The Hitchhiker's Call To Paradise

Almost out of Oregon and Bee spots 3 guys looking for a ride. She hits the breaks busts a U and the next thing you know we have 3 hitchhikers in Teddy. Andrew and Joe from Colorado - I believe they were just hitching around to travel and see the West coast when they stumbled upon Brandon from either the Carolina's or Wisconsin. Brandon was hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, his time came to branch off from there and found Andrew and Joe. As we ride we keep seeing a billboard for a giant Paul Bunyan advertising the Trees of Mystery and eventually stumble upon the actual giant Paul Bunyan and Andrew falls climbing down from his foot and hurts himself, luckily we had a first aid kit. That night we make it to the beautiful Redwoods and find a decent campground. We drive a few circles - it is dark and the campground is kind of confusing without much light. The boys set up camp outside of Teddy and we call it a night pretty quick. The next morning we sleep in a bit have breakfast and pack up camp to go hiking through The Giants. The hardest part is deciding where you want to start. There are trail heads everywhere, but of course I choose one that does not have a map at the entrance, and later we find out that it was not even really a trail head. This small "trail" leads us  to a larger one. We find splits and take note of trails and such. We hike for miles enjoying the trees looking for the biggest ones - walking through hallowed out trunks and climbing anything we found. Eventually we come to a spot we think we have been to, but it is not. Then we find the highway; now we just have to find out where we are on the highway. We walk hoping we are headed toward Teddy and eventually reach a trail head with a map and they trust me to read it. I figure; after a while of going over the map and trying to decipher the path we took to lead us where we are, that we are indeed walking in the correct direction down the highway. I also find we hiked the most difficult trail in the forest!!! (Fun Fact) We finally reach the small entrance we used - we look up and there he is our trusty steed right where we left him. We load up and hit the road. It is around lunch time and we are starved - especially the boys! We find a little gypsy looking shack that acts as a deli for the boys to grab grub and while they do that we are cooking our goods we retrieved from the FOOD BANK!! Then it is back on the road and the boys would like if we could at least get them to Arcata and we don't see why not. We pull into Arcata it is a nice little college town in its' center sits a nice park. Like Lafayette but with more hills and larger buildings. We park on a corner adjacent to the park and unload to hug and tell the boys goodbye and good luck on their travels. Then we load up to find a place to sleep for the night. On The North end of Arcata there is a Casino we park in for the night. The next morning we find a Food Bank and we are running super low on money and gas, so low we are not sure if we can make it east to our next farm. I attempt at gas jugging, which is holding a gas can and asking people to fill it up, then the  casino security guard comes and fusses at us. We put in our last 40$ and take off to the food bank - if we run out of gas at least we will have food. After we finish at the food bank we get a call from the boys they would like to buy us a drink as a thank you- we have to pass back through there anyway. I know what you are thinking why not ask them for gas money, but some people you just do things for without wanting anything in return plus their friendships were enough. We park on our same corner; we are meeting them at the park, low and behold while we are standing on the corner waiting to cross the street, Bee just so happens to look down the street to see a familiar face. They are her friend Regina from the East coast all the way out here, she runs into the post office and meets us in the park. We sit with the boys in the grass and learn Andrew has fractured/sprained his elbow and will be flying back to Colorado leaving Joe and Brandon to finish the trip alone. Joe is going to Colorado and Brandon ultimately had to return to what I know was the Carolina's for school. Regina eventually joins us and we learn that she is working on a CSA farm very near to where we are now. We call the farm that is expecting us; to say the wind is calling and we are answering, so the tripod plus Regina load up in Teddy and head to the farm without getting drinks with the boys.