Hitchhiking Adventure :B
Doot doot doot...
Hey journal, it's been a while, eh? Sorry about that. It's not that things weren't happening... I just didn't feel like typing them up. It's quite the hassle. But now, I really want to archive my trip to Toronto, so I'm going to attempt to catch up in regards to that. It's gonna take a long time...
At the start of May, my boyfriend and I set out for Toronto. It was to be a cross-country hitchhiking trip aaand... it was wicked.
Well, my boyfriend did a pretty good type up of this in his own journal, but let's see if I can do better.
17 rides, 7 days, lots of memories.
Ride #1: Mission to Dewdney, from a fellow named Jimmy. He liked Dashboard Confessional (cue gags), but you know, to each their own. He was our first ride and showed up within about five minutes of us getting there... very good luck! The whole trip there was to be dotted with good luck.
Dewdney was bad luck, though. We ended up not getting a ride for maybe 30-60 minutes and we decided to hike up the highway a bit. This is where I first learned an important hitchhiking lesson: The hitching is fun, the hiking... not so much. Anyways, we were going towards this truck stop supposedly a few miles up the road when we passed a junction of two highways. A few vehicles were stopped there at a light. I stared pitifully in the window of one at a woman in her 40's, then quickly looked away.
Ride #2: My pitiful look must've been pretty believable (not that I wasn't feeling pitiful, but...) because she pulled over for us a minute later. She took us a little past Lake Erock and her name was Trudy. She was a Christian, but thankfully not one of the scary ones.
Waiting on the side of the road in, as Pirate would call it, "buttfuck nowhere" we spent an hour or two in the sun being pestered by flies. I guess they thought we were roadkill? Because they weren't biting flies or bloodsucking flies but they kept landing on us. Anyways. They were really annoying. Pirate helped me patch the knee of my jeans because there was a huge rip, and it was getting bigger and more of a problem by the hour.
Ride #3: Finally, someone came to our rescue. He was an extremely old man who asked us to call him Old Dave. I told him I was from Tumbler Ridge and he told me he helped to build the conveyor out there back in 1984... so I met one of the guys who helped to found my hometown. Neat, yes?
He told us initially he was only taking us a short way, but ended up changing his mind and taking us much farther to a roadside cafe. There, as luck would have it, was his friend Cam, a younger man who was a film maker.
Ride #4: Cafe - Hitching Post, we'll call it. We asked Cam for a ride to wherever he was headed, so he took us out past Agassiz to a place where two highways met... good hitching spot. In fact, there was a post there that had "hitching post" written on it.
Ride #5: Next we were picked up by an ex-DnD playing furry-trucker, who owned his own fully animatronic wolf suit. He told us the name of his fursona, but I only remember that the first part was Coda. His real name was Rob and he was very awesome. He took us to Hope and gave us the rest of his cigarettes. I forgot my pepperspray in his truck, though.
Random Note: This is when I first learned that truckers truly ride in style... trucker cabs are awesomely comfy. They have air-cushioned seats that can be adjusted higher and lower at will... I could go so high that my feet didn't touch the ground! Behind the two seats there's a curtain, and behind the curtain is a bed! Sometimes a bunk bed! They have a mini-fridge, too. Trucker cabs are AWESOME.
Ahem, anyways. Rob dropped us outside Hope and we decided to walk into the town and find a ride. This was a crappy idea in retrospect, but whatever, we were noobs at the time. Walking into hope we encountered a trucker pulled over on the side of the road. Pirate went to ask directions, and we ended up landing a ride... to Calgary!
Ride #6: Hope to Calgary. Our trucker Ron was a supremely awesome guy, fun to talk to and very personable. He gave us a 13-hour ride, let us sleep in his truck and was our tour guide of BC as we drove through, pointing out all items of interest. We went up through Roger's Pass and at the highest point of the mountain (it was so high that despite the warm May weather, there was snow and it was freezing cold) he pulled over and let us go outside and look at the stars. They were bigger, clearer and more plentiful than I've ever seen in my life. We smoked a bit of weed and got back into the truck. That was basically the end of day one.
The next morning he dropped us on the highway outside of Calgary... he actually drove out there for us, he had no business going there. Kind fellow. He gave us his number incase we're ever hitching in the area again. Very awesome. Outside Calgary we ran into our first other hitchhiker, who we would run into again later.
Hitching sucked there. We ended up having to hike up the road a good long ways in the heat and I was very miserable. Maybe three hours after Ron dropped us off, someone finally pulled over for us.
Ride #7: Pirate was actually down the road refilling our water bottles when a man named Alfred pulled over for us. Thankfully, Pirate got back just in time and we climbed in. Alfred was an oil worker (we ended up meeting quite a few). He took us from Calgary to Brooks.
Waiting outside Brooks was extremely lame. We met another hitchhiker named Mark who gave Pirate a beer before going on his merry way. A lot of people on this trip ended up giving Pirate beer. Anyways, three hours of misery later, a man named Dave pulled over.
Ride #8: Dave gave us a ride from Brooks to Medicine Hat. I just listened to my discman for most of the ride so I don't know much about him, but he did have a radar detector and scrambler, and drove 130 kmph the whole way home. This was impressive to Pirate.
In Medicine Hat we went to Wal-Mart, which had a McDonald's and I had fries. Yum. The manager there recognized us as hitchhikers and gave us cardboard for a sign, plus free ice cream! Awesome. So yeah, sun was setting as we left Medicine Hat, and with no luck for the next 30 minutes we decided just to make camp. We found a tree and some bushes which sheltered us from view and pitched our tent. This marked the end of day two.
We spent most of the next morning and a large part of the afternoon on the side of the highway (we hiked up one hour into the day because the spot we were in sucked). The sun was beating down mercilessly, I shit you not. There's absolutely no shelter in the prairies, except passing clouds... and then they pass by and you're baking again. Pirate got MAD sunburn and we were pretty much passing out of heatstroke on the side of the road when someone finally stopped for us.
Ride #9: Didn't come for a very long time... when it did, it was a government worker (wouldn't tell us his exact position) named Cam, who was going to Swift Current. He was all like, "If you guys have any drugs on you, you have to tell me right now, because I can't give you a ride if you do." Naturally we said no.
So we spent about three hours in his car, in which time we entered Saskatchewan and I saw a whole rainbow, like, an entire arc, arcing over the road actually, with no clouds in the way, for the first time in my life. It was amazing. Anyways, he played awful 90's music (yay!) and then awful gospel/country music (not yay) for us. And when we got to Swift Current he dropped us off at Wal-Mart (where we ate McDonald's) and gave us $75.00! Cam is a cool dude. (Cam #2 actually.)
Swift Current, luck was bad. We didn't manage to get a ride before it got dark, but we did run into the first hitchhiker we saw outside Calgary. We shared anecdotes and names... he's Ryan. Turns out he was headed to Toronto from Vancouver as well! We ended up camping out underneath a bridge together. Pirate made a fire and cooked up some macaroni. Good times. End of day three!
