2019 On The Road Again #9

The next ride was just to Moose Jaw. I was in the back seat as there was another hitchhiker in the front seat. It was unusual for me to ever ride with another hitchhiker - I had never twice in one trip done so. My new driver was interesting - he was middle age or so, was in the area helping a friend do some renovations and had this almost Zen-like attitude to finding his place in the world but at the same time, he was almost hyperactive or aggressive about presenting his perspective. I think that if I had been in the front seat and if we had had a few hours together, it would have been a great conversation. As it was - I am not sure if we got very far down any pathway to an individual or mutual discovery. However, in the short drive between the outskirts of Regina and Moose Jaw, we did have one brief but significant conversation. We talked about by-laws and how the bureaucracy made it difficult for people to get anything done in their own homes - particularly if the person doing the work was unknown to the building officials. This was the second conversation in a row where I had talked to my driver about restrictive building inspectors and codes. I am quite sure I did not initiate the conversation topic. I did tell him about the town my previous driver had talked about. It felt good to share dome optimistic news.

My fellow passenger and I got out near the big moose who had been shed of its antlers so new, larger ones could be attached. The other hitchhiker asked if I wanted to walk or should he. I told him that generally when the nearest town was miles and miles away - I did not walk. He graciously offered to walk up the road a bit. I assumed that he would just move up a hundred yards or so - but he walked until I could no longer see him. After my experience in Brandon, it was nice that someone understood the unwritten rules. I should have been the one who walked as he had been in the car first - but without actually saying so, I suspect that he gave into my older age.

After 30-40 minutes a large white, 10 passenger van stopped just up the road from me. I was initially slow to respond as these sort of vehicles had never stopped for me but when the passenger door opened and I saw someone waving at me, I got there as fast as I could. The driver was an old, Indigenous man, the passenger was his younger sister. They were heading to Calgary to help their brother move back to their home community, somewhere on the other side of Winnipeg. Just ahead of them the brother and a friend were driving pick-up truck - I think it was them who suggested that I get picked up. A few minutes later we saw my young hitchhiking friend still walking. The two wondered out loud if they should pick him up too - I said that he was a good guy - so they stopped and he got in. A few minutes later the truck called the van and said that there was another hitchhiker -with a dog - and when we got to that spot, we stopped and picked him up.

The van/minibus was large enough for all and our driver and her sister certainly were generous. Initially, I was sitting in the front seat, but after a stop for gas and a switch of drivers, I moved into the back seat and as there was very little conversation, I dozed for much of the remaining trip.

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.

2019 On The Road Again #7

My new driver had spent a lot of time working in Fort McMurray. I think he had almost spent as much time driving back and forth visiting his children and other friends and relatives in the southern part of the province. He was an interesting guy and I had lots of questions about Fort Mac and how it was recovering from the fire of two years ago. I had sort of assumed that with the slump in oil prices and the much-discussed demise of the oil industry, that the inflationary cost of housing and the general cost of living in Fort McMurry had been reduced. Apparently not.

My driver was a good conversationalist, he had clearly defined thoughts on global climate change and I think could see a time when the demand for Canadian oil would all but wither away. He was a realist who could see a future outside of the oil patch. My driver had more than one child with more than one woman. I think he understood that his lifestyle precluded a successful relationship. He had spent a fair amount of money getting himself out of the tangled financial predicament spousal separation can cause. But he had a plan, knew that if he stayed out of debt that within a few years he could stop the crazy commute between his family and Northern Alberta. He wanted to have a relationship with his kids and he was prepared to work hard to get it. The other hitchhiker was in the back seat, he didn't say much but when he did, none of the comments seemed to fit with the conversation the two of us were having in the front seat. It made it difficult to have a lengthy discussion on any one topic.

My driver had to stop along the way to get gas and to buy some candy for his daughter, then we drove to a small peaceful little town, somewhere between Brandon and Regina (I will never know where) where he visited with his daughter for 30-40 minutes. My fellow hitchhiker and I hung around the corner from my driver's ex-wife's house. We had very little in common. He had some sort of disability including bad knees, being blind in one eye and although I did not know it until later - partially deaf. He spoke quite loudly and his choice of language was more than a bit vulgar. I am not too sure if the neighbours could hear us or not, but I was uncomfortable with his choice of words. He was a far more experienced hitchhiker than me. He had travelled a lot across Canada - not because he had somewhere he needed to go but because he was bored. I think also that when he was travelling, he bummed money from people, hustling for change by playing his harmonica outside of the various Tim Hortons. It was probably easier to stretch out his disability cheque when he was away from home.

