On the Road Again 2013 # 28

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.

Ted had been on a car trip to visit Edmonton and was on his way home. He had, on his way west, gone through Sault St. Marie and wanted to go the more northern route on the way home. While it would have been so much easier for me if he had wanted to go through Sudbury, I was quite content to travel with him as far east as Nipigon. I would decide then whether to stay on highway 11 and go through North Bay or get out and go down #17. That was four hours away and given the fact that it was getting late I knew that I would not need to make a decision tonight.

There are times when some of my conversations with the driver of what ever car I am in are quite focused and stay on one subject. There are other times when either the driver or I do most of the talking. But I think between Ted and I the conversation was pretty equal although we did bounce around a lot. We knew that we were going to be together for awhile and therefore there was no rush to get all of our stories out quickly. Ted was always quite enjoyable because he had no axe to grind. Unlike some of my other drivers he had no pet peeve that he had been been storing up for all of those miles, almost bursting to get it out; impatient to share it with someone.So our conversation sort of meandered along.

We had a lot to talk about and the miles flew by quite nicely. Ted was a teacher in the correctional system. I don't think he told me which prison he worked at or if he did I didn't make note of it. Ted had some interesting stories about his career in the prisons . He had a perspective that I have never thought about before. When one thinks about prisons there are usually just two main characters -the inmates and the guards but in fact there is a small group of people who are neither. That is - those who provide the educational and other programs to the inmates. From what Ted said - neither of the groups, especially the guards gave a lot of respect to those professionals. It was a fascinating conversation and I learned a lot. Not that I understood all of the policies he talked about but at least I understood what happened. Things were also a lot more complicated then I assumed. For example the number of steps that the system needs to take to ensure that some prisoners never get in contact with each other surprised me. I guess I just assumed that they were not that careful.

Ted was also very passionate about his family history and had dome a lot of research about his Arcadian answers. In fact part of the reason for this trip was so that he could visit some of his relatives across Canada. I was more than a bit envious that he had so many relatives and knew how he was connected to them. Some of them the connections went back to the 1700s. I could see how following a family tree could be so time consuming and so absorbing.

We got to Kakabeka Falls well after dark. I was tired. It had been a long day. Ted was more than just tired. He had wanted to get to Thunder Bay and we were close enough. He really needed to stop.We chose a motel (The Telstar motel) and checked into two separate rooms. Ted did offer to share a room, but I wanted some private space. It felt as if it had been a long time since I had been in a room by myself. Both Ted and I used our technology to pass messages out to the outside world via the internet, I walked for a bit to stretch my legs and then went to bed. I was a bit nervous. The last time I had been in this general area and had found a motel late at night, my driver had abandoned me the next morning. I slept well and was up early the next morning, haunting the area around his car. At around 7:15 I bang on his door as we had agreed - he was up but just barely.

While it had been 24 hours since I had eaten a meal I was afraid to go have breakfast. I hung around and waited under the assumption that we would eat together. When Ted got out of his room- we left right away. He preferred to drive for awhile and then eat. Pity. I should have eaten at the restaurant. It would have been better meal than the one I ate at some Tim Horton's this side of Thunder Bay.

As we passed the turn-off to the Sault I thought about getting out and travelling south along #17. But in fact there was no guarantee that I would get a ride. So far, at the rate I was going, I was assured that I would be home late that night. If I got out, I might get a ride quickly or not for hours. As much as I wanted to go along the shore of Lake Superior - I wanted to get home more - in good time. Good company and a nice car going generally in my direction. I would have been a fool to get out.

That day was much the same as our previous time together. Lots to talk about lots of things including dating and when there were the odd quiet bits - that was fine too. One of the things that I remember talking about was the number of women riding Harleys. In the past it was relatively rare to see women driving their own motor bikes. Not only had there been a couple driving their own bikes next door to me at the motel, but I had noticed more than a few times coming east groups of 3-4 women riding together. I wonder if it is because Harley Davidson are making sightly smaller bikes that the women can manage.

I do not know why but it seems to me that on the way west I frequently get a drive from someone who is a crazy fast driver, but on the way east I frequently get a long ride that is a bit slow. Ted, while he had destination targets to reach, was not a fast driver. In fact he was a bit slow and took more breaks than I would have. I don't think he really cared about seeing the towns he stopped in, so he didn't care if he got there late at night. At one point when I called my daughter I thought I would be able to make the last bus to Sudbury. It should have been possible. However by the time it was dark it was clear that we would not be in North Bay until late. With her help we got a motel for Ted and she came and got me.

As I said goodbye to Ted it struck me once again that virtually all of these relationships that I have with my drivers - in spite of the hundreds if not thousands of miles that we travel together (Ted and I traveled about 1500 kilometers together) that they almost always end the same way - a quick handshake and then they are gone. What a strange way to meet people and to travel.

It felt like cheating - I should have/ could have just waited at the bus station until the first bus north in the morning, but I was tired - my trip was done and I could find no reason to sleep outside one more night.