The next morning we spent a couple hours trying to catch a ride... not fun. It rained on us, then hailed on us, then the sun swept in and dried us off... all in about 30 minutes. Saskatchewan has retarded weather.
Ride #10: We ended up hiking up the road quite a ways before finally catching a ride with a CN railworker (he's a conductor, he drives trains) on his way home from work. His name was Kevin and he took us to Moose Jaw... where, for the third time in a row, we were dropped at a Wal-Mart and we ate McDonald's. We even ordered the same thing.
Ride #11: Outside Moose Jaw around 2:00 in the afternoon, we pretty much instantly hitched a ride to Regina with a friendly man named Darren. He bought us Booster Juice and told us about his job-- he works with an organization that gives loans to farmers. He was quite likeable. When he dropped us outside Regina, we passed Ryan for the third time.
Then, we were at the side of the road for the next two hours.
Ride #12: Was from a guy named Al who told us he was going to Winnipeg. Great! Hop in. He actually ended up stopping at a truck stop for the night just past the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and didn't offer to let us sleep in the truck with him, so we went to the highwayside to hitch.
Ride #13: It took a while but eventually a young man pulled over for us. His name was Mike. He told us he could get us to Brandon but that was it, because the other night he had his car broken into and all his money was stolen, and he had no gas left. We ended up spotting him something like $160 in gas money to get us all the way to Sault Ste Marie (which means he took us across all of Manitoba and a large part of Ontario). It was Pirate's idea, I didn't like it, it was a big drain of money. But Mike was fun and the kind of person we'd be friends with anyways, and it got us pretty far.
Random Story: In the car with Mike in the last stretch of Ontario, it was night and Pirate and I were both asleep. Suddenly, I hear Mike shout "HOLY SHIT!" and I sit up, but all I can see is that we're spinning around madly. I had no idea what was happening. But then we stopped... after doing a perfect 360. A moose was in the road. It kind of looked at us distastefully and walked off. We laughed in that, "haha, we almost died! haha..." kind of way... it was great. Then we drove off like nothin' happened.
We spent two nights sleeping in Mike's car.
Ride #14: Outside Sault Ste Marie: Rides were not forthcoming so we hiked up the road a bit. Eventually an older lady pulled over for us, her name was Alice. She took us up the road to a gas station. Woo.
At the gas station we harassed passersby for rides to Sudbury... it didn't take that long to find one.
Ride #15: Was a guy, whose name I fail to remember (ARGH NO! I FORGOT SOMETHING?) I think it's Ken. Well, Pirate and I have it written down SOMEWHERE, I just need to find it. Anyways: He took us to Sudbury and liked awful nu-rock/nu-metal. And hip-hop. But he did show us this decent rapper from Nova Scotia who did a rap about hitchhiking. Cool, yes?
Sudbury, we went to a McDonald's, but it wasn't in a Wal-Mart and it wasn't on the edge of town. I asked PiPi to get me a sandwich but he got me a gross chicken burger, I was sad. He was all, McDonald's doesn't SERVE sandwiches! And I was all, dude, look on the menu, it has its own section! TOASTED DELI SANDWICHES? And he was all, oh, sorry. Moral of the story, he doesn't get to order for me anymore. Then we walked to the highway.
Luck getting out of Sudbury was looking very bad. But after long waits in the cold rain, someone pulled over for us...
Ride #16: His name was Ryan and he was a grown-up punk rocker. He said the only reason he picked us up was because we were punks... score one for the patches! We talked about punk and hitchhiking and shows and bands, and he drove us up the road quite a ways. Unfortunately the rain only worsened and despite him driving far out of his way to find us a bridge or somewhere dry to stay, we found nothing. So he let us stay at his place for the night! He also became the second person to give Pirate beer. Lalalala! It was wonderful. That was the end of day six and we were excited, knowing we'd be in Toronto the next day.
The next morning he drove us up the road to a decent hitching spot and we parted ways. I must stress that Ryan was pretty awesome. Anyways, within about an hour someone picked us up.
Ride #17: The final ride, from Sudbury to Newmarket, was from a man who reminded me so much of Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys that I can hardly remember his real name. It was Glen, but seriously, it should've been Bubbles... he had thick glasses that distorted his eyes, just like Bubbles, and they had thick pink arms like tacky sunglasses. He had a cat in his truck, named Binky and he referred to it as a "kitty," not to mention his hick accent and his utter dorkiness. He was awesome. He even bought us Wendy's and gave us tickets for Toronto transit after we told him where we were going.
From New Market we caught the Viva bus to Toronto. Bubbles told us about it, took us to the station and bought us tickets... he was an awesome fellow :D And that's it, that was the trip to Toronto! Great, I'm like, 1/3 done.
And then came...
The next two weeks would be spent in Ontario. We rolled into Toronto in the afternoon... it took two busses, a subway and a lot of walking to get to Alexis (Pirate's sister)'s apartment. Actually, when we first got there it turned out she wouldn't be off work for two or three hours so we had to bum around the city. We were sweating with our huge backpacks and the warm Toronto weather... and then go figure, we stumbled upon a pile of snow in the middle of a park. We were like, what the fuck? But don't look a gift horse in the teeth-- we dived in of course.
So we wandered around a bit, I got cleaned up and changed in a Starbucks bathroom and used one of my many, many Starbucks cards to get us nice cold drinks. I KNEW they'd come in handy! Har. Anyways. We went into a book store to pet a kitty... it was just like Felix. :( It even had a red collar with a bell on it.
So we finally went to Alexis', met her gay roommates & their boyfriends, showered, laundered, watched TV and passed the fuck out. The next day we explored Queen St. West, up to Bathurst. Unfortunately late the day before it had started to rain and it carried over to the current day... so walking around wasn't as fun as it should've been. Afterwards we came home and sewed until Alexis got back. Blah blah blah... next day.
Uhh, the next day wasn't much better, as I recall. I can't even remember what we did during the day. Oh yeah, we went to Church St, then Yonge St. And then met up with Alexis and went to some bar for dinner... then our short attention spans kicked in and we made her show us her office and buy us beer. Well, buy Pirate beer, since I don't drink beer. I had my own supply of intoxicant. So we tried to find the beach and get drunk together... we never really got to the beach but we had a good time! Haha, then we came home and passed out.
The next day I think we stayed in? Maybe that was the day we went to Kensington Market. Kensington Market is pretty cool, it's very hippie-tastic, even more than Commercial Drive. You feel instantly at home, very comfortable. There's a lot of vintage clothing stores there for ridiculous prices, so you know there's gonna be scene kids, too. I mostly ignored them.
Then I think we decided Toronto was a huge bore and the only event we found happening in the city any time soon wasn't until the next week on Friday, my birthday. So we said, fuck this, let's go meet Pirate's supposedly hardcore punk cousin Jesse in Windsor.
