On the Road Again 2015 #7

One of the joys of hitchhiking is that rush one gets after waiting for some time for a ride, feeling just a little bit frustrated and then all of a sudden - a car stops and a ride is offered . There really is nothing quite like it. When the car stops - all is forgiven, the sun shines and one's faith in humanity is completely restored. I am not in anyway complaining, but when one gets a ride withing five minutes of sticking the thumb out -the rush is not quite the same. On the other hand, having a trucker stop and offer me a ride meant that I was going to get a lot further down the road than I thought I would.

The truck was messier inside than most I have travelled in, but the driver was super friendly. I won't mention the name of the company he drove for, but within a few minutes, in a response to something I said, he made it clear that his company did not allow hitchhikers. He just didn't care what they liked. I think he picked up people whenever the spirit moved him. While Al was not that old, perhaps in his mid  thirties, he really seemed to belong to that old breed of truckers who saw themselves not so much as "kings of the road" but as "knights of the road". He bemoaned the fact that truckers no longer stopped to help out a car on the side of the road; that they no longer talked to each other on CB radios -warning each other of dangers ahead (in spite of the smoke from forest fires heavy in the air, I heard no one in the 15 or so hours I was with Al use the radio).

One of the reasons for this radio silence is that cell phones work so much better for long conversations than do CB radios. The radios are only truly effective when one can see the truck you are talking to, whereas as long as there is a tower near by, on a cell phone you can talk to someone half way around the world.  Of course one needs to know the other persons phone number for this system to work.The other reason that truck drivers may be a bit insulated from everyone is the use of computers.

Al no longer had to fill out a log book. It was all done electronically. The computer told him when he could drive and when he had to stop. There could be no "fudging" of when he started, stopped or when he took his breaks. Everything he did was recorded. Given the fact that his truck was limited to 105 kilometers an hour, and that he got paid by the numbers of kilometers driven, stopping to help someone or staying extra long in the coffee shop was not really an option. The only time we sat around and waited was when, after a night's sleep, he had to wait 15 minutes before he was allowed start his driving.

Al did not know how far he could drive me.He had a load of office furniture that needed to get near Vancouver but he was no sure if he was going drop that load off in Calgary and pick up another going north. Al was a long distance driver - on this trip he might not be back until the end of July. According to Al, because there was such a shortage of drivers, it was more efficient to use someone more local for the relatively short haul from Calgary to Vancouver. However - for today he was going to Redcliff - a little town just the other side of Medicine Hat. Al was very clear that while he was glad to drive me as far as he was going, he would not let me sleep in his truck. A hitchhiker had stolen some money once and so was uncomfortable having someone in the truck with him while he was sleeping.

Other than the reduced speed (cars were zipping by us) it was a good ride. Al drank lots of coffee, so there were just the right number of stops along the way - each just long enough for me to stretch my legs. We had lots to talk about. Al had never finished high school (although he was working on his grade 12). He had been driving some kind of truck for most  his life. I suspect that truck driving is one of the few jobs left in Canada where one can make some sort of a living wage with a high school diploma. On the other hand, Al did not make that much money and seemed to have few possessions other than his Ford 150 pick-up truck. Because he was away so much and had no family,  when he was in Winnipeg, he just stayed with a friend.

I could never figure out whether Al was a closet liberal who was uncomfortable expressing his values, or if he was really a bit of a racist and a red neck who didn't want to argue with me. Regardless we covered a lot of ground talking about the human condition and why some people (including the government) seem to make such silly decisions. While we didn't even come close to solving all or even any of the world's problems, it was a highly enjoyable time. The hours flew by quickly and before I knew it it was after 1:00 AM and Al was pulling in looking for a spot to sleep for the night. The truck stop was full, so he parked, along with a few other trucks along the side of the road near a Tim Hortons. He looked in the back, and offered to clean up the top bunk. Given how much time it would take and how tired we both were, I decided to sleep outside. It was a beautiful night, balmy, just a few clouds in the sky and a bit of a breeze. There was not much room on the side of the road, the grass was dried out and the ground was hard. But there was enough room for me and I knew it would only be for a few hours. I almost didn't bother putting up the bivy sack.

By 3:00AM I was really glad that I did - but sorry that I had not zipped it all the way up.