Emmanuel Lauwers had been to the United States before, but only on brief trips to San Francisco and New York City. They were great cities, certainly, but he didn’t feel like he’d really had the full American experience. So for his next trip, Lauwers flew from his home in Liege, Belgium to the starting point of his American adventure in Dallas, Texas. The plan was straightforward: hitchhike through the country all the way to Chicago where he would take a bus to Toronto and fly home out of Canada.
The journey was going smoothly for a while.