On the Raod AGain 2012 addendum

But it is not finished…the trip I mean. As some may remember when I headed out the last week of June I took the train from Sudbury to Winnipeg. On the train I started to do an entry on my tablet and then I broke the tablet. At some point this summer my son managed to retrieve those notes from the old tablet. I had forgotten about that but I will in the next day or so post them here – just so the story is complete.

Later

  P.S. people are allowed/encouraged to respond to the blog in the comments section. In fact it would be rather nice

On the Road Again 2012 closing notes

And so the trip was over. At the end of all of my trips I am filled with feelings that seem diametrically opposite to each other.  I was thankful and at the same time sad that I am done travelling for another year. I was grateful that I was safe, healthy and would soon be sleeping in my own bed. I was also sad and perhaps just a little bit depressed because my life was about to become structured and predicable and just a little bit boring. I can’t imagine ever not wanting to travel.

 Like all of my trips this one was an amazing adventure. In the space of eight or nine weeks I went from Sudbury to Winnipeg, to Edmonton, to Yellow knife then to Duncan on Vancouver Island; and then back to Sudbury. I think I travelled about 10,000 kilometers in other people’s car and trucks.  I met people I could have only have met hitchhiking. I saw things that perhaps hundreds if not thousands also saw, but I had the time to just stand there and truly see. I can still see the brilliant yellow of the canola flowers for acres and acres not too far west of Winnipeg, the great big bull bison ten feet away from me casually sauntering amongst the yellow construction equipment on the banks of the Mackenzie River, all of the bears who wandered, both to my concern and I think theirs, a bit too close to me, the cougar tracks on the beach of some nameless river at the north end of Vancouver Island, the long stretches of almost empty highway, the shore line of a hundred rivers or lakes and of course the mountains. If I work at it just a little bit I can see the trucks and cars of the people who picked me up, my driver’s faces and of course every place I slept.

It was an unusual trip in that those who picked me up were a bit different than in other years. For example I got four rides, all of them long rides, from women. In the past ten years, other than on the islands, I have only ever had two rides from women. And what amazing women my drivers were this year. All of them had an adventuresome spirit, but they also had the courage to be what they knew they could be. With the exception of the nurse who drove me from High Level to the turn-off to Yellowknife and who in her own right had created a life for herself that was quite extraordinary; the three other female drivers had, as if almost out of nothing, created careers for themselves that were innovative and ground breaking. All of them seemed to be doing something that not only would I have never dreamed of doing; they were doing things that I didn’t know needed to be done. I learnt so much from them.

I have thought a lot about those four men who gave me drives between Yellowknife and Chilliwack and whose values and perceptions of women were so different than mine.  I have, on occasion, wondered if it is me who is so out of touch with the real world; but I don’t think so. If I am, I want to remain disconnected from their world where women appear to have, at best, limited value outside of their sexuality. It concerns me that there are those who treat their partners with so little respect. Perhaps I should have said more to them.

I also, particularly in the dark hours of the morning, think about those four or five drivers who gave me long rides and never asked me about my story. There were a couple of drives where after seven or eight hours of being together, my drivers didn’t even know what I did for a living. In fact it felt as if on this trip, I spent less time talking than on any other previous trip. Part of me was a bit resentful – I am a story teller and I need to tell the stories that I have learned. If stories aren’t share they die.  But, in part because of a course that I am teaching this semester, I think I have come to the understanding that other people also need to tell their stories too. And that perhaps in this world where it feels as everyone you see on the street is wearing a clear sign saying “please ignore me” by displaying the ubiguous ear pieces that are plugged into their I-Pod – it is harder than ever to find people who want to hear those stories.  Sometimes my job as a passenger is just to allow them to do that. So I learnt another lesson this trip – it was a good one and one that I need to remember. But I also wonder about those drivers and what their lives are really like. It seemed as if they needed to dominate the conversation just so that they could tell a complete stranger their stories. What does it say about our society when people have no one in their lives to share with?

I have been trying to write this blog for four or five days. It has been more difficult than usual to find anywhere near the right words to place upon the page. I was confused about why I was struggling. But of course the answer is obvious. To finish writing is to finally finish the trip and I don’t want to finish the trip. I want to be out there on the road right now, bored out of my mind, worried if I will run out of water, wondering where I am going to sleep tonight and incredibly excited about the possibility that the driver of the next car or truck that drives by will stop and offer me a ride. And he or she will tell me a story or two and I will tell him a few back in return.

Next year I will do it all again

On the Road Again 2012 #36

When we registered for the campsite, we shared the cost (It was worth it) but the young lady only took Nick’s name and address. We wondered later if she had thought we were partners. We certainly never told her that we had two tents. There were quite a few sites available but many of them were within sixty or seventy feet or so from the highway. We chose one that was a bit further in from the road and closer to the lake.

