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.

Sometimes life just sucks

Last weekend I went to a funeral. It was for someone who I had last worked worked with 6 - 7 years ago, before I went back to school. We had somehow lost touch with each other as I have with most of my friends from that era. Not for any particular reason. People change and especially in this day and age, it is all to easy to drift apart.

I generally try to live my life without regretting things I cannot change. I try not to feel bad for all thjose things that I didn't do. But I have spent the last week regretting that I didn't stay in touch - that I didn't make the effort to be there when I could have been and perhaps should have been.

And now I have just heard that another friend has died. I wasn't there for her either. It doesn't matter that I didn't know that perhaps I could have helped. All that matters is that I didn't call and see how she was.

They were both remarkable people and the world will be poorer without them. Perhaps their last gift to me is the reminder that I need to reach out and to stay connected.

On the Road Again (heading east) #8

I didn't sleep well that night The ground was rough and the weeds were thick and stalky. It is always difficult to find a space to sleep when it is dark, not just because one can't tell if the ground is even, but also it hard to get things organized. I suppose I could use my flashlight more but I don't want to attract attention as I am getting ready to go to bed. I always know that I am trespassing and I don't want to attract the attention of people who are bored and who are looking for excitement.

By 5:30 AM the next morning I was up and packing my gear into my pack. I made use of the Flying J's bathroom to clean up and then went and had breakfast. Once again I was amazed that no one noticed me, or at least acted as if I didn't belong. I felt grubby and more than a little bit road stained. It had been a long two days.  I am not sure if I would have served me breakfast without making sure that I could pay for it. But they did and I ate my fill at the buffet. The parking lot outside looked full. I was surprised that the large restaurant was almost empty except for a older couple and a trucker who was grumbling at being stuck in Winnipeg because his load was not ready.

As soon as I finished eating I hoisted the pack on my back and walked for about 20 minutes to the nearest bus stop. There were lots of cars going onto the ring road that circles Winnipeg, but I made the assumption that most of them were just local drivers who would not be going very far. I suppose I could have stayed there for awhile but it made more sense to take a bus across the city to the east end. It was a smooth bus trip and almost with no waiting for connections I was quickly at the other end of the city.

When I had gotten up there had been a thick fog and looked like it might rain all day but by 8:00 when I was on the east side of Winnipeg, it had started to clear to become somewhat muggy. I was glad that it was not going to rain but I could have done without the mosquitoes. Last year I had made the same across town bus trip and had gotten a ride very quickly. I assumed, in part because I had had such great rides out west and back again, that it would be that easy again this time. I terribly wrong.

There were lots of cars but they all appeared to be local traffic or else contained  families.  It was Saturday and I should not have expected very much. I walked for a fair distance, always looking for that perfect spot where the shoulder and sight lines were be in perfect harmony. I was also looking for the ring road. I wanted to get past it so that the majority of cars passing me would be heading east towards Ontario. I finally got a ride from a older man in a pickup truck who was going just down the road but who said that he could get me to a good spot where there were some stop-lights. I knew the spot he was talking about and was glad. I was wrong - I was thinking of another spot and where he let me off was not good at all. It was in the middle of a construction zone.

It was dirty, every time a big truck went by a bucketful of dust was thrown at my face. I could feel the dirt between my teeth. Drivers were clearly irritated at the highway being reduced to one lane traffic and having to deal with dump trucks. They were not going to stop for me. It was really quite miserable. I was stuck there as the sign said the construction lasted for another 15 kilometers. I don;t mind walking for a bit, but 15 kilometers was a bit much. There was some occasional entertainment from some ATVers who were riding in the ditches along the highway. It was pretty swampy in the bottom and they were having a great time. They at least were dirtier than me.

Finally the driver of one of the dump trucks that had been passing me all morning felt sorry for me and gave me a drive to the end of the construction. He was a very generous guy who genuinely felt bad for me and wanted to help. In spite of the fact that I have been stuck in road construction areas before it was the first time I had got a ride from such a trucker. I agreed with him that it was dangerous for both me and the trucks to have me standing there. He suggested that it should be a policy that truckers give hitchhikers a ride to get them out of the way. I could not have agreed more!

He let me out just outside a campground that also had a waterslide which was where everyone who had been passing me had been going. To the west of this campsite - there was lots of traffic, to the east there was almost none.  No wonder why no one had stopped for me. It was going to be a long Saturday.