On the Road Again 2013 # 24

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.


I bought some more water and walked the few hundred meters back to the highway. I was pleased with myself and life in general. Winnipeg was only 500 kilometers away. It was just after 10:00. How hard could it be to get to the next city by bed time? I was absolutely determined to get a shower and a good night's sleep in a real bed. 48 hours on the road (and counting) was long enough. My last ride had been a great ride but one of the interesting phenomena of hitchhiking (at least for me) is that no matter whow a great ride it has been, no matter how far we have driven or what great conversations we have had, as soon as I get out of the car my mind immediately turns to the next car coming down the road. Alice and I had managed to chat for almost 14 hours with no disagreements or friction. We had both shared bits and pieces of our lives and I think had been pretty honest about our feelings and our failures. I will for months if not years wonder how her court case turned out, whether of not she got to adopt her grandchildren.  But once my thumb is out, my sole focus is not on the past but upon getting another car to stop.

There was a fair amount of traffic on the highway. Unfortunately it seemed as if much of it was turning off the highway either going right towards Indian Head or left to I am not sure where. I was there for almost four hours. My head was buzzing and my fingertips were tingling from all of the caffeine I had drunk. I had not slept for 24+ hours, and the sleep the night before last had been sporadic because of the real or imagine bears near my campsite. I was not asleep on my feet but I do suspect that I might have mentally dozed a bit. The combination of a brain deprived of sleep but kept awake by caffeine  is not a good one for me. I didn't feel sick - but  I knew I was not functioning at anywhere near 100%. It was probably a good thing that I did not get a ride quickly. I was in no shape to fulfill my obligations of a hitchhiker.

Finally at about 2:30 a truck did stop for me. Ted was off to Winnipeg to visit his half sister. If I remember rightly they had found each other through social media and while they had chatted on line - they had never actually met before. He was very open about his life and how it happened that he had a sister who he didn't know. It certainly started off our four hour conversation in a fascinating way. Ted was quite excited about. Personally I would have been scared to death although I am not sure why.

Ted was one of the drivers - there are a surprising number of them- who had seen me and then had turned around to pick me up. That supports my theory that there would be more drivers picking up hitchhikers if they were reminded that there might be some hitchhikers on the road. There are so few of us out there, that drivers do not even think about the possibility.

Ted was a driver for a courier company. He spent most of his time picking up old postage machinery from various companies and returning it to the depot ( I was never clear as to why that job needed to be done in the first place). It was not a great job and Ted was not that excited about it. His first love was film making. He had been employed in the seemingly booming film industry in Saskatchewan and clearly enjoyed the opportunity to be creative. Unfortunate the Province of  Saskatchewan  had decided to cancel its tax strategy for the film companies and the film production companies had fairly quickly decided to move to other parts of Canada where they could get get better tax breaks. People like Ted all of a sudden became unemployable. What a poor decision on the part of the bureaucrats in the government.

We spent part of our trip together talking about possible plots for films that he wanted to make including one about hitchhiking and haunted houses. It would not be a horror movie but rather a semi-documentary that juxtaposed the people one meets on the road with the emotional experience of visiting houses where the spirits of people who lived there, still reside.  It may sound a bit weird now, but it was a great conversation. Ted was very bright, creative and a great conversationalist. He was one of those people who one feels immediately very attracted to. It felt as if we had know each other for years. I would have been delighted if he had been going all of the way to Sudbury.

At some point, we got off the highway and went to a Co-op store. Ted's girlfriend was a fan of the Roughriders football team. She was looking for a special pair of sunglasses in the team colours. He had been told that this Co-op store might have them. They did have a lot of team souvenirs - but unfortunately no sunglasses. We got back on the road and continued to chat about books and life and all kinds of stuff until we got to Winnipeg. I was of course excited and pleased that I would get to sleep in a bed, but I liked Ted so much that I think if he had suggested that we have supper first - I would have said yes. It felt as if we had so much more to talk about. I had never thought about it before but it would be fun to do a film script with someone.

 I, of course, had not reserved a bed at the hostel as I had had no idea whether or not I would make it. Ted kindly used his cell phone to look up the hostels number and let me call them. He then used his GPS to find the place and got me right to the front door. As neither he nor I knew Winnipeg, that took some time and not once did he get frustrated at spending an extra 15-20 minutes trying to get me to a place where I could sleep. Ted was a good man and I appreciated his extra service more than most. I was exhausted and all that I wanted to do was to grab a quick bite to eat at some greasy spoon and then fall asleep. The only thing I wanted to think about was if I should have a shower now or in the morning.