I was getting a little bit anxious. I trusted my driver but between the break for gas, the stop to see his daughter and the fact that I was more than a little bit lost, it felt as if everything was way beyond my control - far more than usual. Finally, my driver came back to the truck and we were off. Both the driver and the hitchhiker agreed that I did not want to get stuck in the busy part of Regina (where they would head north). Besides my driver was going a different way to Edmonton and would not be passing through downtown Regina. But they both knew of a great Flying J truck stop just east of Regina where I could get an easy ride.

When we got there, my heart sank. The truck stop was in the middle of nowhere, it was getting dark and I knew that I would be spending another night at a gas station. The other hitchhiker got out of the truck and went inside. He had been there a week or so ago and had left his hearing aids in the bathroom. He had wanted to stop there to see if they had found them. I felt a little bit less generous towards him as I realized his enthusiastic encouragement of the driver letting me off here at this truck stop had perhaps more to do with his need for his hearing aids than any belief that this was a great spot to get a ride. It also explained why his comments never quite fit into our conversation - he probably missed much of our conversation.

The two of them left - I hung around the exit but I could tell that I was not going to get a ride. There were lots of cars coming and going, but they appeared to be all local drivers. I grabbed a sandwich and some potato wedges (I had not eaten since the train) and tried to find a spot to relax. There was almost no grass to lay on and all of sudden it had gotten cold and windy. The one exciting thing that happened was that I got to watch a firework display. The night before there had been a horrendous storm with a torrential downpour. A truck driver told me that it had been so windy that he could barely control his truck - so the fireworks from the nearest town had to be postponed for a night. It was a good display.

I spent much of the night huddled, wrapped in my sleeping bag under the dryer vent which for most of the night blew warm air. Not a fun night.

The next morning I was up early, I got a number of looks from some drivers, even some friendly nods - but no offers. By 6:30 I had trudged back to the Trans-Canada and my thumb was out again.

2019 On The Road Again #6

As I have written before, the west end of Brandon can be chaotic as local drivers manoeuvre along either the service roads or the Trans-Canada to get their errands done and as longer distance drivers scramble to get food, coffee and/or fuel along the same routes. I have lost count of the number of near misses as cars make illegal turns or sometimes just don't look where they are going. To make life even a bit more exciting for me, trucks sometimes park along the highway just behind me so that they can run into Tim Hortons for a coffee. When they do so, they usually limit the space available for any driver who might even consider stopping for me. On this particular occasion - nothing had changed. There were still as many poor drivers in a rush and just as many local drivers trying to get their errands done. Most annoying this time was a car that parked 15 feet in front of me for ten or so minutes so that the driver, an elderly looking woman and what could have been her granddaughter, could get out and walk to the Tim Hortons. If they had only driven to Tim's they could have saved time and not blocked any car from seeing me. What made it worse is that I think she knew exactly what she had done - she absolutely refused to make any eye contact - intentionally looking the other way.

After I had been there for a couple of hours, someone got out of a car, dug into his pack - put on a brightly colour t-shirt, took out a large, hand-drawn sign and stuck out his thumb - 20 feet in front of me! Not only was this person standing at the intersection, that, with all of the turning cars etc, looked very dangerous but he was standing in front of me and thereby getting seen first. It is one of those unwritten rules - you don't stand in front of someone else who was there first. After a few minutes, I walked over to him and asked what he was doing. He told me that I did not own the road and that he could stand where ever he wanted to. I tried to suggest to him that there were some common understandings amongst hitchhikers and he said that he was going to do whatever he wanted. I walked back to my spot fuming.

A few minutes later someone else - wearing a brightly colour safety vest - walked over to him too. From his appearance, I thought that this person might work for a road crew and was suggesting that he should not stand there. But the new hitchhiker stayed there anyway. Within 10 minutes, he got a ride. I was not happy. Looking over I saw the person with the safety vest waiting at Tim Hortons - he had a pack. I then realized that he was the older hitchhiker I had met the night before. I waved at him.

I moved my pack a bit closer to the intersection and shortly thereafter I got a ride. As I got into my new ride, I yelled out to my fellow hitchhiker who, as I now realized, had been defending my right to be first in line - "thank you". He ran over to talk - and was offered a ride as well. As my driver was off to Fort MacMurry and my fellow hitchhiker was off to Edmonton - it sounded like a perfect match. While I had not yelled 'thank you" so that he would get a ride..... I am glad that it worked out.