On the Road Again 2013 # 21

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 a rather pleasant walk along the narrow highway. There were relatively few vehicles on the road - which was a good thing as I was walking on the opposite side of the road. The road was so narrow and the shoulder so non-existent that I had decided that it was better to hitch from the left hand side as opposed to having a car come up behind me and knock me into the ditch. It felt quite awkward sticking out my left thumb instead of my right one. While I, of course tried to look optimistic whenever I heard a car approach, I really didn't expect any of the car or truck to stop. I had resigned myself to having to walk for quite a distance.

There were little farms along the way. Some of the farms looked quite successful while at other places it appeared that their only product was derelict cars. It was so early in the morning that very few of the houses looked as if the people inside were up and getting ready to start their day. In fact except for a farm dog that cautiously followed me until I left his/hers property lines and one older gentleman watering his garden I saw no one. With the fog still lying in the low lands and in spots along the river it felt as if much of the land was abandoned. It was just a little bit spooky. It was quite a charming road to walk. The river was really pretty and there were cows and horses in the fields along it meandering shore.There is something quite virtuous in feeling as if one is the first one up and about. It showed that I was not a lazy vagabond, that I was someone who deserved a ride or at least was prepared to work for it.

After walking for over an hour and half, I noted that there were a series of driveways together on the other side of the road. It looked as if there might possibly be enough room for me to stand and for a car to stop. I decided it was time for a break. I had been on this road before and I had a memory from a few years ago of there being a really nice spot with great sight lines and wide shoulders up the road. I just didn't remember how far up the road it was. My chosen spot, as I got closer and crossed the road, was not quite as good as it had appeared from a distance but it was good enough for a break.

I had just started to drop my pack on the ground when a SUV type vehicle slowed down and swung onto the narrow shoulder/driveway.  I love it when things appear to have worked out like I had planned it or something!

My driver was a middle aged man who was going all of the way to Kamloops. That was about perfect. He had just spent a few days at some sort of new age retreat designed to enhance his ability to be in touch with himself and to improve his communications skills. Typically I am a bit leery about those kind of events and the people who attend them. They (the event) always seem to be created with at least a slight taint of an evangelistic camp meeting combined with a dash of over-the-top high pressure sales event. The participants, perhaps because they need to convince themselves first and then anyone around them that the experience was not a waste of their money, are inclined to be overly exuberant about their experiences. My driver was thankfully not like that at all. He had had a good time, had developed some insights into certain things that were going on in his life and recognized that at least part of the process during the last few hours was a sales pitch to attend the next training event. He had no intention of doing so. On the other hand I thing it would be fair to say that my driver enjoyed being a fringe member of the self help generation and would probably continue to read books and on occasion attend weekend get-a-ways. We didn't talk much about the actual activities but he was in a rush to get home to his family. It sounded as if he had realized something about his relationship with his family; he was anxious to get home.

At some point during our drive together my driver mentioned that he didn't usually pick up hitchhikers but was more likely to do so if he saw them walking - as if they were at least trying to get somewhere on their own. While I think I understand that sentiment, sometimes the logic of walking all day to travel 20 or so kilometers (when the nearest town is 80 kilometers away) just doesn't make any sense.

My driver had a rather unusual business - something that does not exist in Ontario. The Provincial Parks in Ontario are managed by civil servants. That is the people who take your money at the gate or the folks who drive around and make sure that you follow the rules etc are all employed directly by the government. In BC, while the Provincial Park land is owned by the state, the parks are administered and run by private companies who bid for that privilege (and profit). My driver was responsible for the administration of five or so parks. It was a fascinating conversation about how the process worked in terms of bidding and what the relationship was between the Province and the independent managers. It was a complicated job that clearly required good people skills and some business management skills. I don't think it was a way to get really rich. On the other hand, he clearly made enough money to support his family comfortably while not having to work for at least 4-5 months of the year.. It seemed like a pretty good life. While in the late spring and summer things were pretty busy, he obviously had good employees that he trusted to run things so that he could take at least part of a week off during a peak time.