Well, that involved more hitchhiking. The next day we made it out of Toronto (laboriously, really) by about 5:00. Our first ride was a guy named Vance or something, hell, I don't remember. He drove us a pretty short way, but we were grateful because we were having awful luck. Sadly, where he dropped us we had even WORSE luck... we were outside Oakville, the richest town in Canada. ... yyyeah. Everyone driving by was an ASSHOLE. We had one guy slow down and pull over slightly as he drove by to give us the finger. How fuckin' ridiculous is that? I hope he gets hit by 400 semi trucks simultaneously, AND a piano.
Anyways, we got tired of not getting a ride, so we used our anger to fuel a walk all the way to and through the next town, Burlington. The #5 highway we were on ended around there, I think, so we couldn't hike any further really. This is also when we discovered that the map we were using was from 1973... the 407 expressway wasn't even on it, we were so confused.
We were having AWFUL luck because we had to stick to the backloads as it's illegal to hitchhike on any 400-series highway. Hours and hours later, we got our second ride from an enthusiastic man named David. Or I think it was David. Anyways, he took us... somewhere between Burlington and London, past Hamilton... dunno exactly where. Anyways, that was good. We walked up the road, decided to take our chances on the 400 because our night was sucking so much, and sat down under a streetlamp on the highway.
We got a ride not too long after from a guy whose name truly escapes me. He had punk rock playing in his car, though! He only took us a little ways, to just outside of London, where we set up with the hitching again. A pair of older men pulled over for us and drove us up the road all of 20 meters, but we appreciated the sentiment. They were headed to a recovered addict's convention in London.
Sitting on the side of the 400, I was wrapped up in a blanket and playing sudoku when, just our god-awful luck, the cops showed up... FOUR of them. The OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) are extremely evil and overbearing. They'll ticket you for going 106 in a 90 zone. PFFT. Anyways. So, four pigs roll up, get out and begin to extract brutal pleasure from harassing us. We played dumb about it but they still took the shit out of us.
They wasted about half an hour of our time, getting our names and birthdays, then getting our REAL names and birthdays, then forcing me to call my mom and prove I wasn't a runaway, then confiscating my pepperspray (ughhhhh, it's SO not illegal, those shitfaces), then searching our bags. And somehow, through all of this, they missed the two gigantic machetes strapped to the back of our backpacks nearly in plain sight and our large pouch of illicit drugs. Then they told us, no, we won't give you a ride, no, we won't give you money (we didn't even ask: they're just assholes), and told us to go to a Tim Horton's down the road. They were threatening to chuck us in the pen overnight because I was carrying an "illegal weapon." What a bunch of shitlicking, incompetent assholes.
ANNNYWAYS. We went to Timmy Ho's, met some ex-heroin addict in town for the convention and he talked at us for about 3 hours. Then we left to get directions from a guy at a gas station. His name was Matt and he gave us a box of free donuts and free hot chocolates, and let us look at the maps in there without paying for one... he was awesome.
While we were in there this man came in and started talking to us. He said I looked like a psychedelic Snuffleupagus because I was wearing my rainbow blanket over top of my huge backpack. We walked out with him, still talking, and shared some good stories. He gave us some weed, too, he was a nice fellow. He told us we could probably get free breakfast at the hotel he was staying at, but we just wanted to get the hell out of that hole of a town now the sun was rising. We walked maybe 1/3 of the way up a road called Wellington Rd, trying to get to a highway we could LEGALLY hitch on. We passed out on the roadside miserably trying to hitch a ride.
Maybe 10 minutes later I stood up angrily, proclaiming we might as well walk because we'd never get a ride where we were... and seconds after that proclamation, a minivan pulled over just to prove me wrong. The man in it was probably named Lance or something stupid like that. James? I dunno. I cannot remember. But I do know as soon as we got out I found a rock and it broke in half in my hands and had a little fossil inside it! I kept it 'cause that's cool. Then I got into Pirate's sleeping bag and passed out on the roadside.
I was woken up an hour and a bit later. A couple had pulled over for us. They're one of my favorite rides out of the lot... Leanne and Rick. Leanne is this loudmouthed, lovable bitch type and her boyfriend is this skinny, enduring tough guy who you wouldn't expect to be put in his place by a woman, but he is. Leanne is the driver. Anyways, they were just cruising around in their new truck looking for garage sales, but they like us and end up sharing their booze with us and taking us out of their way, all the way to Chatham! Yay! They invited us to go camping with them in late June, up north of Sault Ste Marie. Hellz yeah!
So, in Chatham we call Pirate's older cousin Tina and she brings the fam round to pick us up and take us back to their place, where we stay a couple days. Man, they own a 3-storey house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, a huge front and back yard, a large shed and an awesome pool. They pay... *drumroll* $500 a month. Can you believe it?!
Anyways... we stayed there for two or three days? Then we got a ride from her husband (boyfriend?) Mike out to Windsor, where Pirate's Aunt Elaine picks us up and takes us to see Pirate's grandma who's fresh out of the hospital. Family socializing ensues, then Elaine takes us back to her place and tells us we can have it all to ourselves for the night. Pirate fixed her internet for her and all was well. She had two cockatiels. Between that, and Tina's daughter having a white bunny and a marsh turtle, it was a real trip down memory lane in regards to my old pets... oh yeah, Tina's family had this awesome Persian cat named Fritz, too. He was really, really sweet and soft and cuddly. I loved him.
Anyways, so yeah. Aunt Elaine took us to Jesse's apartment to meet him. The supposed punk cousin turned out to be an indie/hardcore/nerd kid. Yeeep. And furthermore, it turns out that by staying at Tina's like we did, we missed the Casualties playing a bar show in Windsor. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH.
Jesse showed us around town. Do you want to go to Windsor? I'll save you the trouble, it's a HOLE. It's right across the water from Detroit though, and Detroit is cooool. The river that separates them is a bright, beautiful blue, nothing like the Fraser. Pff.
Jesse took us to meet some of his hippie friends, who were awesome. We smoked weed on their roof and they gave us fries and carrot cake! Yep. Umm... we hung there for a couple hours, split up with Jesse and went downtown. I went back to a music store Jesse showed us and bought myself two $10 punk CD's... a Propaghandi CD (not really worth it) and a Guttermouth CD (TOTALLY worth it <3).
Then we called Aunt Elaine and she took us back to her house, stopping to buy us some booze & supplies on the way. Then we had a house to ourselves, got really drunk and had wild monkey sex. For the next three days, I think about four people commented on Pirate's hickeys. Mwahahaha.
The next day we saw Pirate's grandma again, spent the day at her house and had dinner there before her husband Jerry gave us a ride to a truck stop at the edge of town. We sat there for maybe 45 minutes with a sign that said "TORONTO OR BUST!" before a fellow named... James??? Invited us into his car and said he could take us all the way to Toronto!
