８ rides 28 hours (Part II)

Ride 5 – I was let out at the next rest stop at about 5:00 AM where I took some time to freshen up and have another coffee. I had made great progress during the night, but I still had a long distance to travel and a worried boss to appease. The next man to give me a ride was another trucker. I was hoping he too would take me as far as the other trucker had, but that wasn’t the case. Actually, like my 2nd ride he only took me to the next stop. It turns out that the next rest area was his favorite place to eat breakfast and he wanted to treat me to the grilled fish breakfast set. After breakfast he told me that this was as far as he could take me and wished me luck. This is the part of the story when he was supposed to get in the car and drive away, but it didn’t happen that way. Instead he sat on one of the benches outside and watched me approach others. He watched me for about and hour and then motioned for me to come to where he was sitting. He handed me a can of coffee and then proceeded to give me a lengthy lesson on which trucks I should approach. I thanked him for his advice and went back to work. He watched me \for another 20 minutes and went on his way. (travel time – 15 minutes)

Ride 6 – After another hour of asking and asking and asking, for the first time, someone approached me. He is a civil engineer and every weekend he drives from Osaka to Nagoya for work. He explained that driving the same route alone every weekend isn’t any fun and that he always wished he had someone to ride along with . He kept saying that I had helped him more than he had helped me and to show his gratitude he asked if he could treat me to lunch - I had ramen. He also took my picture, gave me a bag of snacks for the road, and gave me his email address. He said he especially liked my sign because of the picture of Winnie the Pooh - in the back seat of his car he had several Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals. (travel time – 4 hours)

Ride 7 – The next ride was from two men who worked for the international division of a company that makes car parts. Since they were heading towards Tokyo, but not the entire way, they agreed to take me as far as they could. One of the guys actually spent a year in Tennessee working for the Japanese company DENSO. We made small talk for a bit and I told them I hadn’t slept since I started traveling. They gave me permission to sleep in the back seat so I did. It was great! (travel time – 5 hours)

Ride 8 – I couldn’t have asked for a ride more memorable than this one. Four guys to their way to Tokyo for the weekend flagged me over to their car and told me to get in. The three passengers were drinking beer from the cooler in back seat and pursuing through an array of adult magazines. As I got in the car one guy tossed me a beer and said, “You made it to Tokyo!” At a traffic signal in Roppongi I jumped out of the car and thanked them for their help. Next, I found a subway train and took it the rest of the way to Koko’s apartment. Finally, I called my boss, took a shower, and went to sleep. (travel time – 1 hour)

On my way home to Nagashima I took a night bus.. .