Somehow long car trips make me think of this morose tune from the last gasp of the genius that was Jim Morrison and the Doors. Plus it’s been raining and thundering all day, so it fits the mood…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYE1S6r3bkg

It’s also interesting that what used to be a time-honored mode of transport on the cheap since the advent of he car, which arguably reached its romantic apotheosis with the hitchhiking-friendly On the Road by Kerouac, quickly morphed into No fucking way am I picking up some straggly looking kid in the space of about 15 years or so.

Here are some cool articles on why that happened, with the gist of it being that horror stories and a general hostility to drifting free spirits by local and federal law enforcement conspired to give hitching a bad and dangerous name:

What Killed Hitchhiking? from NBC News

Hitchhiking’s Time Has Come Again from the New York Times

But the final nails in hitchhiking’s coffin might really have been the fallout from the Manson Family murders and the creepy but awesome (and almost certainly related) “Riders on the Storm” here. Rutger Hauer didn’t help with any potential revival in the 80s either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKV2a9Le0Sc

And with that: Drive safe, kids!

You can find “Riders On the Storm” on The Doors last studio album, L.A. Woman, available for download at Amazon.com.