The whole way there he was wonderful, intelligent conversation. He told us an awesome story about his one and only acid trip. He was drinking at a bar with some friends and a random guy tried to unload some acid on him. He said he didn't really want any, but bought one tab for himself and one for both of his friends. They all took 'em. He gets really uncomfortably high, not knowing what to expect and has a horrible bad trip. His friends go to a party but he doesn't think he can get there with how high he is. He goes to the hospital and gets a shot and goes home to crash. Neither of his friends bad trip but he still decides he's never going to do acid again as long as he lives.
A year later, he returns to the same bar. He runs into the guy who sold him the tab! He takes him aside and says, "What the hell was that shit you gave me? I had the worst night of my life! I only had one tab! Why didn't my friends have any problems?"
The guy was like, "Cuz I put like 6 of 'em into your beer!"
Rimshot please. Anyways, I loved that story. Then he said to us, if you have any acid on you, throw it out the door right now! So we didn't tell him about the two tabs of it we had on us, natch.
We rolled into Toronto around 11:00, maybe 12:00? He took us out of his way to a subway station and we took the subway to Alexis' house. Well, rather, to Queen St and walked to her house. Unfortunately she wasn't answering her phone and we didn't want to knock and wake them up, so we went and camped out on their back porch. We met this raccoon that's apparently been plaguing them for a while. Once it broke in and trashed their apartment and pooped on the floor. Alexis resents it pretty strongly, but I thought it was cute and mangy and in need of some love. Except it kept trying to harass us so Pirate chased it off with a machete.
The next morning Alexis came out back to have a smoke, only to find us! She let us in and we gladly spent the day bumming around their house, watching Judge Judy. Judge Judy rocks. Anyways.
The day after that was the day of the ska show I wanted to go to. It was also my birthday! So we got drunk and went to the ska show. Yep. Except the venue was god awful... unless you were 19 with ID, you weren't allowed to leave & re-enter the venue... that pissed me off IMMENSELY, among other things. 50c for a friggin' cup of water. You can drink it from the taps for free, hel-LO?
After the first band Pirate wanted to leave because it was almost entirely preps despite being a punk venue and a ska show... and he doesn't like ska as much as me, either. I was having a shitty birthday and in a shitty mood so I agreed, there was $20 down the drain. I kinda regret leaving early now. But oh well. We went to a pizza place and ate pizza and fries and played sudoku instead. Seriously, for like two hours. *nerd*
The day after that we spent muddling around the house with the intent of tripping acid at the beach that night. Which we did. In fact we ended up candyflipping. The acid was extremely fun, although I felt like I was underwater when I was clearly not, which got confusing. The candyflip wasn't fun. Also I didn't get to sleep for about 20 hours and the next 20 hours were hell. While in the last half of our candyflip we freaked the hell out and decided to come home to Vancouver right away, skipping half the trip and an assload of plans we'd made. So, on Monday afternoon, we finished taking care of everything and got the hell out of Toronto.
Things we missed by coming home early:
-Going to Montreal
-Going to Niagara Falls and throwing the One Ring in it
-Camping with Leanne and Rick
-Partying with Ryan the Hitchhiker, who just got into town as we left :(
So yeah, it was kind of stupid, but... drugs make you kind of stupid. I really regret it now, but... it's still nice to be home. And so ends the actual visiting part of my trip. 2/3, yaaay.
And then there was...
I'll probably forget lots of this one. See, on the trip there I was making a conscious effort to remember names and things that happened, on the way back I was more focused on being in Vancouver ASAP. So I'll forget more names this time. Also, the trip there I was keeping a journal, though it soon fell out of record once we got to Toronto. So the trip there is a lot easier to recall.
Getting home took... 8 days? And we took a different route than we did to get there.
So, we started out Monday afternoon, bussed to city limits and hitchhiked out of the city. It took us many hours to get our first ride and it was extremely disheartening. Eventually a man whose name I can't remember took us to a gas station outside of town. Yay, we thought. We have had such good luck at gas stations, things will surely look up from here!
Wrong, we didn't find a ride until nightfall, hours and hours later. During that time we had left and come back to the gas station about twice and tried hitching on three different highways in the area with no success. Thoroughly disheartened we wrapped up in our blankets and sat by the Husky's door. Pirate solicited each passerby for a ride west, with no takers.
Finally, after the sun set we got our second ride, a nice lady named Colleen. She was a teacher who was in the process of moving to Barrie. So... she took us to outside of Barrie. By then it was pitch black, which is bad for hitching, so we tried to figure out which way we should be going and then find a streetlamp.
Unfortunately we got turned around, walked about a kilometer down the wrong road and spent the night on the side of a crappy back road in our sleeping bags in the gravel. I kept waking up, practically vibrating I was shivering so hard. Dew gathered on the outside of our bags to make us even colder. I thought we might die.
But thankfully morning eventually rolled around and we tiredly hiked back up the road to where we'd been dropped the other night. We took a new direction, onto the 11 highway to Orillia, and hitched there for awhile.
Pirate was fast asleep on the side of the road when our third ride finally showed up an hour later. I kicked him in the head to wake him up. The guy's name was Lee and he was a grown-up punk rocker. He knew who Choking Victim was, and told us how he used to be in a band called Captain Communist and the Red Avengers and once he played with Leftover Crack at the Kathedral in Toronto. Wow! He also told us, as he was dropping us in Orillia, that on Thursday (it was Tuesday) he was going to drive to Victoria and if he saw us along the way he'd pick us up and we'd get a ride all the way through to Vancouver.
In Orillia we stopped in a Wal-Mart to eat McDonald's, then went to hitch on the highway out of town. We didn't get any rides for the next two hours, and we hiked quite a ways out of town in the blistering heat before we did.
Finally, a woman named April pulled up for us. She told us about working for a temp agency (Pirate could relate) and whipped out a J to share with us. Obviously a cool lady. She also drove us up the highway a bit past her turn-off out of the kindness of her heart. She dropped us in a place called Waubaushene at a gas station.
The gas station was totally dead and we knew we'd have no luck there, but we bought some cold drinks and got directions. Just our luck, as it turned out... there was absolutely no way to get to Sudbury (the next major city) without hitching on a 400-series highway.
Well, we managed to dance around a loophole by hitching at the on-ramp-- that's legal. It took quite some time before a man whose name also escapes me picked us up and took us to a rest stop of sorts a couple hours up the road. I have no idea where it was, but we got Wendy's and decided to hitch at the gas station there.
It took until the sun was about to set, but Pirate managed to convince this one lady to take us to Sudbury with her... she was moving, in a moving truck, and there was only one seat so I got to sit on the floor. Still, we were so overjoyed to finally get to Sudbury that nothing else mattered.
Outside Sudbury, sun setting and night approaching fast, the blackflies made an ominous appearance... the first of many. We huddled roadside, trying to cover every inch of skin with limited success. Eventually a man pulled over for us and took us to the highway turn-off to Sault Ste Marie, our next major stop. He didn't take us that far, but it was extremely helpful. That made him our... seventh ride on the way back.
