absolutely amazing setting for a city. The people of Juneau are fortunate to have their secluded city in such an amazing part of the world. And all the people we met were so friendly too. I think we had about half the town looking for ways for us to get back to the lower 48 by the end of the day.

At the capitol building this morning we met Dixie and Leon. Originally from Texas, Dixie beat us to the punch on all 50 state capitals. Juneau is number 50. She chuckled while saying "the only difference is, I did it in 50 years, not 50 days". They were nice, but we couldn't convince them to do some jumpshots. Even Brian came to interview us for the local paper, the Juneau Empire.


In the afternoon we went to check out the Mendenhall Glacier, about 15 miles out of town. Pretty amazing place, a huge ice field and glacier winding through massive peaks, ending at a lake, flanked by a roaring waterfall on one side.

If you don't get the hint there's lots of good photos from today here.

After a couple hours in the Mendenhall area we hitched back to town.



The Jeep in the background is Hanni pulling over. She's a nice local girl, back for couple months from Japan where she teaches english. She dropped us off at KTOO, a local radio station that was working hard to find us a ride out of town.

The prospects of leaving Juneau today were looking slim. That's where Erica and Linda came to save the day. They are both Alaska Airlines employees who offered the same deal this afternoon: two free standby tickets to Seattle. I think we ended up using Linda's, but they both get credit for such a generous gift.

We accepted the offer, quickly packed our gear and headed to the airport. After a run in with the local wildlife we were off to Seattle.


Wait, one last Alaska photo...

WE GOT A RIDE

That's right -- we're leaving Alaska. Erica and Linda from Alaska Airlines saw our situation and jumped into action. They set us up with two free standby tickets from Juneau to Seattle.

We arrive at SEA-TAC at 11:17 PM tonight, presuming a wave of people don't buy tickets and bump us off the flight. Anyone in Seattle looking for a couple house guests tonight?

Tomorrow we need to be in Victoria, British Columbia by 1:00PM for our graduation ceremony at Royal Roads University.

Anyone got any ideas or offers to get us there?

The ole' cell phone will be working again this evening 310.494.8058


Oh ya, Alaska was good.


Really good. More on that later.

Alaska is awesome

We still don't have a ride out of Alaska worked out. The scenery here is making it less and less appealing to ever get one.


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Send us your screen shots

Have you seen the dot on our map in a cool looking location? A few people have sent in some screenshots and we are looking for more. To read about how to make this happen go here.

1. Position the map so it is zoomed and centered for maximized awesomness.

2. Capture the screenshot.
On a Mac press: shift - command - 3
On a PC press: Alt + PrtSc or Fn + PrtSc

3. Paste into your favorite picture editor such as MS Paint, crop if necessary, and save the file. Email to hitch50@gmail.com.

Check out this screen shot from the Columbus, OH airport. Warning this video is scary.


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To see our screenshot collection go here.

ALASKA CONTACT DETAILS

Hey everyone,

Our cell phone doesn't work here in AK. The Bergmann Hotel in Juneau was kind enough to give us a free room, and that's where you can reach us. Dial 907-586-1690 ask for room 7, or dial 107 if you get to the hotel voice mail.

Otherwise leave a message on our cell phone and we'll check the voice mail.

Email is best though.

Also, we can fly with Trevor and Josh from today to Anchorage before 10AM. Should we go??

AK

Kevin’s wife Jill made us a yummy home cooked breakfast in Seattle this morning, and she even brown bagged some sandwiches for our big day of flying. We were gonna put a picture of her here, but she has her eyes closed and would get mad at us. I guess we'll have to go back to Seattle to get another picture.

Kevin drove us to Silverdale, a small community west of Seattle to meet our flight. The airport was difficult to find, and for good reason, it’s in some guy’s back yard. But we managed, and met up with Trevor and Josh to prepare the plane. The four of us climbed aboard the Cessna 207 and took off for the seven-hour flight.

Trevor and Josh are starting a tour and charter business in Alaska called Arctic Aces. They are working on the web site now and we’ll make sure to link them when it's up and running. Until then, remember the name Arctic Aces.

We’ve had some pretty awesome rides on this trip, but today’s was miles above the others. Clear weather, low altitude, big mountains and good people made for an amazing time. The coastal mountains of British Columbia and the Alaskan panhandle rise straight out of the Pacific Ocean, towering above remote fjords and stretching inland over the horizon. The coastline is almost completely deserted, leaving the area absolutely pristine. We figured tourists pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for similar sight seeing trips. Not a bad score we got ourselves here.


