2019 On The Road Again #8

I was out on the highway far too early. The only cars on the road (and there were a lot of them) were clearly commuters travelling from heaven knows where into Regina. Most of them were in a hurry and paid no attention to me. Over the next four hours, two cars did stop. The first was a lady driving a van full of flowers. She was off to the Regina Farmers' Market to sell them. I was very tempted to go with her - just to see the market, but I did not want to get stuck in a part of the city where I would not know how to get out of. I thanked her for her offer but said no. A few hours later another vehicle stopped and offered me a ride to downtown Regina - again I said thank you but no.

I almost never say no to a ride, I have (jokingly) stated that if one rejects a ride, then the gods of hitchhiking will punish you. They certainly did this time. The sun was hot, it was low enough that my nose got burnt, my foot hurt every time I moved and I could tell that this spot was not a great one. I rationalized my decision to reject two rides by telling myself that I either could spend a few hours more on the highway or the same number of hours figuring out how to get out of Regina and hurting my foot even more. I was having a lengthy debate with myself when a bright, apple green SUV pulled over and the driver offered me a ride to Regina. I was about to say - yes, but instead, I said that I did not want to get stuck in Regina. The driver said he understood completely and offered to drive to a good spot on the highway, the other side of Regina. I was glad that I had waited for this ride!

My driver owned some sort of ecological exploration company. They were hired to prepared access to ecologically sensitive sites such as muskeg using mats and other devices to protect the sensitive ground. It sounded an interesting and important job. A speciality niche that I assume was profitable. We talked about the oil industry and then somehow got into a conversation about alternative types of housing construction. My driver told me about a small town somewhere northeast (I think) of Regina that had decided to create a non-restrictive building code to encourage innovative and courageous house builders to explore alternative methods. The result were that the little town was growing, people with money and a passion about looking at alternatives were moving to the area adding so much to the community. Such an initiative not only brought new money to the area but also people who were both adventuresome and forward-looking. My driver went out of his way to get me to a great spot, as I got out I said "thank you for the story - it is great to hear some good news.

And it was a good spot. Regina is developing some sort of ring road (which meant that I would have had a terrible time getting out of the city) but my driver let me out just past the construction where traffic was still reduced to one lane and still going slow. I was not there for more than ten minutes when I got my next ride.