Then, as it got dark, a young man pulled over for us. He was on his way home to Espanola and kind of had awful taste in music, but we were grateful for the ride because the blackflies in Ontario are seriously out of hand. I'm still healing from all the damned bites.
In Espanola we hitched from a gas station after stopping in a Tim Horton's for delicious hot chocolate. It didn't take too long to catch a ride with a kind nurse, Patrice, and her elderly mother Rose... to Sault Ste Marie! Patrice was very awesome, she made good conversation, let us sleep and gave us food and money when she dropped us off (and her pack of smokes, bless 'er heart). She also said if we ever went back to Toronto, where she lives, we could stay on her sailboat and gave us her contact information. Tres awesome, yes?
In Sault Ste Marie we hit a catch. We arrived at that particular Husky/truck stop around 1:00 AM and were there until 10:00 or so the next morning. First we slept on a bench outside, then inside the Husky 24-hour restaurant when we got too cold. We had some delicious Husky fries also. I became quite fond of Husky truck stops on this trip.
The waitress let us sleep in the Husky but sent us packing at sunrise, anticipating lots of business from truckers and travelers alike. We went outside to lay around in a heap and try and hitch a ride with our sign that said "Thunder Bay" on it.
It took quite a while from there, but eventually an old fat couple brought us into their truck and took us to just outside Marathon, a two or three hour ride. We stopped in Wawa to appreciate the irony and the couple gave us ham and cheese sandwiches and some pop.
Random Note: Wawa is like hitchhiker hell. We've had at least three different hitchers warn us about it, or tell us horror stories. Mike, one of our drivers on the trip to Toronto, told us about how he got stuck there for three days once and had to sleep under the giant goose statue to keep dry in the pouring rain. Giant goose statue, you ask? Wawa is home to Canada's largest goose statue. Two, actually. No one really knows why.
After that we were dropped at a place called the Hilltop Cafe just outside Marathon. Their fries suck. So does hitching there. We wandered around in the heat and blackflies for about three or four hours, asking everybody who passed through (which wasn't that many people honestly) if they could take us to Thunder Bay. Eventually we found a fellow who could, a friendly trucker named James (or something like that :S). He took us all le way to Thunder Bay. He was our eleventh ride and when we arrived in Thunder Bay it was the end of our third day. I left my hat in his truck and shall never see it again :(
We camped out outside another Husky restaurant with no luck soliciting a ride. A random dude did come up to us and give us $30, though. And the gas station attendant, who came outside to smoke a cigarette every half hour or so, gave us half a J once. Good times. We had delicious crinkle-cut fries there as well.
The next morning the attendant's shift ended, a new one came on and the asshole kicked us out. So we walked out onto the highway and found a spot to hitch. There was a post there and it'd been marked by previous hitchers coming from Quebec to BC. They noted as we had upon the assholery of people in Thunder Bay with tags like "Thunder Bay is full of assholes" and "T-Bay: The Asshole of Canada". It was kind of cheering to see other people had suffered our plight as well.
Eventually, maybe an hour into our morning, a couple with three dogs pulled over for us and took us up the highway to where the Trans-Can met with some other highway. On the side of the highway here it didn't take too long to get a ride an hour up the road. Of course then we were in the middle of nowhere with blackflies eating us alive, and suddenly the sun split through the overcast morning to cook us for them. Great.
An hour of misery, and then someone pulled over for us. It was a man who told us he was going to Dryden, which we'd been warned to avoid because it was awful for hitching by hitchhiker Ryan. Throwing caution to the wind we got in his vehicle anyways. He took us to, and through Dryden to a place called Vermillion Bay. Also, I lost my knife in his truck, which sucks ass because I only got that knife like a week before, and it was a super sweet knife. $30 at an army surplus store... $4 at a garage sale Leanne & Rick took us to. :(
It had started to rain when we got into Dryden, so the man bought us an umbrella. Kind of him. But it didn't stop us from getting wet as we waited for hours and hours in the middle of nowheresville. Hiking down the road we found a restaurant and went in to have fries like the drown rats we were.
Then it was back outside to hitch in the rain. I can only say one good thing about the rain opposed to the blistering sun (well, aside from the fact I prefer being cold to hot) is that there were no flies.
Finally, as it grew dark outside, a man named Henry (I think :() pulled over for me. Pirate was back in that restaurant getting more fries and had to rush out. But he did get us fries. Anyways, Henry took us to Winnipeg! THANK GOD. It felt so HEAVENLY to be escaping Ontario, which is truly hell if you ask me.
When we rolled into Winnipeg he offered to put us up at a hotel because he owns a company which has a deal with Best Western or something, and it's cheap for him. Pirate STUPIDLY declined, relegating us to a night of misery on the side of a highway outside Winnipeg. The reason? "adurr that Lee guy might come through and I don't want to miss him!" Fuck. You know what? We were freezing and miserable ALL night because of his bad decision. Also, we never ever ran into Lee again.
The next morning someone finally pulled over for us. All I really remember is they had a 4x4 and the driver was male. I slept most of the ride. He took us to, um, uh... wow this part is so HAZY in my memory. I'm remembering it took us three rides to get to Brandon but I don't remember the towns in between. Anyways, we were SOMEWHERE and we went to McDonald's for breakfast, then hit the highway again. Not too long after a guy pulled over and drove us to a gas station a couple km up the road. We bought chips and coke and headed on our merry way.
Next an enthusiastic lady picked us up and took us to Brandon. She was very chipper. And pretty. She told us she was headed to a family wedding in Brandon. I can't remember her name, though.
We rolled into Brandon in the afternoon. It was sunny and lovely but not quite unbearably hot. Pirate passed out on the roadside and I hitched for a while, but with no luck. We switched it up and I fell asleep for who knows how long. Perhaps two or three hours after the drop, someone pulls over.
The guy in the car is this drunk-ass native guy with an arm in a cast and a blind eye, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and shorts. His clothes are in the back seat soaking wet for whatever reason. There are two 30-cases of Budweiser in the back seat, one is empty and one is getting there. He tells us to get in. I had one of those bad gut feelings you hear about, but Pirate didn't even question it.
After we got in, the guy looks at Pirate and mumble-slurs out, "Can you drive?" Pirate doesn't have his license yet and he told him so. The guy's response is "Ah, it's not that hard." Then he gets out of the driver's seat. So next thing I know we're cruisin' down the highway in Manitoba with my boyfriend behind the wheel, veering off to the right every so often. The native dude is knocking back beers two at a time and I'm extremely uncomfortable but whatever, things could be worse, right?
Damn right they could, AND they get there. We start running low on gas, so Pirate decides to pull into the next gas station he sees, which happens to be in a town called Virden. When he does, the native dude gives him three bucks. Three bucks. Pirate donates his last dollar to the pile and gives it to the gas station attendant.
