It's a Beautiful Thing...When You Hitch a Ride in a Red Convertible...

It's a 5 mile jaunt into Manchester Center so there are no options but to hitch hike to town.  Thru-hikers are told that Manchester Center is a "hiker-friendly" town so hitch hiking should be no problem.

Dropping off the trail onto Hwy 11 I was a little concerned because the traffic travels fast around a sweeping curve, with little time for them to see us and little room to pull over.

No problem for us; third car by is a red 1974 Olds Cutlass convertible in mint condition.  At first, I thought the two guys in the front seat were swerving toward us to give us a scare (not uncommon), but they pulled over down the road as we scrambled with our packs, poles and muddy boats (yes, Virginia, Vermont is made of mud!).

After some effort to kick the mud off our boots and squeeze packs and bodies into the back seat of the convertible we were off.  The two in front looked like decent guys so I asked the driver what year the car is...said he wasn't sure because it was his wife's.  Thought that was strange, but, what the heck.  Also noticed that the passenger had a ball cap with the words "It's a Beautiful Mind" printed on the back. 

Decided to ask him if he saw the move as we were working our way off the mountain.  His comment: "Yep, I wrote it."  Of course, I thought he was joking, but he went on to say that his buddy was in the movie.  His buddy said, "yeah, I was Russell Crow's imaginary friend. He said his wife also was in the movie and the reason he has the car is because Russell Crowe bought it for his wife with the expectation that she would provide special favors, if you know what I mean...

Who are these guys? Paul Bettany is the actor, Jennifer Connelly is his wife and the screen writer is Akiva Goldsman.  What I think is even cooler is that Paul Bettany was the actor that played the albino monk in the movie Da Vinci Code!

Two regular guys going in to town to pick up some groceries for the family, decide to pick up some famous thru-hikers...these guys couldn't believe what we were doing when we told them...thought we were something else...we thought they were famous and took a picture of them...hmmm, they didn't ask for our autograph or anything...