the other day, i was scrolling X Formerly Twitter as usual between sets during my workout (between credits of pump it up) when one tweet suddenly jumped out to me because it called out the area i live in. although it wasn't from anybody i follow and had very little engagement, some quirk of deterministic algorithmic destiny showed it to me anywayi suppose in context it shouldn't be that surprising, i'm such a hardcore lurker that the algorithm sometimes struggles to surface "relevant" things to populate my feed. i follow only ~50 accounts and never engage in any way, i don't even "like" posts, so i guess it has almost no data to work with. this also makes the algorithm very sensitive, i can almost sense it grasping for data, if i click certain posts i often find when i return to the feed i've been teleported to obscure corners of the site like "japanese shitco investing" twitter. currently it seems to mistakenly believe i'm really into vtubers and pokemon and i have no idea how it got that impression, at least it's had the beneficial effect of discouraging me from scrolling so much.⊕you're probably not wondering what a "japanese shitco" is but i'll explain it briefly anyway. the archetypal japanese shitco was founded in 1882, is currently run by a sixth-generation dharma heir of the founder through adult adoption, they have 70% market share in the manufacture of some niche appliance which they make the best available version of, their brand name is beloved throughout the country and synonymous with "quality" and whatever that appliance is, they have zero debt and 2/3 of their market cap in cash holdings and marketable securities, and yet because the japanese hate investing in equities the stock price hasn't budged since the collapse of the asset price bubble (except when the company announces they are increasing their quarterly dividend by 1 yen, in which case it immediately pops up 7% in a day), a tweet asking if anybody in the area could drive the poster to the coast. i was immediately intrigued, i clicked through to their account to have a look at what other stuff they'd been posting. the good thing about twitter hitchhikers is that you don't have only a split second to decide whether to pick them up or not solely based off appearances, instead you can cyberstalk their timeline to get a good idea of their vibe, plus if they're followed by other accounts you trust that basically counts as a vouch. i didn't have to scroll far before being convinced that we'd get along, i think i saw an amtrak picture and some photos from a free art museum, the exact kind of things i do on my trips.

the thing is, although i'd liked to think of myself as somebody who spontaneously picks up twitter hitchhikers, i was also acutely aware that on every other occasion i'd had the opportunity i'd wimped out and hadn't done so much as even send an initial message, and this time it would probably end the same way. as always, there were no excuses, the only thing holding me back was myself. i've been talking and thinking about trying to move forward and change, and here was i falling right back to my old habits, defaulting to the status quo, regressing to the mean. perhaps people can't change after all...

No, i decided, i want to be someone who spontaneously picks up twitter hitchhikers and i will be someone who spontaneously picks up twitter hitchhikers, it's the New Year and i'm going to do it, i'm going to break my streak and follow through for once. "You Can Just Do Things". "Be More Agentic". so, after my workout, i swallowed the dregs of my strongest courage elixir (a "limited edition" costco single-barrel aged bourbon clocking in at 120 proof) and psyched myself up by reading some old blog posts people have written about how one of the best uses of twitter is using it to meet people offline. then, i opened up twitter, composed my very first DM and a cold one at that, possibly one of the coldest ones ever sent since it was to an account i didn't follow and from my account with no posts or followers, hit send... and IMMEDIATELY got this message "suspicious activity has been detected, please verify by completing a captcha". the message hadn't been sent yet, i had been granted one final out, i could still turn back... but i remained steadfast, it was not one last chance to escape, it was one final TRIAL, and i wasn't about to fail it. i completed the captcha and sent my first DM for real...

two days later, i woke up a little earlier than usual, cleaned out the car a little, cracked a can of costco canned coffee, and headed for the coast. somehow things had worked out despite my extraordinarily weak DM/texting game, atrophied by years of primarily writing indulgent rambles on my website. it didn't help that i was also trying to seem as normal and inoffensive as possible, though in retrospect i think it would've been better to have gone in the exact opposite direction. it turned out that twitter guy had already made it to the coast in the time it took me to find and reply to the tweet, so instead the plan was for me to meet him there and then we'd drive together down the coast. in the clear light of day i had some minor misgivings, but it was too late now, i had given my word and now solemnly carried out my duty. the drive went by faster than expected, for a fleeting moment i almost wanted it to be longer so i'd have more time to mentally prepare, but as i approached i took stock and realized i wasn't even feeling that nervous. after all, if anything, i was in the position of power in the situation, i was the one who had reached out first, i was the one with the car, if anyone was going to be the kidnapper or murderer in this scenario it would be me. plus, the weather at the coast was surprisingly sunny, if things didn't go well i could easily pivot into a nice solo coast trip. i finished off my coffee before arriving for some of its social lubrication effects, primarily the ability it gives me to ramble at length rapidly, plugging any conversation gaps no matter how wide or steep.

