It was decades ago that I hitchhiked from Anchorage, Alaska to Moses Lake, Washington. I remember a specific place in Alaska though where I was hanging around in more or less the middle of nowhere by the side of the "highway" and there was a telephone pole or something near by. All manner of names were carved, many people from other countries, with the date they were there....

I confess I felt a certain sense of relief that I was not the only one that had ever stood in that desolate place hoping for a ride to come along.