Backtracking

As I said in previous stories, we were in Oakland. We then went over to S.F. to see a friend of mine who had just moved there. San Fran is a very horrible city to be in, I think. So we planned on not staying long. Not staying long turned into days and finally a week or so. We mostly sat in the park and drank, listened to music, and thought of how much we hate S.F. So one day me and Nicole are sitting on Haight St. and along comes this kid Matt who I use to hang out with back home. He sits down and we start talking about shit and he said that he is headed up to Portland and he has a truck. Me and Nicole are sitting around S.F. doing nothing so we decide to take the trip with him.

Well we get back to Sacto and stay at my friend's house for a couple days for his birthday. Then were off to Portland. So a few days later we arrive in Portland. We get dropped off downtown and Matt heads to Vancouver to do something, I can't remember what. A couple days go by and we haven't heard back from Matt so we were getting a little worried. Later that night some kid comes to our camp and has Matt's dog with him. It turns out Matt had old warrants and got picked up. So this is as far as we're going with Matt, we figured.

Well the next day came and we decided to get outta Portland, the only problem was where to go? So we flipped a coin and decided back down south. We knew what time the train left Brooklyn yard since we made this hop so many times before, so we went to Steele bridge and drank a beer or two to kill time. All of a sudden the bull pops his head outta nowhere so we decide to get outta there before we get charged or anything like that. While walking back toward town we meet up with these two guys both in their late 30s, who were upset because they got kicked out of Steele bridge for trying to hop a train outta there. This must have happened right before we were down there and that might explain why the bull drove back around. So we told them, to go south outta Portland they were leaving from the wrong spot and that we would show them where to go since we were heading south ourselves. They said for us showing them where to go they would supply the beer for the wait. I can't really say no to that.

So once back downtown we caught the #19 bus toward the yard. When you get off the you have about a 4 or 5 block walk to the golf course. We took our spots in the woods between the tracks and the golf course. This was about 5 pm. Our train doesn't leave for about 3 hours, I said. That's fine, we'll just sit and drink and enjoy the moment, one of the guys said. I think his name was Dan. I really can't remember the other guy's name. Dan said this would be his first hop, but the other guy has been riding for a long time. He busted out some pictures of the Highline. He was really proud of one picture of him on a BNSF unit. Dan was so excited about this ride, he could barely sit still.

When 8 pm approached we packed up our shit and got ready to go so when the train came we'd be ready. It was about 8:30 or maybe a little after when the train pulled up and stopped in front of us. Dan and his friend ran up and got on different pigs. Nicole ran back and said, "don't get on yet, the bull has to check the train first". They didn't want to listen I guess since they didn't get off. Me and Nicole went back into the woods and waited. The headlights of the bulls car drove up the train, and then a few minutes later the lights came back by. We took our spot on a pig and got ready for the ride. A few minutes later the train aired up and pulled off.

So now I'm headed back to Eugene, the place I just left about 2 weeks ago. We pulled into Eugene a little after midnight. Me and Nicole got off and went to the front of the train to talk to the crew. We asked them where the train was headed. "LA", one of them said. They asked, "Did you just get off our train?" I said "yeah". They said if we were gonna ride to LA we better have good gear 'cause it's storming in K Falls. I waited for the new crew to get there and asked if we could ride the last unit. They said "no" because they didn't want to be blamed if we got caught. They did say we could ride the train though. Nicole said she had never been on a unit before, so one of the crew said "come here, I'll show ya what it looks like". He took her up in the unit and a few minutes later she came out with a big smile on her face. She then said that I have to ride a unit with her soon. Well we decided to wait and catch a train some other day when it wasn't bad weather. We went right outside the yard and found a bridge and went to sleep for the night. What was funny was when I woke up I found myself using a box from a blow up doll as my pillow.