Thinking about Hitchhiking

I am not quite ready to be planning my summer trip. With all of the snow shovelling that I have had to do in the past few weeks combined with daily highs of minus 20 degrees Celsius (plus wind chill), it is rather hard to think about hitchhiking across Canada. On the other hand there are brief signs that the wanderlust part of my sub-conscious brain is almost ready to take control over the rest of my grey matter.  When I wake up in the middle of the night there are faint rememberings  of dreams of being outside the Flying J in Winnipeg, of standing at the chaotic intersection at the west end of Brandon or that first glorious view of the Rockies just past Calgary but these snatches of images are too brief to hold on to. But I know the need to travel is close because have started to read, as my bedtime reading, travel books. About this time every year I get the yearning to read about other people's adventures. My preference is to read about people who sail, usually alone, around the world.  I don't know why these stories attract me - I have little interest in sailing but at sometime during the cold days of late January or early February I am drawn to these types of stories.

In the last month or so I have read three travel/adventure books. The first was about people who row across oceans, either the Pacific or Atlantic. The second book that I read was written by a man who had sailed from New Zealand to the Antarctica and back again. The third one that I am just finishing is about a young woman who wanted to walk through Papua New Guinea. It is never clear to me why any of them  do what they do. What I do find amazing however, is how little planning they seem to do for these trips that not only take some time to complete, isolate them from any human contact but also put their lives at a very real risk.

People who row across oceans do prepare for months in advance in part because they need to build up the muscles and the skills needed to row for ten to fifteen hours a day for weeks. Because there is an international federation of rowers and a number of competitions,  there are clear rules about how to be safe. Some of those rules seem to be a little use. Their boats, for the most part are sophisticated pieces of equipment that amongst other things, after being completely flipped over by huge wave, need to be self-righting. But universally the rowers complain about the food that they have brought with them, the lack of space to sleep and store their stuff (especially when it is a two person crew) and the skin break down on their derrières from seating on a wet seat. Some of them seem to spend a fair amount of time, while on the ocean, trying to find solutions to this problem. In addition the technology they bring with them for both navigation and staying in touch with people seems to fail far more often than it works. Personally if I was going to get into a boat only six meters long and spend sixty days in it working my butt off, I would make sure that I liked the food that I brought with me and that the technology was hardier than much of it seems. I would also make sure that the seat would not cause skin breakdown.  

The man sailing to the Antarctica only survived because various scientific stations on that forbidding continent helped him rebuild his boat and re-supplied him. His sail boat flipped at least three times. Not only did his electronics fail but even his watches (accurate time telling is critical to knowing where you are if one is using a sextant) did not work well! His organization was so bad and so rushed that his supplies were badly stored on board. He could not find some basic necessities because they were buried under other things, the head (bathroom) was full of food stuff and not useable for its original purpose and the gasoline (for his outboard motor) spilled.

And finally for the young American travelling through Papua New Guinea there were a number of times that she was rescued and taken care of by either missionaries or employees of the various western companies that are there exploiting the wealth of that struggling country. Her pack weighted 43 pounds but I am not clear, other than a mosquito net, what she had in it. The fact that she survived had more to do with the innate goodness of other people than her planning or self-survival skills.

In reading these books it often feels as if I spend more time planning for my five or six day trip across Canada than these people do who are planning on traveling in much harsher conditions for longer periods of time. And on occasion I wonder if I think too much about my equipment I think I need to have. Or if I spend too much time preparing for the trip by making sure I have signs to attract drivers etc. Maybe it would be more of adventure if I went with less stuff (or the wrong stuff) and had to suffer a little bit more. And then I figuratively slap my face and realize there is nothing wrong in having stuff that will keep me reasonably dry and warm. And if carrying a water filter and a wee stove is a bit much - having a cup of soup and some tea after a long day is pretty nice.