On the Road Again (heading east) #9

It had turned out to be a lovely but warm day. I was in some ways envious of those young couples and families who were off to play in the water. Still I was delighted to be away from the road construction.

After watching cars go by for about 45 minutes an old Winnebago type vehicle pulled up. Every hitchhiker I know dreams of getting a long ride in a well fitted home on wheels. I have only ever had one other ride in any type of a travel-home and it wasn't very big.  The one that stopped just ahead of me looked in pretty bad shape but I am never one to turn my nose up at a ride.  Inside was a mess. It was clear that the four young people had been traveling in it for awhile. In fact three of them had driven from the west coast and the fourth passenger was a hitchhiker that they had picked up a few days ago.  They were off to some sort of music festival not too far down the road. I could never get them to tell me what kind. I don't think they knew.  It wasn't a very long ride but it was a strange one.

There was nowhere for me to sit so I stood up in the side door well. The door rattled behind me and I was fairly sure that if I fell against it, it would pop open. No one talked to me. The young people just totally ignored my presence after sharing with me the barest of information of who they were. 20 minutes down the road we reached their turn off and out I got. In the middle of nowhere.  There were a fair number of cars on the road but well over half of them were turning up the same little road that the travel-home had gone up. It looked to be an interesting mixture of people. There were large 4X4 trucks with dirt bikes in the back, a few vans with flowers painted on them and lots of normal sedans with folks looking fairly nicely dressed. I think if someone had suggested that I go have a look I might have done that. I was that curious. In hindsight I suspect it was some sort of electronic music, rave sort of thing and therefore I am glad that I didn't spend any money going in.

As I stood there I started to noticed that more drivers and passengers were noticing me than usual. There were more waves, but there were also more middle finger salutes and other rude gestures than normal. I even had a few cars slow down so that people could yell out insults. It was particular strange in that some of the folks doing this were not teenagers but people who looked to be in the late 30s or older.

I eventually got a drive by a teacher who was driving to a tourist area called Falcon Lake. It was an hour or so down the road but I was glad of the ride. It was a pleasant ride not the least because he was very generous with the bottles of cold water that he had. I drank 2 bottles in the time that I was with him.  I had been rather careful with my water and was clearly a bit dehydrated. I also needed to flush some of that sand out of my mouth.  It was quite a luxury having access to all that water. He was off to play some golf and then camp at the Provincial Campsite for the rest of the weekend. I think  Falcon Lake is one of Winnipeg's major getaway sites.

After he left me out and turned down the road to the camp I recognized where we were. Last year when I was driving with a young man who was having difficulties with his sports car we had stopped at the garage to see if we could get some parts for the car. It was a nice spot. Lots of green grass to look at, great shoulders to stand on and enough of a straight road so that drivers could get a good look at me. It was however a bit discouraging that not only did no one stop, but there were a couple of times when a driver's behaviour was somewhat disturbing. Most memorable was the time when a late model car with an old man and someone I assumed to be his wife pulled over. As I ran up to the car, two teenagers popped up in the back seat and started to laugh at me as the car pulled away. I guess I can understand this kind of juvenile behaviour when a teenager does it, but it is much harder to accept a father teasing me this way with his kids in the car. Not the kind of lessons that a parent should teach his children.

I was also discouraged in that I had had such great luck until today and I was disappointed that it was not continuing. I clearly had become to optimistic about my hitchhiking skills. At one point I decided to walk up a long hill just to see if there was anything worth while on the other side. I thought perhaps there might be a town or a motel or something. There wasn't and so I walked back down the road to my spot just outside what I thought were the Falcon Lake campgrounds.

About 6:30 I decided to find a place to sleep and so went into the campgrounds. It was a big area with a garage/store, some play grounds tent camping and a motel. The lake looked really nice and I was quite content to stay for the evening. Unfortunately  the camp grounds were full and the motel wanted $130.00 a night. I went up to an OPP office and asked if he had any suggestions because if not I was going to sleep on the side of the road. His only answer was that he didn't think that was a good idea and that I should get back on the road. I did mention to him that it would be dark in a hour and that it was dangerous to hitch in the dark. He didn't care - he just told me to "try harder!!" I felt as if I had been run out of town. I bought some water and went out to try my luck one more time. I then noticed that the spot where I planned on sleeping had been taken over by a couple of deer and their fawns. I was kind of looking forward to sleeping there.

However just after the sun set and literally five minutes before I was ready to pack it in for the day a van stopped and offered me a ride. To stay there with the deer was tempting, and a large part of me did not want to prove the OPP officer that he was right - but a ride is a ride - so I got into the vehicle.