 Nick wanted to go for a swim before dark – I would have rather had a shower but I walked down to the beach with him. I was so glad that I did. It was quite glorious. After spending a summer in BC where what they call a beach is really just a shore line with no trees and lots of rocks, it was great to be able to take off my shoes and walk in sand. There were lots of clouds so we never actually saw the sunset, but it was close enough. Nick went in and swam for a bit, I sat on the beach, watched the clouds and every once in a while quietly laughed. About the same time the night before, I had been standing beside the road somewhere west of Kenora contemplating sleeping under some picnic shelter. Tonight I was going to have a shower and tomorrow I would be back in Sudbury. I was pretty pleased with myself and with life in general. The day had started out being pretty crummy but any time I can travel 1,000 kilometers in one day is a good one indeed.

After his swim and a brief chat with some fellow campers we headed back to our site and set up the tent and bivy sack. I got my stuff together and headed for the showers. The hot water felt good as did getting all of the tangles out of my hair. I changed into my clean clothes and felt like a new man. We ate a cold supper of veggies, pita bread and goat cheese. I had my little stove with me and could have made some soup, but neither of us were that hungry and we were both too tired to be that organized. Just before bed we went for another walk along the shore. The moon was bright; it lit the shore line and laid a blaze of white light along the water. As I looked up at the hills across the bay I would occasionally see bright lights going up and then disappearing. It took me a few minutes to realize that the lights were those of the big trucks climbing a hill along the shore and the disappearing as the road twisted back into the forest of the Canadian Shield.  What a perfect night.

 Agawa Bay Provincial Campground camp ground is a great family campsite. For some people who had planned ahead, their reserved campsites were on the beach. It would have been a great place to wake up in the morning!  It is definitely is a place that I would think about going back to, if it wasn’t so far away. Perhaps, who knows….

The night was gloriously warm and I was glad that I was sleeping outside. There were no mosquitoes so my canopy was unzipped and I could look up and see the stars. It felt good to be so close to the end of the journey and yet still having a bit of an adventure. All too often my trips sort of fizzle out and I am left feeling as if something was unfinished. This trip was ending the way it should. Great ride- great conversation.  It was hard not to start laughing again.

The next morning I was up early and was packed up by 6:30. I woke up Nick and after he had a quick swim, we were packed and on the road again. We had breakfast at the Husky in Sault St. Marie and were in Sudbury by just after 1:00. Along the way we took a small detour to the “Big Nickel”. For some reason (I can’t remember why) Nick needed to buy a souvenir “nickel” from the museum. The parking attendant wanted to charge us for parking but Nick convinced her that he would only be a minute and I promised to stay in the car….we didn’t have to pay. A few minutes later he was back with two souvenirs. He gave one to me which was really nice of him. Ten minutes later we were at my daughter’s house. We unloaded my gear, shook hands and then hugged and he was off to buy something at the Source before hitting the road to Ottawa and then Montreal. He still had a long way to go before he got home that night. As with so many of my drivers I wish him well and well always wonder if he made it home safely.

But I was back home, safe, tired (but surprisingly clean) and feeling both pleased with my adventure and as always grateful for all of the rides.

Onm the Road Again 2012 # 35

I, as readers of this blog may remember, always get on the road as early as I can. I do so under the unproven principle that the “early bird gets the worm”. In my experience however, this saying is seldom true if a worm is defined as a good ride. In fact the vast majority of my longer rides seem to happen in the later part of the day. Not always true but often enough to make me question why I am driven to be out on the road just shortly after the sun rises.  But there I was, just past the exit ramp on to the Trans-Canada at the north/east end of Kenora. I was slightly damp, cold and I am sure that I looked like a drowned rat that had been partially revived with a low wattage hair driver. My hair is really hard to comb when it is wet. It had gotten wet during the night has I had scrambled to sort out my sleeping arrangements and in spite of the fact it had been braided I had developed some major knots and tangles that I had not been able to get out. I had done the best that I could with it but after two days of not really seeing myself in a mirror, I suspected that describing my appearance as being drown rat-like probably was an understatement. On the other hand I must confess to a sort of weird pride of having survived another night. I always have this sense as I stand there in the early light of day of how unique my experiences are. I take some pleasure from the fact that I know that I am doing something that other folks would never dream of doing. This goes to show that people who, in the past, have questioned my intelligence may have been on to something.

In spite of my inclination to be a minor martyr to my travel muse, I was delighted when after only being there for fifteen minutes, a car stopped. As I ran up to the vehicle, the driver popped out and said that he hadn’t planned to pick up anyone and that he need to clean his car. My newest driver, Nick, had been doing some serious driving. His front seat was a bit of a disaster. As soon as there was room for me and my stuff I gratefully got in and closed the door. When he asked me I was, I said “a bit cold”. Nick turned on the heat. I knew right then and there that it was going to be a great ride. And it was.