So basically we didn't get almost any gas, but that's all we had. We continue on, the fuel tank still pretty close to empty. Things are alright, though. Then suddenly the guy demands we turn off the Trans-Can onto highway 83, he says we should go to Yorkton where he can get some gas money and then he'll take us to Regina. "Right on!" says Pirate, but I'm freaking the hell out because leaving the Trans-Can is a baaaad idea.
About 36 miles up the road we get into a town called Birtle and we're basically out of gas. The native guy is drunker than ever and Pirate finally realized what I had been trying to tell him- Yorkton's not "just up the road", it's THREE HOURS AWAY. So we tell the guy we'll go to the gas station and try to get some help, then we bail to the highway and hitch back to the Trans-Can.
Two rides here, a short one from a cowboy and one all the way back to the Trans-Can. The ironic part of the story? The ride we got back was from a car full of drunk ass natives. They got Pirate drunk and told us we should come back to the reserve with them to party. We politely declined, wanting nothing more than to be home.
So, we're back on the side of the Trans-Can, mid-afternoon. The Birtle escapade took all of 20 minutes, and we're relieved. And maybe 20 minutes later, a trucker slams on the brakes to pull over for us and take us to Lethbridge! Thank god.
Note: Lethbridge is the town Pirate grew up in. Initially we were planning on stopping there, but it got jostled from our plans... so, it was good luck for Pirate that we ended up getting dropped there anyways!
We roll into Lethbridge at 1 am and he drops us off at a Tim Horton's. There we sit and play hangman on napkins for a few hours. Finally, around 5:00 the sun starts to slowly rise... it's kind of that pre-dawn grey outside. We decide it's time to go check out Lethbridge.
We walked around town and eventually ended up at his old house, which is huge and very pretty. We walked around it and took pictures, yada yada yada... then we headed up the street to his old elementary school, which has an absolutely epic playground... I'll show y'all pics later. We played on it for about an hour or so. By the time we were done the sun was in the sky.
After that we went to the library because Pirate thought he might be able to run into some old friends there... fat chance, I told him, and I was right: no sign of anyone. He was very disappointed and wanted to leave Lethbridge. I was surprised that he didn't want to stay longer but said okay.
On our way out of town a guy stopped us and told us about a place called the shelter that would give us free lunch if we got there within the next half hour... sweet! So off to the shelter we go. It's a homeless shelter and soup kitchen combo.
Standing in the lunch line we meet two of the volunteers, who are "alternative kids" and are totally excited to be meeting some punks. They told me their names, Kate and Sean, and promised to help us out. In the end, after we had our tasty free meals, we helped them clean up and they called all of their friends looking for someone who would lend a car to them.
They even took us back to their apartment, letting us use their shower and their laundry machines. Their roommate totally blazed us up, too. It was absolutely beautiful. They gave us a bunch of CDs and Kate gave me some fabric.
They eventually found someone who would lend them a car and drove us out of Lethbridge and just across the BC border through the Crow's Nest Pass... about a three hour drive I think. We were extremely grateful... and those are two people I know I'll be seeing again.
Random Interesting Facts About Kate & Sean!:
They're in their early 20's, happily married, devout Christians, yet somehow not preachy or condescending at all. They also organize punk shows at a church/venue called the Gate in Lethbridge, the Punk After School Special (Punk ASS), every Tuesday after school. The shows are free and all ages! Pirate wants to go there and play a show in September.
Anyways, after they dropped us off we hitched a ride not too much later with a man headed to Sparwood, not that far up the highway. Outside Sparwood we caught a ride with a trucker whose cab was packed full of snacks and drinks ("you gotta be prepared"). He took us to outside Cranbrook.
Unfortunately, around the time we were dropped, the sun set, meaning we became almost invisible to those driving by. Also, we heard moose or elk scuffling around in the wilderness around us and making scary noises, and it freaked us out, for realz. It took us like an hour or two to get picked up, and when someone finally did it was a fellow with a very nice car whose name escapes me. I feel kinda guilty actually, considering how nice he was to us!
He took us all the way to his home in Trail and let us spend the night in his spare room, in a nice comfy bed. By the time we got there it was late at night, I hadn't had proper sleep in a couple days and I passed the fuck out. Apparently he had a cat but it was somewhat feral and I never got a chance to meet it.
The next morning when we got up there were three big bowls of fruit in his living room which Pirate and I devoured greedily... then he said we could have English muffins, so we went to get some. Pirate made me eggs to put on mine. And after that he gave us cereal and fruit snacks! This guy seriously rocked. He also blazed us up a couple J's and took us up the highway further to some lake, though I don't remember it's name, blazed us up one last time and dropped us... Okay, I don't really know where he dropped us.
From there, we got picked up by a guy heading to Christina Lake in the oldest vehicle of the trip... it was about 40 years old. It was pretty awesome, though. Tragically, Pirate left his leather jacket in the back of this guy's truck... lost forever, on our second-to-last ride home :(
I don't really remember that part so well. I do remember that the sun was blazing out because we were in BC's desert. Later, we would even pass through the hottest town in Canada! So anyways. I threw down Pirate's sleeping bag under a tree in someone's lawn and passed the fuck out. I can't take the heat, you see. He thumbed for the next hour or so. Some nice couple who passed us on their way home came back with cold water for us!
Then this lady pulls over, and you know where she's going...? SURREY! Sweet, sweet Vancouver. So we get in and the rest of the trip is smooth sailing. I remember passing through Osoyoos, reportedly the hottest town in Canada, and it was friggin' 40 degrees out. NUTS.
I passed out long before we ever got to Princeton (the heat REALLY gets to me) and when I woke up hours later we were in Surrey. I can tell you right now I've never been so happy to be in Surrey in my life. From there it was a short celebratory skytrain ride and bus ride home. Adurr.
Aaand that was my trip? Eventually I'll probably post more crap, like photos and anecdotes and, if it ever flies, a recording of Pirate and I telling stories about the trip.
Til then: THANK GOD I'M FINALLY DONE! I swear I got carpal tunnel syndrome while trying to do this in one shot. I fell asleep, 2/3 done with aching wrists.
... And that was my trip.
Hey journal, it's been a while, eh? Sorry about that. It's not that things weren't happening... I just didn't feel like typing them up. It's quite the hassle. But now, I really want to archive my trip to Toronto, so I'm going to attempt to catch up in regards to that. It's gonna take a long time...
At the start of May, my boyfriend and I set out for Toronto. It was to be a cross-country hitchhiking trip aaand... it was wicked.
Well, my boyfriend did a pretty good type up of this in his own journal, but let's see if I can do better.
17 rides, 7 days, lots of memories.
Ride #1: Mission to Dewdney, from a fellow named Jimmy. He liked Dashboard Confessional (cue gags), but you know, to each their own. He was our first ride and showed up within about five minutes of us getting there... very good luck! The whole trip there was to be dotted with good luck.
