It's a very humbling experience to be ignored by so many folks, glad you reflected on that. The story about the couple just flat out walking away strikes me as obtusely anti-social, but sadly not unexpected in our day and age.
I went camping somewhere at/near Sequoia National Forest (forgot where) and was traveling to the charger at Inyokern. I think we got stuck on highway 178, about 3/4 of the way there.
Just out of curiosity, where was this?