After a quick stop to refuel we continued on to Alaska’s capital, Juneau. Trevor and Josh went off to work for the night on their new business while we scored a free room at the Bergmann Hotel.

Fiddy thinks it's fun to travel in Alaska during November without a jacket, so he was cold for the flight, and even colder in town. Good times. We were sent the song in this video but a young up-and-comer Bike. We think it's pretty good. If anybody else wants to rap about us...don't be shy.


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But wait, there’s more to our situation. On Friday at 1:00 PM is our University graduation ceremony at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. Now, we want to be there, the school wants us to be there, and our parents want us to be there.

Anyone got any ideas how can we get there?

Ketch us if you kan!

We are now in Ketchikan, Alaska refueling our little Cessna before we head to Juneau for the night. The GPS doesn't have a signal up here, so you'll have to trust us that we are actually here. Or better yet, meet us for a nice steak dinner in Juneau later tonight.

North to Alaska!

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If you're hitching a ride to Alaska, you're going to need a North American cell phone. Making plans and keeping in touch with family are some of the best reasons to have an international phone. When the Alaskan winter sets in, you'll want a phone in case of emergency. Don't want to buy one? That's OK. We have a satellite phone rental plan that you won't want to miss!

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The picture at the bottom of this post is us with Josh and Trevor from Arctic Aces, a small tour and cargo company out of Alaska. These two guys are kind enough to take us on a scenic plane ride. To Alaska. That's why we relocated so abruptly from the midwest. This was a ride offer we couldn't refuse.

But there's a catch, it's a one way trip to Juneau. We have no idea how we'll get back to the lower 48. Got any ideas?

Maybe we can try out our awesome moves to get out of Juneau:

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Or Fiddy might actually have to learn how to swim:

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(note: the GPS map might not work until we find a way back from Alaska!)

Thanks Josh and Trevor!

What are you doing in Seattle?

Everyone remember Scott and Sharon Christen? If you don’t they were ride number 22. The Pennsylvania couple picked us up in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago, then drove to Trenton, New Jersey and Dover, Delaware. Well, there’s more to the story than we previously revealed. Scott works for Southwest airlines and generously gave us two free one-way tickets anywhere they fly. Thanks Scott.

For the record, flying is within our boundaries of hitchhiking. We are not allowed to pay for any transportation, but are open to any means of transportation.

So here we are on the West Coast. The last time we slept was in Nashville, that was five states ago. Kevin Halls was supposed to pick us up at the airport, but got caught up with Halloween activities, so he send a limo service to get us. Not a bad welcome to the Northwest. Kevin even let us try out his Acura NSX.


So why did we choose to use our free flights to go to Seattle? Check back tomorrow...

Columbus, Ohio

On Tuesday morning we received an irresistible offer. But we had to make it to Columbus, Ohio. It was now 10AM and we were four hours away in Lexington, Kentucky. The offer expired at 6:45PM, so the clock was ticking.

We scoured our ride offers, called any leads, but it was all dead ends. Fiddy even got a hair cut, but this didn’t help anything. We knew time was running short, so we had to act quickly. Lloyd let us take the Geo a little north of the city to the interstate 75 junction. We parked it there, packed our bags and put out the thumbs. The time was now 11AM.


With pizza box signs we stood on the side of I-75 for almost two hours before our ride revealed itself. Charles, a camera shy Cincinnati resident finally stopped and helped us out. Charles says he likes to help out people, and will always do what he can. He dropped us off in Covington, just south of Cincinnati to wait for our next ride.

Greg called earlier in the day and said that he lives in Cincinnati, and could take us from there to Columbus. We were greeted by two friendly, smiling faces peering out of a Volvo in a parking lot in south Cincinnati. The time was now about 3PM, it looked like we would make it on time.

Greg and his girlfriend Tori are both Cincinnati residents, going to school and slangin' pastry.

Battling time and traffic we made a quick stop at the downtown Columbus state house to get some photos. The capital was actually pretty anti-climactic as the dome is removed for renovations, ma



The time was nearing 6PM when we left the capitol building, we needed to step on it, but Columbus traffic had other thoughts. Greg showed off his best taxi driving skills, weaving in and out of traffic, ducking into back streets and through short cuts. It paid off and we arrived at the airport with 20 minutes to spare. After a quick goodbye we walked inside, checked in and got on our flight.

