In the morning I quickly packed up and headed up trail to the highway at Santiam Pass. Along the way, I ran into Twig, a through hiker from Minnesota. We hiked together until the highway, chatting about our hitching luck. Apparently he has the same luck as me. Nobody wants to pick up the old smelly guys :).

When we got there, we repositioned about a mile up the road so folks would have a pull-over spot and stuck our thumbs out….for like 30 minutes. At least a couple hundred cars passed us before finally a dude stopped and picked us up. He had through-hiked in 2018. We had a good chat into town.

I asked him to drop me off in the sketchy area of town for the cheap motels. Found one, not cheap, but plenty sketchy, and made myself comfortable. Walked around bend a bit. This inner tube floating down the river thing looks fun!