Last night in Dallas we spoke with a couple of truckers who are ex-convicts. They told us that there are a lot of ex-cons on the road driving trucks because it's one of the only jobs they can get. The industry, of course, consoles itself by paying them a small fraction of what other drivers get paid because they know that the ex-con's situation doesn't give them many options.

Aside from their situation, these two were energetic and attempted to bring a little levity into the subject matter. After telling them that I had been arrested for dumpster diving, they said that, "When you get to Ontario, one of them girls is gonna drop them draws an' it's gonna smell like a dumpster, an' you gonna go divin'."

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We just got back on the road after pulling over to shoot a time-lapse of the sunset over the mountains; we're two hours from El Paso. Sometimes, it rattles my nerves when I think about talking to the working-girls. I'm sure they've got people coming up to them every day wanting something from them, and in a way, that's what we're going to be doing. I like to think that we're offering them the chance to be part of something; a project that will put them into the conscious thoughts of people all over America. In the end though, they're doing their job. It's not necessarily pretty, in fact it's likely to be horrible, but it's how they make a living. I don't know if what we offer them is going to help or not.

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There are over 3 million truckers in the United States--that's one out of every hundred Americans--and countless women and men serving as their commercial companions, to use the euphemism. It irks me to think that these people are out there serving the fickle will of the nation, and that most people have no idea what they do, or what their world is like.

To be fair, I suppose that I don't really know either. I'm just a hitchhiker. I've had some truckers and lot lizards on the periphery of my experience, but I can't know what their lives are like. I suppose, that by the end of this round of filming, I will have a greater understanding and appreciation, and we will have a film to share with the world.

Peace and Love,
Dan