On the Road Again 2011 #40

After sleeping well, I got up early, had a shower and was on the road by 8:00. I have stood at the same spot just outside of Kamloops a number of times in the past. It is a good spot in terms of there being lots of room and just past a stop light so at least some of the cars are going slowly but it frequently has taken me awhile to get a ride out of there. It is a very busy section of the highway and frequently there have been so many cars zooming by me that none can slow down enough to stop. But then I have always been there later in the day when people are heading home. At 8:00 in the morning there was much less traffic and the drivers had lots of time to look me over. I got a ride fairly quickly.

My first driver of the day was a rodeo livestock handler. I think his job was to deliver, to the various small rodeos, the required bucking horses and bulls. His language was to say the least, colourful or perhaps more accurately bordering on obnoxiously rude and obscene. He was also quite assertive about being right about most things including the fact that I had been standing in a horrible spot and would never get a ride there. He didn’t appear interested in me saying that I had always (although somewhat slowly sometimes) gotten a ride there. I find it irritating when people tell me that I don’t know how to hitchhike. There is no such thing as doing it the wrong way. There are perhaps general tricks of getting rides such as looking presentable, making eye contact, not sitting/laying down at the side of the road with one’s thumb out etc, or having a sign, but quite frankly hitchhiking is not rocket science. Any fool, and I being a particularly good example of that, can do it. However as we were only going a bit down the road, it was not worth me debating with him about the finer arts of hitching. So I bit my tongue and waited for the ride to be over.

He let me out at a spot that he swore was a great spot. He was positive that there would be lots of trucks coming by and that one would surely stop. It was of course, a terrible spot and after fifteen minutes I walked up the road a piece until I got to a location where it felt as if drivers would be able to see me and have space to stop. I felt vindicated with my decision as within five minutes a car pulled over. They too were going just a short distance. They being a woman and her adult daughter (who was driving). The two of them were attending a rodeo near Pritchard and had just been to Kamloops for a beer run. I thought it was a bit early for a beer so I declined their offer of one as I sat in the back seat of their car. They also invited me to the rodeo and that would have been fun. I thought of doing it but I knew that I needed to get home so ten minutes later they let me out by the side of the road and turned south.

It was turning into an interesting day. I don’t particularly mind short rides as long as I don’t have to wait a long time for them. The weather was perfect, not too hot with a sunny sky with lots of clouds to keep it cool. I was feeling pretty good.

My next ride was from a couple. The driver was in her forties (I think) and her passenger looked to be at least 10 years younger than her. He was an Israeli who she had met in India. They had become friends and she had just picked him up from the Vancouver Airport. I think he was planning on staying for a while. I was never too sure of their relationship.  I am not sure if they were just friends or lovers. I didn’t think I should ask.

Originally they were just going to drive me to Salmon Arm as they were stopping there to go shopping before they went on to her home in Revelstoke. It did not take much to convince them that I would be glad to wait in the parking lot of the shopping mall. So I did. It took them about 45 minutes to get all of their stuff and then we were off. My driver had done a lot of hitchhiking both in Canada and around the world. It was a great conversation as we talked about crazy rides and strange adventures. I heard from her perhaps the best line I have ever heard about hitching. We were talking about the times that we had had to wait a long time for a ride. She then said – it is not that we have to wait a long time for a ride – it is just that we have gotten to the spot too early for our ride. What a great attitude!   

They offered to drive to the top of the hill on the east side of Revelstock. I was really happy with the offer as the hill is rather steep. But there was a lot of road construction happening so I got out about half way up the hill. Otherwise they would have been stuck in traffic for awhile.  It had been such a great day that I didn’t mind thought of walking for awhile at all. Some days it just feels good to be there - wherever there is.

On the Road Again 2011 #39

I picked the seediest of the two or three motels available on the hope and assumption that that if it looked crummy, it would be cheap. I frequently use this approach but I have no way of determining whether or not it is either an accurate or useful method of finding a cheap but comfortable bed.  On this particular rainy Monday the outside of the motel looked seedy enough, but it was not that cheap. The inside was just a touch better than adequate. There may have been cheaper motels along this strip but it was dark and I was far too tired to embark upon a comparative shopping expedition. 