Dewdney was bad luck, though. We ended up not getting a ride for maybe 30-60 minutes and we decided to hike up the highway a bit. This is where I first learned an important hitchhiking lesson: The hitching is fun, the hiking... not so much. Anyways, we were going towards this truck stop supposedly a few miles up the road when we passed a junction of two highways. A few vehicles were stopped there at a light. I stared pitifully in the window of one at a woman in her 40's, then quickly looked away.
Ride #2: My pitiful look must've been pretty believable (not that I wasn't feeling pitiful, but...) because she pulled over for us a minute later. She took us a little past Lake Erock and her name was Trudy. She was a Christian, but thankfully not one of the scary ones.
Waiting on the side of the road in, as Pirate would call it, "buttfuck nowhere" we spent an hour or two in the sun being pestered by flies. I guess they thought we were roadkill? Because they weren't biting flies or bloodsucking flies but they kept landing on us. Anyways. They were really annoying. Pirate helped me patch the knee of my jeans because there was a huge rip, and it was getting bigger and more of a problem by the hour.
Ride #3: Finally, someone came to our rescue. He was an extremely old man who asked us to call him Old Dave. I told him I was from Tumbler Ridge and he told me he helped to build the conveyor out there back in 1984... so I met one of the guys who helped to found my hometown. Neat, yes?
He told us initially he was only taking us a short way, but ended up changing his mind and taking us much farther to a roadside cafe. There, as luck would have it, was his friend Cam, a younger man who was a film maker.
Ride #4: Cafe - Hitching Post, we'll call it. We asked Cam for a ride to wherever he was headed, so he took us out past Agassiz to a place where two highways met... good hitching spot. In fact, there was a post there that had "hitching post" written on it.
Ride #5: Next we were picked up by an ex-DnD playing furry-trucker, who owned his own fully animatronic wolf suit. He told us the name of his fursona, but I only remember that the first part was Coda. His real name was Rob and he was very awesome. He took us to Hope and gave us the rest of his cigarettes. I forgot my pepperspray in his truck, though.
Random Note: This is when I first learned that truckers truly ride in style... trucker cabs are awesomely comfy. They have air-cushioned seats that can be adjusted higher and lower at will... I could go so high that my feet didn't touch the ground! Behind the two seats there's a curtain, and behind the curtain is a bed! Sometimes a bunk bed! They have a mini-fridge, too. Trucker cabs are AWESOME.
Ahem, anyways. Rob dropped us outside Hope and we decided to walk into the town and find a ride. This was a crappy idea in retrospect, but whatever, we were noobs at the time. Walking into hope we encountered a trucker pulled over on the side of the road. Pirate went to ask directions, and we ended up landing a ride... to Calgary!
Ride #6: Hope to Calgary. Our trucker Ron was a supremely awesome guy, fun to talk to and very personable. He gave us a 13-hour ride, let us sleep in his truck and was our tour guide of BC as we drove through, pointing out all items of interest. We went up through Roger's Pass and at the highest point of the mountain (it was so high that despite the warm May weather, there was snow and it was freezing cold) he pulled over and let us go outside and look at the stars. They were bigger, clearer and more plentiful than I've ever seen in my life. We smoked a bit of weed and got back into the truck. That was basically the end of day one.
The next morning he dropped us on the highway outside of Calgary... he actually drove out there for us, he had no business going there. Kind fellow. He gave us his number incase we're ever hitching in the area again. Very awesome. Outside Calgary we ran into our first other hitchhiker, who we would run into again later.
Hitching sucked there. We ended up having to hike up the road a good long ways in the heat and I was very miserable. Maybe three hours after Ron dropped us off, someone finally pulled over for us.
Ride #7: Pirate was actually down the road refilling our water bottles when a man named Alfred pulled over for us. Thankfully, Pirate got back just in time and we climbed in. Alfred was an oil worker (we ended up meeting quite a few). He took us from Calgary to Brooks.
Waiting outside Brooks was extremely lame. We met another hitchhiker named Mark who gave Pirate a beer before going on his merry way. A lot of people on this trip ended up giving Pirate beer. Anyways, three hours of misery later, a man named Dave pulled over.
Ride #8: Dave gave us a ride from Brooks to Medicine Hat. I just listened to my discman for most of the ride so I don't know much about him, but he did have a radar detector and scrambler, and drove 130 kmph the whole way home. This was impressive to Pirate.
In Medicine Hat we went to Wal-Mart, which had a McDonald's and I had fries. Yum. The manager there recognized us as hitchhikers and gave us cardboard for a sign, plus free ice cream! Awesome. So yeah, sun was setting as we left Medicine Hat, and with no luck for the next 30 minutes we decided just to make camp. We found a tree and some bushes which sheltered us from view and pitched our tent. This marked the end of day two.
We spent most of the next morning and a large part of the afternoon on the side of the highway (we hiked up one hour into the day because the spot we were in sucked). The sun was beating down mercilessly, I shit you not. There's absolutely no shelter in the prairies, except passing clouds... and then they pass by and you're baking again. Pirate got MAD sunburn and we were pretty much passing out of heatstroke on the side of the road when someone finally stopped for us.
Ride #9: Didn't come for a very long time... when it did, it was a government worker (wouldn't tell us his exact position) named Cam, who was going to Swift Current. He was all like, "If you guys have any drugs on you, you have to tell me right now, because I can't give you a ride if you do." Naturally we said no.
So we spent about three hours in his car, in which time we entered Saskatchewan and I saw a whole rainbow, like, an entire arc, arcing over the road actually, with no clouds in the way, for the first time in my life. It was amazing. Anyways, he played awful 90's music (yay!) and then awful gospel/country music (not yay) for us. And when we got to Swift Current he dropped us off at Wal-Mart (where we ate McDonald's) and gave us $75.00! Cam is a cool dude. (Cam #2 actually.)
Swift Current, luck was bad. We didn't manage to get a ride before it got dark, but we did run into the first hitchhiker we saw outside Calgary. We shared anecdotes and names... he's Ryan. Turns out he was headed to Toronto from Vancouver as well! We ended up camping out underneath a bridge together. Pirate made a fire and cooked up some macaroni. Good times. End of day three!
The next morning we spent a couple hours trying to catch a ride... not fun. It rained on us, then hailed on us, then the sun swept in and dried us off... all in about 30 minutes. Saskatchewan has retarded weather.
Ride #10: We ended up hiking up the road quite a ways before finally catching a ride with a CN railworker (he's a conductor, he drives trains) on his way home from work. His name was Kevin and he took us to Moose Jaw... where, for the third time in a row, we were dropped at a Wal-Mart and we ate McDonald's. We even ordered the same thing.
Ride #11: Outside Moose Jaw around 2:00 in the afternoon, we pretty much instantly hitched a ride to Regina with a friendly man named Darren. He bought us Booster Juice and told us about his job-- he works with an organization that gives loans to farmers. He was quite likeable. When he dropped us outside Regina, we passed Ryan for the third time.
