Marin County

"Do you know where the bus stop is?"
It's a simple enough question, but when I asked Maureen she looked a little befuddled and instead offered me a ride back to San Francisco.
"It's a tight squeeze in the back of the Porsche, but we'll take you if you don't mind the space."
"When would I ever turn down to ride in a Porsche?"
And that settled it. I said goodbye to Alina and her economy rental car and crawled into the back single back seat of Ray and Maureen's white, vintage Porsche. We sped through the hills of Marin County, past the thick smell of evergreen and pine saturating the cool mist that was rolling over the mountains. Watching the sailboats like white flecks of paint on a deep green sea, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. We talked about life and youth, how they met and the hitchhiking adventures they took as kids. Right out of college, Maureen had attempted to hitchhike from Boston to Maine, only her first ride, an old couple from Massachusetts, had been afraid for her to go alone and taken her the whole way. Ray had hitched from San Diego to Vancouver, then from British Columbia to Montana and back to Southern California after he got out of the service. He kept his eyes on the road, lowering the Porsche into another gear while Maureen turned toward me and smiled.
"But you can't do that nowadays. There are too many crazy people out there; I taught my kids better than to do that."
"Yeah, my mom obviously didn't."
They both look back now and laugh at me.
Sometimes you just know people are good and you trust it because it's so much better to hope for the best than to be afraid all the time. Then I realize how often I've been burned and how many times I've promised myself to become more guarded. Yet, here I am again and because I wasn't afraid, I'm gifted with an adventure that makes me continue to love my new city.
They drop me at the 31 bus stop, Eddy and Van Ness, and zoom off to check out designer furniture at Room and Board. A guy I know works there, so I call and tell him I have friends coming into the store.
"How do you know them?" he asks.
"Well, I don't."