Vote for "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Hitchhiking" on College Humor

It's easy, just go the the link below and click on the number to the right of the video. (you might have to sign up...) But we know you'll "like" it.

www.collegehumor.com/video:1717816

We're on an airplane now. Stay tuned to find out where we'll land...

Scotty and Fiddy

Trail of Crime Across America #7

In the state of West Virginia a person can be put in jail for up to six months for making fun of somebody who does not accept a challenge. Obviously Fiddy doesn't have a single ounce of respect for the laws of the Mountain State.

Charleston, West Virginia

We returned to Lloyd’s house in Lexington after we viewed the Frankfort capitol. The time was almost 1AM, but we were pumped to keep going. In Lloyd’s living room we scoured our ride offers list for anything that could get us closer to West Virginia. Next we tried Lloyd’s CB radio. In his Jeep, parked next to the highway Lloyd put on his best southern drawl “Hey y’all who’s got their ears on, anyone going east to West Virginia tonight, common back now y’all”. The CB idea, which seemed like a good one at first turned into a game of listening to the ridiculous conversations and accents from the CB conversations and putting in our two cents where we felt worthy. The idea didn’t get us a ride, but it was pure entertainment.

It looked like the night was over, but Lloyd came through with the mother of all offers. He pointed across the street to a dented, green Geo. “That car’s there is mine, I paid $50 bucks for it and don’t give a damn what happens to it. It’s got a full tank of gas, you guys are free to take it.” Wait, did we just get a car given to us? Well, no, but we had free reign of the Geo for the night. Having a full tank of gas, it fit within our rule of not being allowed to pay for any transportation. We sealed the deal on the hood, packed our bags and got in. Lets just pause for a moment and thank Lloyd, who is possibly the most generous guy in the whole USA. Thanks Lloyd.



It was a feeling of freedom behind the wheel. We were off to West Virginia, cruising through the night, controlling our destiny for the first time on the trip. After a stop at Waffle House, and some energy drinks to fend off sleepy thoughts we made the West Virginia line, and then the capital, Charleston.

Charleston was fun, but for the first time we didn’t have anyone to share the experience with. But we kept ourselves entertained. Fiddy even went through the whole state of West Virginia blindfolded. He's been there, but never seen it.


After having a look around our 27th capitol building we made the sleep deprived journey back to Lexington, Kentucky, arriving at about 10AM.

Frankfort Kentucky

Lloyd and Warren drove about an hour south to meet us at the football game. They arrived in good timing and saw the celebration festivities.

After the game we took Warren’s BMW up to Kentucky’s small capitol, Frankfort. Warren even gave us a good sample of Kentucky music from his family’s collection. Both Lloyd and Warren are from Hazzard, southern Kentucky. Ya, like that show, Dukes of Hazzard. They’re from Hazzard.



After the capitol in Frankfort we headed back to Lexinton to figure out our next move.

Monday Night Lights

Domenic dropped us off in Williamsburg just north of the Kentucky/Tennessee border. We said goodbye and walked to the highway on-ramp. After a few short minutes of hitchin’ a nice new Nissan pulled over. We jumped in and met Ray. We got talking and Ray loved the idea of Hitch 50, enough to invite us to come see the local football game. We agreed without knowing the magnitude of the game.

We arrived at the field to realize there were two games going on; two championship games. This was the South-East Kentucky Middle School Championships. What a sweet deal. We were kicking ourselves a bit because we missed the St. Louis Cardinals winning the world series while we were about three hours away in Branson, but we get two championship games here, so it turned out alright.

Ray has two sons, Raymond and Ryan, who both play football, but not in this league. But Ray is the PA announcer at the game, so we had VIP access. Ray’s wife Carol set us up with some burgers, introduced us to the locals and we were set. Ray even made a PA announcement about us and our Hitch 50 project. The friendly Kentucky crowd of about 500 greeted us with a huge round of applause. I don’t think we’d get that kind of welcome in St. Louis.



The first game ended with the Corbin Redhounds beating the Meece Briar Jumpers 14-12, but it was the second game that stole the show. These kids are only in grade 8, but they can sure play. The hometown North Laurel Jaguars have never been ranked first, and have never won the championship game, but they were poised today.