Nick had left Jasper and was on his way back to Montreal. His goal was to make the trip in four days which meant that he needed to average 1,000 kilometers each day. He had spent six weeks at Jasper investigating as to whether or not he wanted to live out there permanently and was now on the way back to his home city. His plan was to work for a few months and then to sell his stuff and move west. Nick had lived in Jasper for a few years and had been happy but he had moved back to Montreal to be closer to his mother and his old friends. I think he had really moved back east because he felt somehow that he needed to grow up and have a more responsible career.  Being a worker in the tourist service industry and snowboarding whenever he could just does not seem to meet society’s definition of “grown-up”. But in spite of have a good job working in a concert hall as a producer/facilitator. Nick was not happy in Montreal. He had become a person of the mountains and needed to be in a place where he could wake up in the morning and see the mountains and smell the air.

Initially Nick was not clear how far he would drive me. Our first stop was in Dryden to get some breakfast at a Husky. I was hungry and very glad that he wanted to eat breakfast. I, over his protest, paid for his breakfast. I was damn grateful that he had stopped. I was now warm and fed. Life was good!!

Later in the day we stopped at another town (maybe Nipigon) so he could buy some food for supper. I asked him in the parking lot of the grocery store if I could travel with him the next day. Nick, in fact, had seen me the evening before across from that gas station/store and had decided not to pick me up. He was initially a bit reluctant to drive me any further than one day but did somewhat grudgingly agree that he would. I was never sure why he was reluctant. But I think it was because he liked being by himself. He knew when he got to Montreal things would get very busy very quickly. He was savouring the chance to be alone for awhile longer. It was almost as if he was glad of the company but at the same time a bit resentful that I had invaded his personal space.  I understood completely and have felt the same way when I stop to pick up someone. As much as I like to meet new people (and to return a few drives back to the cosmos) I like to be by myself and the intrusion of another body into my personal space can be mildly irritating. I had been driving in the car for a number of hours before it became clear that Nick would drive me all of the way to Sudbury. As much as like travelling I was delighted to know that I was done with having to hike with a pack on my back.

Nick was looking forward to going down the east side of Lake Superior and I think the fact that I was as excited as he was made my company more tolerable. He had seen a camp ground heading west earlier in the season and his goal was to get there in time for sunset and a swim on the sandy beach. It was such a delight to have a conversation with bright articulate and thoughtful thirty something driver. We talked about what it was like living in the mountains and what the draw was, why he was prepared to leave his reliable career, his mother and his long term friends for a life that sounded at the very least a bit sketchy in terms of income; we talked about Quebec politics and the absurdity of separation discussions (Nick was very clear that he did not want to get into a heated debate around Quebec politics and so we skirted around that issue carefully); we talked about parents and old friends and how it feels to not quite fit into the mold that other people have set out for you.

Although we were almost thirty years apart, we were very similar in many ways, particularly in taking that perverse pleasure for being different than others and in attempting personal journeys that other would not dream of trying. We were both excited that our epic trips for the summer were almost done and equally apprehensive about that transition into normalcy and all that entailed. There were periods of silence when we had nothing to talk about, but those times did not feel uncomfortable. It was if we had quickly become old friends who did not need to always talk.

Nick was tired. He had driven almost 2,500 kilometers in two and half days and started talking about either stopping early for the night or at the very least stopping for a nap.. He didn’t want to, but he was concerned about staying awake. For almost five hundred kilometers I “entertained” Nick. It was fun.  I told him about the people I had met, about Reg from my first trip or the Aurora Borealis from the second trip or the places I had seen, the stories I had heard. It was the first time in the entire trip that I had talked about Reg. I was glad that I had done so at least once to keep his memory alive. Between my stories and my attempts to use his GPS (which was in French) to find the provincial parks he stayed awake and on the road for the rest of the day

The drive along the shore of Lake Superior was as magnificent as always. It is such a delight to travel along this road with a true lover of the Canadian landscape. We “oohed” and “awed” at the same time and caught our collective breath at the majesty of the lake. It is extraordinary. Every Canadian, at least once during their life time, should travel down its length on a bright summer’s day. We stopped just once at a look-out place – although we really stopped because there was an old ski hill there and Nick wanted to see what it was like and if it was in operation in the winter. (it wasn’t)

We realized that we would not make his destination in time for sunset, but we found an equally great Provincial campsite on the lake, with a sandy beach. It was a bit close to the highway and one could hear the trucks roaring by but that is always music to my ears. Just as we turned into the campsite, the odometer clicker over – we had travelled a thousand Kilometers together. It felt pretty good.