I quickly got into some dry clothes, hung the damp ones over the chairs, and checked to see what else was wet. I had packed well. The only thing that was even slightly damp was my sleeping bag and that was just one on corner. Good to know that the pack’s cover could do the job. On the other hand it was a pity to have to unpack it all. I had spent so much time (with the assistance of my grandson) packing that pack carefully so that I could find what I needed quickly. Now I would have to do it all over again. Of course this time it would be faster without his help. It would also be less fun.

I was hungry. I went out and looked down the secondary road that runs parallel to the TransCanada. It looked as if there were some restaurants a mile or so away. So I walked towards those lights. They were a collecting of service stations and car dealerships. There were no restaurants. So I walked back to the motel, dug out some Mr. Noodle soup, plugged in the kettle kindly provided by the management of the motel to make a morning coffee and made some soup. For desert I had a chewy bar. Not a great meal but it did warm me up.

I flipped though the TV stations looking for something that could keep my interest. Nothing did so I went to bed early hoping that Tuesday morning would be better than Monday morning. It was.

intermission - world finances

I know next to nothing about finances. I usually figure if I have enough money in the bank to pay my bills - I am doing OK. Anything more than that is usually beyond me. But I have made a special attempt to understand what in heaven’s name is happening in Europe. This is the best I can come up with.

If I want to buy something but don’t have the cash on hand – I go to the bank and borrow some money (well actually I don’t do that – but I know lots of folks who do). The bank tells me how much it will cost me to borrow the money, I agree and we all sign a pile of forms. If I lose my job or for some other reason I can’t pay what I owe, then either I can declare bankruptcy or perhaps the bank and I negotiate a different payment scheme.  But what the bank does not do is raise the cost of borrowing the money!

But that is what I think is happening in Greece and Italy. They need to borrow money to run their country. You can’t build a hospital or repair the roads without borrowing money. Because of the economic downturn many countries are having a difficult time raising funds through taxes. The people are earning less and therefore there is less money in the system. But banks, rather than negotiating with the countries to reduce their payments, are raising the interest rates and thereby making it harder for the countries to do business. When, because of the rising interest payments, the countries can no longer manage their economy, then there is a major crisis.

In other words while there is a small financial crisis in terms of the various lending institutions not getting their money (and of course their huge profits) back as soon as they had planned, the crisis is made far worse by those same financial institutions raising the cost of borrowing the money. In other words they are creating the crisis.

Please someone – tell me this is not true!!!

On the Road Again 2011 #38

It was now getting close to 7:00 pm. I had been on the road since 6:00 that morning. I was cold and damp. My shoes still squished when I walked.  I felt as if I needed to eat something. Hitchhiking while shivering appears to burn a lot more calories than hitching in the sun. As I walked though the rest of the rest of Hope (which is a charming little town) I passed a Greek restaurant attached to a little motel. It looked very tempting. It had been grey all day and now it was starting to get dark. Not that darkness that gently comes after a pleasant day, but the darkness that comes  after a miserable day, the kind of darkness that reminds one that fall is coming and that it is time to find a place to burrow in for the winter. I wanted to stop. But in some silly tribute to my supposed toughness I didn’t check into that motel or the next one. I kept on walking and every time I heard a car I turned around and stuck out my thumb. I walked slowly, trying to keep those motels in sight for as long as possible. I knew that I would not be sleeping on the ground tonight. I saw no reason to get too far away from my warm bed.

However a car did stop and offer me a ride to Kamloops. I would have been a fool to turn down the offer so I got in. Kamloops is only a two hour drive from Hope, but psychologically it is more than that. Hope in my mind is still attached to Vancouver. One can, as proven by my last driver, commute back and forth. People in Hope shop in Vancouver for the big items. Kamloops, while it is not my favourite town because it is so spread out, it is hard to walk though and still illegal to hitchhike along the highway, is far enough away from Vancouver that the traveler knows they are well on their way.

My driver was driving his wife’s Subaru after dropping some friends off in Vancouver. He was a miner which for some reason surprised me. Perhaps because I had never been picked up by a miner before I some how assumed that mining only happens in the far north or somewhere equally as remote.  While it is not a job I had ever considered for myself, I could see why it was an attractive option. My driver was happy in his job. It allowed him to live in a beautiful part of the country and offered good prospects for the future as long as the price of gold remained high.  