The game against the Clay County Raiders was intense and the crowd was buzzing. Watching the crowd was almost as fun as watching the game. Every person in the crowd showed such pride for their team, their relatives and their friends. The old man sitting beside me was the strong silent type, but his emotion broke through with quick flinches of his arms and a gleaming smile every time is grandson took the ball and ran over the opponents. The little girl at the front of the bleachers with the painted face proudly danced back and forth waving a home made cardboard sign saying “#43 is my brother”. This may not be the big leagues, but seeing the emotion and humanity of this small Kentucky town was a much greater experience than we could have imagined.

The final score was 12-0 for the hometown Jaguars. The entire town celebrated with the team on the field after the clock hit zero. Congratulations guys, you deserve it.

Dual Dominic

Around 5 AM Monday morning we were awoken by an excited voice, saying “Hey, I’m in Knoxville, I can be in Nashville to get you in a little over three hours.” Without knowing what I was agreeing to I said “okay”, hung up and returned to sleep.

Around 8 AM we were warned that Dominic was getting close. We got ready and went out to meet him. To our surprise we got two Dominic’s; a father and son combo.

Domenic and his son, Domenic took us away from Nashville into the eastern hills of Tennessee. The drive was amazing, more hills covered in trees alive with orange, red, brown and crimson colors.

Dominic is originally from Arizona, and has traveled to many states over the years. He is also a skilled critic of fast food restaurants. He usually goes for Jack-in-the-box, but we’ve already tried Jack, however we’ve never tried Krystal. Dominic insisted on taking us there, to get the full experience. After a greasy lunch, a heaping pile of garbage and a stiffening heart burn our experience was complete.

We made our way back to Dominic’s new house in Oak Ridge to meet his wife Shanda and their other son Mikkel. Dominic and Shandy just bought their first house, only three days ago. It even came equipped with a pool table. We had a game, but it turned into their sons throwing the balls back and forth, much more fun to watch than us playing.



Our Tennessee experience was topped off with a generous cultural gift from a local merchant. John gave us our first taste of Moonshine. When he heard we hadn't tried shine he simply reached under the counter and passed us a bottle. Fueling the stereotypes.



After an amazing Tennessee experience with Domenic, his family and his friends we headed to Kentucky.

Calling your name Ohio

Several posts coming shortly from a very big day yesterday. Very long too, actually it's still going.

But for now, we need to get to Columbus Ohio by 6PM. We'll be catching a flight then. Stay tuned for more details on where we're going...

We're now in the horse capital of the world, Lexington, Kentucky. It's 9:00 AM EST and need your help.

310.494.8058

Have a very spooky Halloween!

Scotty and Fiddy

Are you in a band?

We need music, and we’ll hook you up. Well as much as we can. We need music to put in our videos, but don’t want to have any copyright infringement issues involved with big bands.

So here’s the deal: If you are in a band and want us to use your music for our videos send it over or drop us an email. We’ll try to get you some publicity through links on our site and anything else we can think of.

Thanks,

Scotty and Fiddy

Nashville, Tennessee

Along the drive to Nashville Andrea called us up and offered a place to stay in Nashville. Perfect, it was looking like we would be hotel'n it tonight. So we met up with her and went out for dinner with Yates and Steve.

After dinner we headed for the capitol building. Here we realized we left our video camera in Memphis. Ouch. But don’t worry we still got some good jump shots. Gotta get that camera though. I hear a company called FedEx is located somewhere around Memphis, maybe they can help.



So there it is, half way done on day 20. We know we still have a long ways to go; the western states are a lot bigger, and we still have no idea how we’re getting to Alaska and Hawaii, but this is still a milestone. The first 25 states have been amazing. When we started from New York City almost three weeks ago we had no idea how this would pan out. There was a moment standing there in Times Square where I was thinking, oh man what have we gotten ourselves into. But, those thoughts were quickly washed away by all the support, generosity and hospitality we’ve received, right from the beginning. All the memories, experiences and friends from the first 25 states is only getting us excited for the next 25 and all the opportunities awaiting us and the people we meet.

After hanging out at our half way point we said bye to Steve and Yates and headed to Andrea’s place. She heard about us through her boyfriend Dan, and wanted to be part of the journey. Andrea is in her final semester her at Vanderbilt University and is planning on moving to Canada in December, long way from home for a D.C. girl.

