Week 24 - Thumb Out

Back with our feet firmly on the mainland, we traveled as directed by the news. Towards areas especially affected by the recent flooding in California. These days, driving, we felt a little spoiled. It's not terrible to have to drive along Highway 1, passing by exceptional surf spots which we make time for in between our hours of driving. The coastline has brought us a ton of adventure, which we have been grateful for.

The iconic Morro Bay rock

This week includes a new addition to the Lost Bus crew – an unexpected fourth, but one that we've been happy to have. While making our way up the coast, we were just outside San Luis Obispo at Pismo Beach. Pulling onto the highway, we saw a young fella standing there with his thumb out – a ritual of ours – we lean into picking up hitchhikers. His name is Ludwig. He's been on the road for the same amount of time as us, traveling not just the country but the world. Starting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on the October 1st last year, he and his ragtag German posse hitched their way across South America before taking a flight to Miami a month and a half ago. His travels have definitely been interesting, ranging from buying a boat in Bolivia to hanging with "rednecks" in Tennessee, who were the craziest people he's met. But here we are, intersecting with him on the West Coast. Immediately, we realize he's great company. Unfortunately for him, we weren't planning on driving far enough that day to get him to his next location, but we invited him to come surf with us nonetheless. Gladly accepting, we slapped our spare wetsuit on him and hit the waves.

Fresh friends

Following this outing, we asked if he wanted to stick around for the night on our guest bed. Gladly accepting, he seemed to be in no rush to get to his next stop. As the next day rolled around, he learned our motivation for travel – service. We told him we weren’t planning on traveling far, but he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted. That was a week ago, and in this moment, I'm watching him munch on a granola bar while brewing some coffee. He has completely meshed with us, jumping on any opportunity to join us in our effort, while making every conversation more interesting with his German differences. They are a little more direct than I'm used to, so if he disagrees, he just outright tells you "NO" with little explanation. But really, he has brought a fresh perspective to our time (and lots of questions about America). I commend him for being so willing to join us, serving as we travel along.

Ludwig really likes to rock a good khaki color

Explaining ourselves to new people is always a trip. 'Yeah, we're three dudes that just travel in a school bus trying to do good,' but this week we've had to add in, 'and this is our German hitchhiker friend we picked up last week.'

Giving out food and goods to flooding victims

I asked him to write about his week with us for the blog. I chose not to edit it because I think there is a little humor in his English writing. Being his second language, I am still very impressed.

It was not long ago that I left my traveling buddy in L.A. and I told him that we meet again in a couple of weeks near Seattle. I made a joke when I left him, that I will be the one who had the better experience, it was just meant as a joke but I think I’m going to be right when we meet again.

At the next day after I left him it happened; I was standing next to the road like I did for the last 5 month nearly every day. A lot of cars passed me but then I saw the bus that I have seen before in Malibu Yesterday, back than I thought about how nice it would be to travel in a bus like this.  But then it stopped and I jumped in.

I was impressed by their story and I had to share mine, I really liked the boys from the beginning on and felt like we could work together. Secretly I hoped they would offer me the stick around for a couple of days but I didn’t want to ask because I just knew them for such a short time, but then they asked me if I want to stay in their bus and volunteer and help out the people in the area. I answered yes…

 That is the story how we got to know each other, since than we went surfing a couple of times which, I also wanted to try for such a long time and helped hundreds of families that got hit buy the flooding.

To conclude it, I just want to say I’m very grateful for this experience and also for the people I got to know here. I hope we stay in contact and see each other again one day (if you want in Germany).

This is definitely a better story my buddy could ever come up with!

Ludwig was a little cold after one of our surf outings

German Fashion

We loved our time with Ludwig

This week, we're back in the business of disaster relief near Watsonville, California. Mainly an agricultural area of California, its population is predominantly made up of field hands. A levee had breached on the Pajaro River during the heavy rains this month, flooding a neighboring town called Pajaro and displacing 3,000 people from their homes. Our first day in the area, we helped with food and goods distribution at one of the shelters set up on the county fairgrounds. In our continued quest to help in the area, we were connected with some spirited women at a non-profit called “All In” (Check them out here - https://allinmonterey.org/ ). They have a ton of resources with clothes, donations, and community contacts to communicate the needs. And we realized our big ole bus would be very helpful for distributing clothing. We loaded our vessel to the ceiling, only leaving room near the driving area. We hauled everything we could to the fairgrounds to set up, grateful to creatively use the bus in this fashion. It was advertised to the community that they could find free clothes at the 'Big Blue Bus'. At the fairground, we would unload our entire bus of the clothes then set up a pop-up distribution site where people could sort through the donated goods to pick out items that they would like and would be useful to them.

Pop-up

Josh and the loaded down bus

Pretty adorable

We set up our clothing pop shop at the fairgrounds for four days. People were able to take as much as they needed. This community is mostly comprised of Spanish speakers, so there was a language barrier. We’ve been so very thankful for two women, Maria and Cesi, two bilingual ladies from the area who joined us each day to organize clothes and interpret to people. We really could not have done it without them and their will to help people truly impresses me. They give up their time to do anything they can to help these displaced people. Plus, they kept moral high by routinely thanking us and bringing their children along to help as well.

Marie and Saraei

All to say, through each of these efforts, we’ve had our friend Ludwig who has completely adjusted his plans for this week to serve without a single complaint and being nothing but helpful. He’s been a great companion during work and in our time off. It’ll be an odd transition to see him move on from us because he’ll probably just ask to be dropped off on the side of the road so he can hitchhike more. His presence this week will be one to remember. This next week, we plan to extend our stay in the Pajaro area, cleaning out houses that have been affected by the flood damage.