i parked outside the meeting location, a cafe, and announced my arrival via text. then the standoff began: who would come to who? i sat in the car and watched the cafe entry intently for a few minutes, which didn't discharge anybody that looked like a twitter user, hitchhiker, or both. would i have to go in myself, try to spot him among the cafe patrons, perhaps risk embarrassing myself by calling out "hey anybody here from x formerly twitter?" after a few more minutes, i capitulated and exited the car, at the exact moment someone came down the sidewalk waving at me from the opposite direction of the cafe.

he was young, around my age, well put-together, dressed in stylish dark thrifted apparel, the kind of hitchhiker that would probably pass the vibe check without any timeline stalking. the first few minutes were awkward as always but soon we settled into a natural groove. it was clear he was a man of exquisite taste and refinement, a fellow member of the Invisible College who understood many of my obscure references (literary and memetic) without requiring further explanation. i started off taking him to some of my favorite nearby coastal haunts, for which he expressed an appropriate amount of awe and admiration. after two hours, despite having brought no change of clothes or overnight supplies, i proposed we extend the trip to multiple days by splitting a cheap motel room, and after four hours it was like we'd been friends for years. before long we were headed south out of safe territory i'd been to dozens of times before and into exciting unexplored coastal regions.

⊕we talked continuously during the drive, as if to catch each other up on everything that had happened in the years before we'd met. he updated me on canadian politics and history (did you know canada was not fully independent until 1982?), we discussed the teachings of Dr. Ray Peat, analyzed the oeuvre of mrbeast, etc. in the meantime, he was willing to indulge endless caffeine-fueled tangents about my pet topics (some of these can be found elsewhere on my site) and pulling on a whim into every random roadside state park that caught my attention. we had a couple little adventures along our coastal cruise: a drone smacked into the windshield like an overgrown robotic bug, we drove across a creek that flooded the road at one low-lying point, and had an afternoon snack sampling spicy cheeses at a creamery. toward the end of the day, we pulled into another random state park that turned out to be the perfect place to watch the sunset, a windswept cliffside meadow above a rocky hidden inlet where two seals squirmed and flopped their way back to the water. we scambled along the hillside and then sat down and watched the pacific sunset for an hour that felt like twenty minutes, the kind of thing (i thought to myself wryly) that under different circumstances might be considered romantic.

after dark, we decided to settle down for the night in a nearby coastal resort town and almost ran out of gas reaching it. dinner was fish and chips and beer in a yurty restaurant where we researched options for the night, which were all so similar it was hard to choose. i wasn't complaining, though, because the average price was $60 a night since it was the off-season, i couldn't imagine why because the weather was so wonderful. we stopped at a supermarket and picked up some drinks (i had become obsessed on the drive with the possibility that there might be such thing as blueberry wine, and indeed we found some), then headed to a beachside motel where upon arriving in the lobby we overheard the receptionist explaining over the phone that their hot tub wasn't currently functioning. that was a dealbreaker, so we headed up to a different non-beachside hotel with not only a working hot tub but a sauna as well.

the motel room wasn't bad, i haven't really stayed in many motels before and it was on par with most proper hotels i've stayed at, and a lot better than the worst hotels i've been to. the room had been recently renovated, though they mysteriously passed over replacing the yellowed-with-age white plastic microwave and minifridge, they made up for it by including a gigantic flatscreen tv mounted to the wall ("biggest i've ever seen in any hotel/motel room", twitter guy commented).

we opened up the blueberry wine and poured it into some individually-wrapped insulated coffee cups, and i regaled the room with tales about the legendary M D Vaden, ISA-certified arborist and authority on the redwoods, whose sprawling website i had spent some time exploring the previous night while doing research (our plan was to visit the redwoods the next day). his site was really more like four different sites in one, seemingly hailing from different web-design eras and all containing slightly different information about redwoods and the man himself, each connected to the others by a single nondescript link you had to carefully search for like the false book that opens a secret passage. i outlined some of the strong redwood-related Opinions he held forth about on his website, like the proper way to measure tree girth (do NOT count the burls!) or that so-called "soil compaction" around the base of trees from too many people walking around them isn't actually a big concern and that it's a waste of $1.2 million Hard-Earned Taxpayer Dollars to build around the base of a tree an elevated boardwalk that's just going to get crushed by a wayward branch during the next big storm. in one corner of the site, Vaden ranks the tallest trees, though his ranks are a little different from the mainstream ones, the top of his list is acknowledged as a placeholder, representing an undisclosed superlative tree that may or may not exist, known only to his exclusive clique of redwood enthusiasts, photo verification available privately to recognized experts for evaluation only under the condition that they delete it after no more than 24 hours. M D Vaden was also a dedicated hustler, perhaps singlehandedly responsible for a large portion of the redwood region economy, along with his main arborist gig he punctuated his site with ads for his wedding photography, every redwood photo was accompanied by a reminder that he sells prints, and on a page about planning a trip to the redwoods he offered personalized travel advice over the phone at a rate of $100/hr.

