I gave some guy a ride, he was wasted drunk and started to tell me all kinds of crazy stuff, I really don't want to get in to. I dropped him off at the next gas station.
A friend of mine many years ago saw a guy hitch hiking, and he thought he knew the guy. When he picked him up, he realized it was someone else. The guy says "you picked up the wrong dude" and pulls out a gun and tells my friend to put his hand on the seat, which he did. The guy then shot his hand. He tells him to drive to his house, which he did. He forced him inside, tied him up, and robbed the house, and stole the car. The guy then goes to a party and proceeds to tell everyone what he just did. No one wants to do anything because he is a total methhead lunatic. But words spreads around. Someone I know knows both parties involved in a round about way, hears both stories, and calls the police. Guy is doin time.
In 2010, I was working up in Modesto for a couple weeks. I had brought my backpacking kit for when we finished the project. I was dropped off in Visalia in the work truck, and I rode the shuttle into lodgepole where I got a permit. The plan was I was to take 5 days to hike to Mineral King where my nephew was going to join me for another few days then give me a ride home.
As I am heading out to Mineral King on my last day I meet a guy on the trail. He asks me for a cigarette, and I oblige. We hike out to the trailhead together and we talked the whole way. More like he talked and I listened. I got a really strange vibe from the guy, and basically I could tell he was full of ****. In a manipulative way, not a story telling way. They had been out two weeks supposedly.
Anyway I am relieved to get to the trailhead to call my nephew, who tells me he cannot make it. I have a choice...hike back to lodgepole, or hitch a ride. I decide to hitch and do a hike into tablelands. So I hit this guy up for a ride, and says no problem. Thing is, we have to wait for his friend who he had left behind at the campsite. It is now mid morning, maybe 9:30 or 10:00 AM. We had met on the trail at like 7am, and they had camped at Timber Gap, I had camped by monarch creek.
So we hang out, I continue to keep getting this wierd vibe as he keeps telling strange stories. Not weird in a fun way, but weird in a crazy way. I hear him make these crazy phone calls where he is screaming into the phone. We are waiting and waiting for his friend, and I start thinking that there is no friend and this guy is off his rocker. I make a plan that I am just going to dissappear if it doesn't pan out and hike back to lodgepole. At one point I ran up to the top of the switchbacks to see if I could find this mysterious friend.
Suddenly at 3PM his friend appears. First it is just a dot at the top of the switchbacks. The guy is barely moving. He is literally stopping every few steps. As he gets closer to view, I can see this guy can barely keep his balance. He is bouncing and swayying down the trail. It took him an hour or and hour and a half to descend the switchbacks. When he finally comes over to us this guy is HUGE! His pack is even bigger, and he is sunburned beyond belief. He is completely tore up and can barely walk.
Seeing that his friend was real I felt despite the uncomfortable weirdness I would indeed get this ride from them.
We get in the car, and there is 1/8 tank of gas. They have no money. I tell them I will pay for gas and dinner if we can just get the hell out of here. Then comes more crazy stories. For some reason I smoke them out with marijuana, which sent the guy a little sideways. Then they pull out the bags of pills, which I decline. Then I realize this guy doesn't know how to drive on a mountain road, I gave him a puff, and then he was popping pills. That ride was extremely scary, and the two guys got weirder as they popped more pills. The guy the whole time just kept kissing my ass in this obviously fake manipulative way, that is the only way I can describe it. He kept telling me how great I am, and how I am this impressive wilderness traveler, and he was just in awe
We finally get gas, and it is late. They convince me we should camp at Kaweah resevoir. Things continue to get wierder. We went to go take a shower, and they showered together
Anyway it finally comes out. They don't have time to take me to lodgepole, and we need to go to Visalia first. I try to be nice at first, but I am not getting anywhere and I finally have to get crazy and threaten them with violence if they didn't give me my ride. Well that worked and I finally got my ride.
To sum it up, I hitched a ride with a couple drug addicts from arizona who try to manipulate me into joining thier merry band because I had money. It took 2 days to get there....walking would have been faster. The end.