2018 On the Road Again #14

There are not a lot of rules in hitchhiking, but there are, at least for me, some basic assumptions. One is that women are less likely to be pick me up then are men, secondly that women with children in the car are even less likely to pick me up and thirdly that people driving white cars almost never pick me up. While the first two assumptions make some sense - I can never explain the third one. However to the best of my memory I have only had two rides in the past 16 or so years in cars that have been white. As I ran over to the young woman waving at me, I was surprised to realize her car was white. I was even more surprised when I realized that she had her five year old son in the car.

Initially, probably because that is what my sign said, she said she was happy to drive me to Calgary. Quite frankly I was so tired of the wind that a drive to Calgary would have been very welcome. However, when she said that she was driving to the Okanogan, I flipped the sign over and showed her the other side which said "Nanaimo". My driver wasn't going all of the way today - just to Golden, but that sounded pretty damn good to me. I am grateful for all of my rides, even the shortest of them; I get high just knowing of the generosity of people and the chance to meet someone new. But a nearly 800 kilometre ride is more than most. For the first time in two days I could relax and not worry about where I was going to have to stand later.

The five year old boy (he had not started school yet) was incredibly bright, spoke about science topics in complex sentences and his math skill were quite impressive. But he had no imagination. He was also bored. His mother was getting just a little bit tired of him and he was, I think, enjoying, just a little bit, finding ways of irritating her. I like little kids and for the next seven or so hours tried to include him in our conversations. At one point when we were about an hour or so east of Golden, his attention seeking behaviour became more than a little bit annoying. We were behind some slow moving trucks and he kept on demanding that his mother drive faster and faster. In spite of the fact that he could see that it would be dangerous to pass he kept on repeating - non-stop "when are we going to get to the hotel"? I tried to play silly games, talking about flying kangaroos and other silly animals - but it was like he could not imagine such animals existed. Other little kids when I do this with them, know that I am being silly but have fun with it - not this kid. I think he was quite use to being the primary person in the vehicle and he did not want to give me anything.

We stopped at two different parks so that he could get out a run around for awhile and got something to eat at the McDonalds in Medicine Hat, but these brief stops were not enough to make up for a five year old being stuck in the back seat of a car for eight hours.

HIs mom was an interesting woman. She was originally from Chile and Columbia. She came from a reasonably affluent family but was very aware of how dangerous it was to live in that part of the world. She had married a Korean, come to Canada, entered the University of Winnipeg, had a child and then split up with her husband. She was still enrolled in school but was worried about whether or not she would be allowed to stay in Canada. Because she was not a Canadian citizen, she had to pay the international tuition rate. This meant that she needed to work almost full time to earn enough money; this in turn meant that she did not carry a full course load; which meant that it was taking her longer than she was allowed to get her degree which could put her student visa at risk. I admire her commitment to education, and I suspect she would make a good Canadian, I am not sure if she will be able to jump through all of the hoops in the right order to be allowed in as an immigrant.

We talked about most things, her life, my life, Canadian politics, kids and just about every other topic one could think of. She had been almost as bored as her son and was happy to have an adult in the car. She was off to work as some sort of manager in one of the fruit orchards. She had been there before and was looking forward to a chance to work, make some money and I think for her son to have the chance to run around a little bit.

It was a pleasant drive, my driver was a good conversationalist, had interesting stories and was at other time, quite content to let me chatter on. Some of my drivers appreciate my presence in the car and drive a bit further than they had planned to. But in this case, she had already booked a room and her son was at the limits of his tolerance. As she let me out, we agreed that if the next morning I was standing on the highway, just at the end of town, that she would drive me to Kelowna. I got out and looked for a place to sleep, and equally as important - something to eat. I had, except for some McDonald fries in Medicine Hat, not eaten since the train somewhere the other side of Winnipeg, two days before.