We arrived at Andrea’s place and realized it is small, really small. It turns out she lives in the dorms at Vanderbilt University, in a single room. So space is limited. That’s okay, we managed to make everything fit in and had a good time hanging around the building with her and the other students.

Oh ya, we're looking for a ride out of Nashville on Monday. Can you help? I hear they have some good chicken in Kentucky...

Memphis

Arriving in Memphis we met up with Steve and his group of friends. They were having a Halloween party and invited us to join in on the fun. We didn’t have any costumes, but the white suits did the trick for the night. Steve and all his friends are such awesome people; they welcomed us into their homes, took care of us and showed us a good time.

After hanging out with everyone at the party, and having a look around downtown Steve put us up for the night at his downtown apartment. We even got breakfast out of the deal too from his roommate Todd.

It’s obvious when you stumble upon something good, like this group of people in Memphis. They are all positive, fun, friendly folk who are all about helping each other, and anyone else out.

Everywhere we travel around America there is so many people like these guys in Memphis. Normal, fun, down-to-earth people who welcome two strangers into their homes. In contrast there are so many people who are afraid of helping out strangers, welcoming people into their homes or even meeting new people. It’s hard to imagine how hard this project would be without all the good people like Steve and everyone in Memphis.

Steve works as an architect in Memphis, loves traveling and found our site while finding un-work related items to look at, while at work. He recently took a quick tour through the states going to 14 of the western states in 9 days, and also went to Europe. He is always keen to go anywhere, just needs an excuse to go.

We hung around his place in Memphis for the morning before moving on.



After a bit of R&R on the roof it was time for the drive to Nashville. We met up with Steve’s buddy Yates, jumped in his Durango and headed for the highway.

Little Rock, Arkansas

Bobby and Deepak drove up from Little Rock, picked us up and took us the final 30 miles from Conway into Little Rock. After dropping off Deepak and picking up Cody we went to the capitol building. Number 24.

Convicts dressed in all white often work around the capitol building grounds, so we were getting some cautious looks from people in the area. They realized we weren’t a threat after seeing our awesome jump shots.


We didn’t stay long in Little Rock, just enough to see the crowds from the Razorback game and the downtown area. We also learned it’s illegal to mispronounce Arkansas. So there may have been some pronunciation of “Are-Kansas” or “Are-cans-ass” going on. We’ve had some close calls with breaking the law lately, so I’ll leave it at that.

After the quick tour of Little Rock Bobby and Cody took us two hours into Tennessee. Bobby has a great story of why he’s from Arkansas. His parents fled the turmoil of the Middle East in the late 70’s to return home to California. Upon returning they decided to drive a VW van east to Florida and start a new life. Along the way their van broke down in Arkansas and they’ve been here ever since.

Like many of the other citues, we we're about to be lost in Memphis. But Cody saved the day when he fired up Delorme Street Atlas on his computer and guided us to safety…

Bye bye Branson

After spending the night in Branson we tried our luck hitchin’ on the highway again. Getting rides was slow going so we decided to break out our “A game” with some freestyle hitchin’. Here’s a video titled “The hitchhikers guide to the hitchhiking” outlining the different moves we use to get our rides.



The barrel roll attracted the attention of Joey who came back to see what was going on. He took us across the Arkansas state line and dropped us on the side of the highway 20 miles down the road. Here we enjoyed sights such as a full size RV towing a full size Airstream trailer. You know, sometimes the RV just ain't big enough.

After an hour of standing in our third location of the day, an Acura hatchback pulled over. As we walked up to the car there didn’t appear to be much room available to fit us and our bags. We were greeted by a friendly man speaking quickly in Spanish. Not fully understanding what was going on, we jumped in the back seat. Jose, Julio and Bryan didn’t speak any English, ya that’s right his name is Bryan, but were happy enough to cram all five of us in the four seater car.

With our limited Spanish we managed to explain what we are doing, why we are wearing white suits and the directions to Little Rock. The ride got even better when they told us how they love Bon Jovi and put in their CD. It turns out it was actually Guns and Roses, but we didn’t have the heart to tell them.

Our new Latin American friends are originally from Nicaragua but are working in the Rogers area of northwest Arkansas. It was difficult to communicate with them, but it was clear they love their new home in America, happy to be living the American dream. The American dream for today was enjoying their day off, driving through the Ozark Mountains, celebrating the St. Louis Cardinals’ winning the world series.

They took us south throught the Ozark Mountains for a couple hours to the town of Conway, then headed back home.