Time On and Off the Colorado Trail

Standing on the side of the road, I was very in tune with how the strangers whizzing past made me feel.  Coming off a short night spent crammed in my two-person tent with two thru hikers, surrounded by two thunderstorms, our sleepiness magnified our emotions.  Scott and Ryan needed a new shelter and I needed food.  Our survival, in a relatively relaxed sense, we wouldn't die whatever happened, was dependent on the strangers that had things to do, places to be, and persons to keep safe from the sketchy, homeless, irresponsible, dirty, young adults on the side of the road.  Scott and Ryan stood off to the side while I used my innocent womanly physique, covered in a baggy t-shirt and a baseball cap, sticking out my hip and thumb.  The pain caused by the frowns, fingers, and blank looks surprised me.  How could these people hate us so much at one glance?  What had I wrongly thought about people I had driven past?  But the returned smiles and waves, oh how they all but made up for them not picking us up!  The old man who finally gave us his truck bed, willing to take us as far as we needed, is the person I want to become.