We spent most of the two hours or so talking about his family, most particularly his mother who had raised her family on what used to be called the Queen Charlotte islands ( but is more rightly now called Haida Quai).  She still lived on the 3,000 acre piece of property, living a life that sounded as if she was homesteading. His dad had been a logger and had been gone for part of each year as he was growing up. His mom had had to do all of the work required to support and maintain the family. There weren’t and it sounded as if there still weren’t a lot of stores to buy food. So she grew her own and then she preserved it for the long winter months. My driver worried about his mom but he was also so proud of her toughness and her resiliency.  He knew that she had raised him well. He had good values. He knew who and what he was and how he wanted to live his life. He had tried the city life for a while but clearly he was happiest in an area where the wilderness was not too far away. I suspect he was also more comfortable working with men who needed to, and could trust each other with their lives. I think he was happy living a life where things were quite black and white. There are times when I envy such people.

My driver, thankfully, was going to the far end of town. That meant that I did not have to walk a long the highway for another hour to get to a good spot to hitch from the next morning. There also happened to be a few motels just a few 100 feet back from where he let me off.

I was done for the day. In spite of the lousy weather and the difficult hitchhiking conditions, I had got three rides and was now well on my way. It was time to eat, to make sure my stuff inside my pack was dry, and to sleep.

on the Road Again 2011 #37

While it is sometimes a bit humiliating or embarrassing to stand on the road while cars are zooming by without stopping or even slowing down, I quickly found out that it was even more uncomfortable to be standing there with cars going by at a crawl and still not stopping. In the former situation I can always rationalize that drivers do not want to stop due to their being in a rush or going too fast to slow down or being in the wrong lane. But this time, because of the slow down on the highway, the cars on the entrance ramp were barely moving. It would have been easy for any of them to wave me over and invite me in. For at least fifteen or twenty minutes nobody did. That could only mean that they had looked me over and decided they didn't like the way I looked. I didn’t blame them, but it was still uncomfortable.  One bright light was a trucker opening his side window, telling me that he wasn’t allowed to offer a ride, but offering me a cigarette for my comfort while I was waiting. I don’t smoke cigarettes but that was a very kind thing to do. It also suggests how miserable I must have looked.

Eventually a driver of an older model car took pity on me and invited me. He immediately started into a rant of how he never picked up hitchhikers because we were not very careful and how he hope that I knew how to be safe when getting out of a car. It took a few minutes for him to get to the point of his story. He had once picked up a hitchhiker who, when he had gotten out of his car, had been hit by a passing vehicle as he crossed the road. I can understand while he was cautious about picking up folks. I assured him that I was very careful about such things and that he needn’t need to worry about me. It was a strange start to what turned out to be a rather pleasant and interesting ride.

My driver was a drywaller. He was a private contractor who worked in Vancouver but who lived in the town of Hope. He made the long commute every day because he wanted his kids to grow up in a small town where it was safe for them to ride their bikes and to walk home from school. Quite a remarkable commitment as it was at least 150 kilometers between the two the two places. The distance could equate into an up to two hour drive each way depending where he was working and the traffic. He seemed very comfortable with his decision. I found it admirable that he would be so committed to giving his kids the kind of life that he thought would benefit them. Although I suppose one could argue that it might be better for them if their dad was around for an additional three hours a day. But it is never easy to make the right decision or to at least find the right compromise. He loved his kids and he was proud of them. Those kids were lucky.

But things had not been easy for him. He had gone bankrupt a year or so ago when the economy crashed and at least one of his customers could not pay him for the work that he had done. He seemed to have lost everything and was now living in a rented house trying to get his credit rating back.

He was also very angry at contractors who hired unskilled East Asians for minimum wage to do drywall. In fact he was initially very angry at the East Asians for working for so little money and for doing what he said was not a very good job. This discussion consumed much of trip. He vented at the unfairness of immigrants underbidding him while I gently tried to nudge him into the opinion that perhaps it was the contractors who were abusing the workers; and that perhaps even the purchasers of the services who allowed people to be paid a wage that was only barely above subsistence level had some responsibility. I think I was successful and by the time we got into Hope, he didn’t seem as angry at the workers. He wasn’t happy. It didn’t matter why someone was undercutting his bids, but perhaps his anger was directed at the right people. I hope so.

Not too far outside of Hope he looked down at the heat gauge, swore and immediately slowed down. The gauge was well into the red zone. Fortunately, if he went slow, the dial stayed just below the danger point. We got off at the first exit that had a gas station, filled up the radiator with water and got on our way. I was glad when the gauge remained in the normal range. However for him the leaking radiator meant another few hours added on to his work day as he would need to find the leak.

