23 October, Brookings SD to I29 near Vermillion SD, 100 miles

For an hour and a half on the Interstate 29, I fell in love. Karen was 22 years old, red hair, blue eyes, freckles. In her final year of studying psychology at the University of South Dakota. Divorced. Picking up a hitchhiker for the first time in her life…

“My world changed this week…my divorce came though. We’d been together since Sophomore year at school. We got married 5 months ago. We were too young I guess…I want to carry on my education and travel. Maybe move to the East Coast, Virginia maybe or Maryland. He really wants to have kids and stay here. I don’t know… we’re still living together in our house, but I’m spending a couple of nights a week with friends. Moving around a lot. I’m going down to Vermillion for a week now for school. We’re still friends, but I need to get out of the house.

“This is still a very conservative state. No sex before marriage, all that. There’s lot of financial advantages to getting married too… I feel good for now. Free. Maybe it’s still too soon and I’ll feel bad later… there will probably be a lot of ups and downs. I guess I’m growing up. I told my dad I smoke this week too – I’ve been smoking since I was 16!”

Karen was going to vote for the Libertarian, Gary Johnson. She had been volunteering for him on campus, handing out pamphlets and putting up posters. Voting Libertarian was another little rebellion – a subtle middle finger to her conservative parents.

“I’m voting for Johnson. Hillary will win, not because she’s a better person than Trump but because she’s a better politician. I’m voting independent, which is kind of throwing my vote in the garbage maybe, but I can’t vote for either of them.”

No, it’s not throwing your vote in the garbage Karen. Not at all. It’s a constructive and rational expression of your disapproval of both major party candidates. Although Johnson’s hardly my cup of tea. I was more of a Ron Paul man myself.

If you’re interested in Libertarianism:

The Cato Institute

The Libertarian Party

The Free State Project

Ron Paul

If this was proper journalism, I’d include some rebuttals of the libertarian philosophy. But it’s not, so do your own Googling.

Anyway, Karen didn’t ask me out for a drink. She dropped me politely at the intersection of Interstate 29 and South Dakota Highway 50, wished me luck and headed off to meet her friends.

The next guy however…