by the time i was finished recounting the legend of M D Vaden, the bottle of blueberry wine was drained, so we headed off to the hot tub and sauna. they were inside an unassuming outbuilding, but on the inside the walls had a wonderful exposed wood texture that made you wonder how they managed to contain all that heat and moisture for so long without rotting. the sauna was unfortunately a bust, it wasn't preheated and even after we tried to turn it on it didn't seem to work. the hot tub, however, worked perfectly fine, despite the random hose constantly emptying freezing cold water into it. we alternated between the hot tub and cooling off in the normal pool while sharing tales of our travels, then at pool closing time headed back to the room and watched a moonshine distilling competition on the giant tv before going to bed.

the next morning we woke up nice and early, after i finished off drying my underwear off with a hair dryer (i hadn't had a swimsuit for the hot tub the night before) we went off for a little beach stroll, then pulled off into another random state park and going blind down a trail that ended taking us several miles (and a thousand feet) down a cape to a secluded beach. after that we were pretty worn out so before lunch we only stopped briefly at a viewpoint to see part of a landscape i later recognized in an apple tv screensaver, and also at a place where you could get a glimpse of a tall bridge. in the next town we stopped at mcdonald's because i thought they might still have mcrib, though it ended up being out of stock so i got a meal deal they made that finally caters toward people like me who want a couple mcnuggets with their burger and fries. twitter guy ordered for double cheeseburgers and nothing else, explaining that there was a deal and he wanted to try something besides his usual order of seven hamburgers (eight is too many, six is usually enough but he throws in an extra just to be safe). before leaving town, we made sure to stop at the public library to gawk at the 400 year old samurai sword.

after we cleared the border inspection and entered redwood territory, twitter guy went into a cheeseburger coma and dozed off, which was a good thing because then he didn't have to see me have to turn around three times due to taking wrong turns. in my defense i really thought the redwoods would be better signposted, then again we were going to a somewhat more obscure grove that was on a dirt road in a state park to avoid paying national park admission fees. later, i found out redwood national park has no admission fee while the state park has an $8 one we were never informed about and thus never paid.

we parked at the trailhead for the "Grove of Titans", which seemed pretty promising. i spent most of the trailhead with my head craned either upwards in awe trying to glimpse the tops of the trees, or downwards trying to spot a banana slug. the trail within the whole grove of titans was on a raised metal walkway, most likely paid for with taxpayer dollars and resistant to damage from huge falling redwood branches. there was some relatively new signage around the area, some of them quite cheesy like they were trying to lead a guided forest meditation session. the informational signs seemed occasionally like they were actively avoiding discussing the trees themselves, instead talking about native animals like the banana slug or the native people and their unpronounceable language (i recall their word for human was "vxsh"). i wished that they had at least bothered to put a little sign identifying the most notable trees, because i know that most of them have been named. on our hike back, we thought for a second we might have spotted a mythical creature entering the grove, not bigfoot but M D Vaden, though upon consulting reference materials on our return it was immediately evident that the real M D Vaden was a much taller and sturdy man, built like his beloved redwoods. we did see some sign of him, however: there were these little "DO NOT LEAVE TRAIL" signs planted all over with a before/after picture, and in the corner i noticed a tiny acknowledgement "PHOTO CREDIT: M D VADEN".

in crescent city, we stayed the night at vaden's favorite lodging in the area (advertised many times on his website), a retro motel supposedly constructed from a single redwood log. in the lobby hung a few of his prints, and there was a signed copy of his photobook resting on a table. it was priced a bit higher than the previous night's stay, the california tax, but it was certainly worth the price, i've stayed at places half as good at twice the price. they stayed faithful to the theme with faux retro appliances in the room, even a keurig in a vintage color (and one of the nicest i've ever seen in a hotel room). the bathroom was the only weak point, renovated with that hideous gray vinyl wood flor paneling and a huge oval oriental-patterned vessel sink that was so incongruous my first encounter with it was practically a jumpscare. the only downside was that approximately every 10 seconds during the evening some kind of harbor horn went off in the distance like an auditory lighthouse, not really noticeable normally but just loud enough to be annoying when it's quiet in the room and you're trying to go to sleep. the air time between horn blasts was filled with the shrill horking of pacific harbor seals which carried over an impressive distance from the harbor and got to be so aggravating that i now know for sure i could never make it as a dockworker. luckily, both horn and seal settled down before my bedtime around midnight.

in the morning, we received some devastating news: david lynch had died. the atmosphere grew somber, reflective, we went out to the designated central smoking field and each smoked a memorial cigarette, the motel feeling like sufficiently lynchian location for an apt tribute. we had some good parting conversations over breakfast at denny's, then i drove him to the beach at the edge of town where he planned to hitch his way off to further adventures down in the bay area, using a sign made from some cardboard i'd salvaged from the back of my car. we took a few commemorative selfies of dubious quality, the only photos of us together that exist. "it was real," i told him. "that's exactly what i was about to say," he replied.