He let me out out of his car about halfway through Hope. He was going home to a nice supper, some time with his three kids and then back out to fix the radiator. I was off down the road, still damp cold and more than a bit tired.

On the Road Again 2011 # 36

While I am always glad to get a ride - the first ride I got after spending the day in the rain was especially sweet. It was not a glorious vehicle nor did I get very far, but it was a ride, the driver didn't care if I got the seat wet and the truck had a heater. It felt like heaven to me.

It was a one ton flat bed work truck that looked and sounded as if might be, if not falling apart, well on its way to that status. There was junk in the back and lots of bits and pieces in the front seat. There was room for me and my pack, but not a lot of leg room left by the time I got all of me in and the door shut. My driver was a hairy fellow, with a beard as shaggy as mine. He had on old greasy work clothes and if he had been on the sidewalk somewhere along Hastings Street in Vancouver, well he would not have looked out of place. But then I suspect I would have fitted right in too.

In our short ride together I didn’t quite grasp what he did, I think it was something to do with hauling construction machinery around. He seemed to have it pretty well organized and was happy with his life. Every December he went to Australia for a month or so to celebrate Christmas with a construction crew he had met while they were building a bridge somewhere in the lower mainland of BC. What are the odds of that? But that is what he did every year. It sounded like a great plan to me. 

We didn’t get chance to talk for very long, but I really like him. Not just because he had offered me a drive, but because I like his gentle nature and good humoured way of looking at the world and the little problems than can pop up. Given where he had picked me up and my minor rant about my great spot being ruined by construction and the general advancement of all things new, it is perhaps not surprising that we started off our brief chat talking about roads, road repair and the need for even more lanes. Somehow we then drifted into talking about the state of the Vancouver docks. It was strange in a way that my last conversation with Jesse as we headed into Vancouver had been about road repair and the ever constant need for the more lanes, and here on my first ride out of Vancouver, I was having the same conversation.

I was let off somewhere outside of Greater Vancouver. My driver said that it was a better spot. It didn’t look a lot better, but at least it was safer and I could see a gas station down the road a bit. Now if I needed some water (which seemed highly unlikely) or something to eat, there was somewhere to buy it. It had stopped raining but because I was in a more open spot I was exposed to a nasty little breeze that was rapidly sucking away what little body hear I had left. I took off my rain jacked, pulled my heavy fleece out of my bad and put my jacket back on. The top part of my body was warmer but my thin, quick dry pants that had been so nice a comfortable in the hot days of July were now offering very little protection or warmth.

There was a fair amount of traffic along the entrance ramp and it was going slow. So people had lots of opportunity to see me and make a decision. I suspect however that most of the vehicles were not going very far and so most of the drivers avoided eye contact. I then noticed that cars were starting to do u-turns and head back the way they had come, away from the highway.  The traffic on the highway was slowing down to a slow crawl with all lanes blocked. It looked as if there was an accident. What this meant for me was that what had looked like a promising spot with a reasonable flow of traffic had become a parking lot.

However with traffic going by me at a crawl, an older car did stop and wave me over. It looked like I was going to get out of the city.

intermission - Shark Fin Soup

As someone who has not eaten red or white meat for well over 35 years and has not eaten fish for close to ten - I am always glad when I hear about people deciding not to kill animals for food.

I am just not too sure about the right of Toronto City councilors to make a municipal law banning shark fin soup. Really people - you are OK with people living on the streets in winter or when it is mind numbing hot - facing death by freezing or heat exposure; it is OK when children do not have enough to eat and it appears to be just fine to cut services when people need those supports just to stay alive and perhaps to stay sane, but it is not OK to kill a shark. 

I have to wonder how many of the councilors  who voted for that bill actually have eaten shark fin soup. Are they themselves giving anything up? Or was it just an easy vote that made them look like they cared about the world?  I also wonder how many of those same people have eaten veal, or perhaps beef or chicken or pork from a factory farm? How do they get to decide what is moral behavior or not? The word  “sanctimonious” pops into my mind.

 Perhaps one day someone will ban the eating of all animal matter (including sharks) for the simple reason that there is no "humane" method of killing an animal. But until then, can you please get off your collective high horses and deal with what is happening to people outside your office doors.