I grew up in Stinson Beach and other towns in Marin. It seemed like I used to spend half of my time hitchhiking, I have many, many good stories to share later. Great topic. I will start with one, it started when I was hitchhiking from Mill Valley to Larkspur on Camino Alto at around 11;00 pm. Some hippies gave me a ride in a Volkswagen bug. I was forced to sit in the back seat, very cramped with windows that don't open and no doors, NO ESCAPE ! The two longhaired dudes were schwagging on a jug of Red Mountain fortified wine. The driver was drunk and the passenger kept on saying, go faster. The driver replyied saying, " it's a Volkswagon man and we are going up hill, wait till we get to the top and then I will drive faster". At that point I started pleading for them to let me out of the bug, but they refused. I think they were hellbent on scaring the s**t out of me. As soon as we got to the top, the driver floored it and I was very scared. He got to the first turn down the hill and spun out and did a 180, I was amazed we didn't roll the car. They stopped and I kept on demanding to be let out, they finally complied. Then they took off back the way they came from, probably didn't even know where they were going.
I lived in the Country Club in East San Rafael and graduated from SRHS in 1967. We always hitchhiked home after school on San Pedro Rd. We always got a quick ride and seemed to know everyone heading by. Couldn't do that today............
When we were in our young teens in the early 70's ( pre drivers license ) one of our main modes around the county was via thumb. I remember that hitching over Wolfe Grade was a regular occurence. Another popular spot was outside Sam's ( I think ) across from San Rafael High to get out San Pedro Road. We never had any problem getting picked up. Never had to wait more than a few minutes at most. Those days are long gone I guess. Any other popular routes you folks remember ?