I have had a lot of drivers; I have met a lot of people, but every trip I meet people who have occupations that I have never heard of. Every trip I meet at least one or two people who spend their lives doing jobs that I think I would have liked to try. This was one of the jobs.

He drove me to almost the other end of Kamloops. I still had to walk a kilometer or two to get past the last stoplight. It is a busy section of the highway. No mater when I stand there -and on almost every trip I stand there - there are so many cars, so close together and with the drivers all in a rush - that it is hard for someone to notice me or to have the space to stop. After a while I decided to walk further out of town just so the traffic would perhaps spread out and at least feel less hectic.

It was a good decision. After a 20-30 minute walk and just a few minutes on the side of the road another car stopped.

On the Road Again 2013 #20

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.

Laying in my little clearing it was far noisy than I thought it would be. While I had assumed that I was at least a mile or so away from the little village, it was I think, much closer than that. Through the woods I could hear people quite clearly yelling back and forth. In fact it sounded as if there was quite a party happening. While I was very aware that I was trespassing on someone's land, I was a bit annoyed that I could not have absolute peace and quiet when I wanted to sleep. However in spite of the noise I did drift off.

I think I slept fairly well until about 1:30 or 2:00. I am not too sure what woke me up. Perhaps it was the incredibly bright moon that was just showing itself over the forested hills, perhaps it was the realization that finally the party had stopped and there was no more yelling, but most likely it was the number of dogs barking.  Not just a few dogs occasionally barking but a whole pack of them going at it for five or ten minutes at a time, then a brief respite from the noise and then they would start again. Clearly something was agitating them. I would drift off to sleep during a lull in their excitement only to be woken up again when whatever it was that was stirring them up, stirred them up. When I think back to the night it strikes me that not once did I hear anyone yell at the animals to shut up. Perhaps no one did because it was a nightly occurrence.

As I lay there wondering what all of the excitement was - I remembered the bear that I had seen the year before. I suddenly realized that I was in bear country and that most likely a bear (or two) was around the village and perhaps that was why the dogs were so excited. As I lay in my suddenly far too small and far too restrictive bivy sack, I realized that if an animal came towards me, I would not be able to get out of it quickly. I decided that I would unzip the sack and then my mummy bag - just in case I saw or heard something. That way I would be able to make a quick dash to the pile of wood and grab a ten foot piece of lumber to ward off the bear if it should decide to get overly interested in me. It was a great plan except for the fact that I could not find the zipper. The more I looked for it (and couldn't find it), the more I panicked and therefore the harder it was to find. As I mentioned a number of blogs ago - it really is cramped inside that sack and it is difficult to move around. In a momentary lull from the barking and from my frantic search for a way out I was sure that I heard something thrashing in the woods around me. I would have bet money that it was getting closer. I became quite convinced that I was a much more tempting target than anything around that village.

Eventually I found the zipper to the sack (I have promised myself to practice getting in and out of it in the dark or at least attaching some sort of larger tag on the zipper) opened it up and sat up. By that point the dogs appeared to be calming down a bit and the noise in the bushes seemed to have, if not stopped, at least it was not getting any closer. I sat there for awhile making sure that my boots were close by and that I knew where my glasses, flashlight and watch were. Eventually I decided to lie down. I think I dozed for the rest of the night.

In hindsight it was all rather silly. If a bear really wanted to check me out, there is no way I could have gotten out of the bag and to the wood pile fast enough. I also realized that night that I was just a bit more claustrophobic than I thought I was.

I was up the next morning before the sun showed itself over the mountains. It was gray and foggy; I was cold and damp and there was no point in hanging around. I had decided at some point in the night that rather than stay at the corner, I would  start to walk down the road. There had to be a better place to stand. No one builds a road that has no shoulders on it - do they?