Another Warmshowers.org plug

[Melalvai]

Another guy, who we accommodated on very short notice, and my bf helped him out a lot tuning his beat up LHT. We sold the guy a set of down tube shifters and he said he would pay us when he returned home ($40). At that time we emailed him to remind him and he gave us the proverbial middle finger about the whole deal. We took our name off WS after that. We also let the guy who runs WS, who lives in town here, we know him, know about this, not that he could do anything about it.

I'm sorry you had this experience. I wouldn't give a stranger anything that I expected to see back or get paid for. Actually I wouldn't give something to a friend under those circumstances--I mean I'd either give it or not, I wouldn't expect payment. But I'm sorry you gave up on WS because of this experience.

Anyways, we also met Zach on WS. 18 years old from St Paul. He graduated HS in June and got on his bike, a very old Novara Randonee, and pedaled west to see the country. He wanted to stop a while in my area and find some outdoor work to earn money for his ride. He spent a few days with us, calling every farm and orchard around. He found a peach orchard to work in, pitching his tent among the trees. On the weekends he'd visit us and we'd go yardsaling on bikes (he's very thrifty). After a months work he continued west to California. He ended up in WA visiting relatives for a while before returning to MN by train. He still calls us every week or two to catch up on life. He makes up for all those not-so-nice people we met before him.

That's a really nice story. I'm glad you had some positive experiences as well as the negative one. I wish I could be a WS host but it would not work for my family at all. My husband is a very private person and our home is his safe space. I'm the opposite and I would love to open our home up to people. But I respect his need for a safe space. Still I'm a little envious of WS hosts and I enjoy the stories. Even the negative ones, because I think about how I would want to handle the situation for the least harm to me and my psyche.

[Chile Pepper]

Well, that was fun! They were supposed to show up around 6:00 pm but didn't get here until 11:30 pm. The poor kids were cycling in the dark! They really miscalculated the time it would take to get out of Santiago (and got a little lost, I think), but they made it safely. I was still up (which is rare at that hour), so I was able to get their dinner and help them get settled. They are cycling from Santiago, Chile, to Rio de Janeiro--clear across the continent! The young woman also cycled across Canada this past summer. Very nice people, and I'm glad I was able to help them out with this small gesture.