On the Road Again 2013 # 23

I am now back in my apartment. I am obviously somewhat behind in my blog postings..... I will continue to discuss my trip in sequential order.

It was now close to 5:00. The sky was rather gray and it seemed likely that it might rain. All around me were expensive hotels and what appeared to be a large shopping area. Salmon Arm is a charming town that sits on the shore of Shuswap Lake. I have walked through the town a couple of times and it has always struck me as a town that could be a comfortable place to live. The small downtown core is full of interesting shops. While I have only ever been there after the shops are closed, I suspect it could be be quite lively on a busy Saturday. Unfortunately, like so many other towns along the Trans-Canada, it has gradually become urbanized especially along the highway. There are parts of it that are quite unrecognizable as compared to the town I first stayed in a decade or so ago. Long gone is the motel I stayed at where the owner practiced her violin in the quiet of a late summer's evening, and the main road is now a four lane highway that is challenging to cross - I can't now imagine 2-3 guys trying to push a car along it to get it started as I once did. More importantly there was nowhere for me to sleep anywhere near where I was standing. The fields were long gone.

There has been a gradual change who picks me up along the road. While on the Islands women have always been generous, I do not expect to get a lot of rides from women once I am on the Trans-Canada. Last year however, I got four long rides in various parts of Canada from women. I however, never expect to get rides from women who have children in the car.  I was therefore surprised perhaps even shocked when a van stopped driven (as I later found out) by a grandmother. In the car seat behind her was  her one year old granddaughter. It was an interesting ride for a number of reasons not the least of which was I clearly was picked up because I had a job to do. Alice had to be in Indian River (east of Regina) by 10:00 the next morning. That meant that she had to travel just over 1300 kilometers in about fifteen and half hours. While that was certainly quite do-able she would not have a lot of time for sleep. Alice had seen me on the road, kept on going, thought about it and then turned around to pick me up. She had seen "Calgary" on my sign and thought that some company at least that far would help her get through the mountains safely. I think she was quite happy when I told her that the other side of my sign said "Winnipeg" and therefore I would be able to travel all of the way with her. I also think I was her first hitchhiker in at least a long time. She had picked me up but she was not that comfortable with a stranger in the car. I am not surprised that she was concerned and perhaps a little surprised at her decision. I had been on the road for 36 hours and in all of that time I had not seen a mirror. I suspect that I looked, to say the least, a bit scraggly. I fairly quickly gave her a quick sketch of myself in the hopes of re-assuring her.

I was never too sure if I understood all of Alice's story. She share the story of her life in bits and pieces. Critical pieces of her life were not shared until we had been in the van for a number of hours. I don't think it was because she didn't want to tell me, but rather that she knew her story so well that she could not imagine any one else not knowing it. Alice had had three boys - two of whom were grown up and had left home. Both of these sons had had children but were not living with the mothers of their children. In at least one case the mother was quite unfit and Alice was working on have her and her husband made legal guardians. Because this was happening in Alberta (as opposed to her home province of Saskatchewan) things were a bit more complicated. The fact that Alice had had some difficulties in raising her own two older sons also made the question of her adopting the children somewhat problematic.

So we talked and talked and talked about her life, her struggles with the child protection folks in two provinces, about home studies, lawyers, bureaucracies and the complexities of trying to figure out what was the best thing to do when there are children involved. Alice was frustrated and angry. There appeared to be some mixed messages coming from the social workers that seemed to encourage Alice's combative stance. She wanted to keep on fighting the system but did not know whether it would be worth it. She was prepared to spend a lot of money in court to gain guardianship but the toll of driving back and forth was exhausting her. She was fortunate that her present partner was both reasonably affluent and appeared to be highly supportive. Somewhere east of Calgary in the middle of the night I think I helped her find a strategy that would get her what she wanted and at the same time avoided a court room battle that I think she could not have won.

We only stopped a few time. Each times I loaded up on caffeine. I knew I would pay a price for drinking both an energy drink and a couple of coffees. My body does not tolerate that drug but I was also aware of how tired I was. If I didn't stay awake, then neither would she; then she might not get to the camp to pick up her 12 year old son who would be waiting for her. When I first got in the van we talked about her napping and me driving for awhile but as the miles went by she seemed to be fine. We ate a meal at Husky somewhere along the Prairies and breakfast in Moose Jaw (at a restaurant called the Prairie Oasis- that I had stood beside a number of times and I had always been curious about. It was a neat restaurant full of older local farmers. I would have stayed longer if we could have). At both stops her granddaughter woke up and ate with us. However, for most of the trip she slept. At one point I wondered if Alice was slipping her something in her bottle but she woke up far too quickly as soon as we stopped for that to be true. I don't think I have ever known a child who slept so much.

We got to the little village of Indian Head in good time. Alice let me out at a gas station just off the Trans-Canada. She was planning to go down the road a little bit and see if she could find a place to pull over and nap for an hour or so before getting her son. I was envious. A nap would have been nice. It had been a great ride in terms of distances covered and when. When I travel all night it feels as if I have gained back some of the time that I have lost just standing on the side of the road. I had been on the road for 53 hours and I was almost half way home. If I had had a schedule, I would have been right on time. It had also been an interesting ride. There was certainly lots to talk about. It had been a while since I had had to talk for 15 hours - but I had done it and proved myself useful.


On the other hand I had gone through the mountains at night and therefore had not seen some of my favorite sites, nor had I had chance to observe any of the damage from the early summer flooding. I had missed saying both hello and good bye to the mountains this year.