Then, we were at the side of the road for the next two hours.
Ride #12: Was from a guy named Al who told us he was going to Winnipeg. Great! Hop in. He actually ended up stopping at a truck stop for the night just past the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and didn't offer to let us sleep in the truck with him, so we went to the highwayside to hitch.
Ride #13: It took a while but eventually a young man pulled over for us. His name was Mike. He told us he could get us to Brandon but that was it, because the other night he had his car broken into and all his money was stolen, and he had no gas left. We ended up spotting him something like $160 in gas money to get us all the way to Sault Ste Marie (which means he took us across all of Manitoba and a large part of Ontario). It was Pirate's idea, I didn't like it, it was a big drain of money. But Mike was fun and the kind of person we'd be friends with anyways, and it got us pretty far.
Random Story: In the car with Mike in the last stretch of Ontario, it was night and Pirate and I were both asleep. Suddenly, I hear Mike shout "HOLY SHIT!" and I sit up, but all I can see is that we're spinning around madly. I had no idea what was happening. But then we stopped... after doing a perfect 360. A moose was in the road. It kind of looked at us distastefully and walked off. We laughed in that, "haha, we almost died! haha..." kind of way... it was great. Then we drove off like nothin' happened.
We spent two nights sleeping in Mike's car.
Ride #14: Outside Sault Ste Marie: Rides were not forthcoming so we hiked up the road a bit. Eventually an older lady pulled over for us, her name was Alice. She took us up the road to a gas station. Woo.
At the gas station we harassed passersby for rides to Sudbury... it didn't take that long to find one.
Ride #15: Was a guy, whose name I fail to remember (ARGH NO! I FORGOT SOMETHING?) I think it's Ken. Well, Pirate and I have it written down SOMEWHERE, I just need to find it. Anyways: He took us to Sudbury and liked awful nu-rock/nu-metal. And hip-hop. But he did show us this decent rapper from Nova Scotia who did a rap about hitchhiking. Cool, yes?
Sudbury, we went to a McDonald's, but it wasn't in a Wal-Mart and it wasn't on the edge of town. I asked PiPi to get me a sandwich but he got me a gross chicken burger, I was sad. He was all, McDonald's doesn't SERVE sandwiches! And I was all, dude, look on the menu, it has its own section! TOASTED DELI SANDWICHES? And he was all, oh, sorry. Moral of the story, he doesn't get to order for me anymore. Then we walked to the highway.
Luck getting out of Sudbury was looking very bad. But after long waits in the cold rain, someone pulled over for us...
Ride #16: His name was Ryan and he was a grown-up punk rocker. He said the only reason he picked us up was because we were punks... score one for the patches! We talked about punk and hitchhiking and shows and bands, and he drove us up the road quite a ways. Unfortunately the rain only worsened and despite him driving far out of his way to find us a bridge or somewhere dry to stay, we found nothing. So he let us stay at his place for the night! He also became the second person to give Pirate beer. Lalalala! It was wonderful. That was the end of day six and we were excited, knowing we'd be in Toronto the next day.
The next morning he drove us up the road to a decent hitching spot and we parted ways. I must stress that Ryan was pretty awesome. Anyways, within about an hour someone picked us up.
Ride #17: The final ride, from Sudbury to Newmarket, was from a man who reminded me so much of Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys that I can hardly remember his real name. It was Glen, but seriously, it should've been Bubbles... he had thick glasses that distorted his eyes, just like Bubbles, and they had thick pink arms like tacky sunglasses. He had a cat in his truck, named Binky and he referred to it as a "kitty," not to mention his hick accent and his utter dorkiness. He was awesome. He even bought us Wendy's and gave us tickets for Toronto transit after we told him where we were going.
From New Market we caught the Viva bus to Toronto. Bubbles told us about it, took us to the station and bought us tickets... he was an awesome fellow :D And that's it, that was the trip to Toronto! Great, I'm like, 1/3 done.
And then came...
The next two weeks would be spent in Ontario. We rolled into Toronto in the afternoon... it took two busses, a subway and a lot of walking to get to Alexis (Pirate's sister)'s apartment. Actually, when we first got there it turned out she wouldn't be off work for two or three hours so we had to bum around the city. We were sweating with our huge backpacks and the warm Toronto weather... and then go figure, we stumbled upon a pile of snow in the middle of a park. We were like, what the fuck? But don't look a gift horse in the teeth-- we dived in of course.
So we wandered around a bit, I got cleaned up and changed in a Starbucks bathroom and used one of my many, many Starbucks cards to get us nice cold drinks. I KNEW they'd come in handy! Har. Anyways. We went into a book store to pet a kitty... it was just like Felix. :( It even had a red collar with a bell on it.
So we finally went to Alexis', met her gay roommates & their boyfriends, showered, laundered, watched TV and passed the fuck out. The next day we explored Queen St. West, up to Bathurst. Unfortunately late the day before it had started to rain and it carried over to the current day... so walking around wasn't as fun as it should've been. Afterwards we came home and sewed until Alexis got back. Blah blah blah... next day.
Uhh, the next day wasn't much better, as I recall. I can't even remember what we did during the day. Oh yeah, we went to Church St, then Yonge St. And then met up with Alexis and went to some bar for dinner... then our short attention spans kicked in and we made her show us her office and buy us beer. Well, buy Pirate beer, since I don't drink beer. I had my own supply of intoxicant. So we tried to find the beach and get drunk together... we never really got to the beach but we had a good time! Haha, then we came home and passed out.
The next day I think we stayed in? Maybe that was the day we went to Kensington Market. Kensington Market is pretty cool, it's very hippie-tastic, even more than Commercial Drive. You feel instantly at home, very comfortable. There's a lot of vintage clothing stores there for ridiculous prices, so you know there's gonna be scene kids, too. I mostly ignored them.
Then I think we decided Toronto was a huge bore and the only event we found happening in the city any time soon wasn't until the next week on Friday, my birthday. So we said, fuck this, let's go meet Pirate's supposedly hardcore punk cousin Jesse in Windsor.
Well, that involved more hitchhiking. The next day we made it out of Toronto (laboriously, really) by about 5:00. Our first ride was a guy named Vance or something, hell, I don't remember. He drove us a pretty short way, but we were grateful because we were having awful luck. Sadly, where he dropped us we had even WORSE luck... we were outside Oakville, the richest town in Canada. ... yyyeah. Everyone driving by was an ASSHOLE. We had one guy slow down and pull over slightly as he drove by to give us the finger. How fuckin' ridiculous is that? I hope he gets hit by 400 semi trucks simultaneously, AND a piano.
Anyways, we got tired of not getting a ride, so we used our anger to fuel a walk all the way to and through the next town, Burlington. The #5 highway we were on ended around there, I think, so we couldn't hike any further really. This is also when we discovered that the map we were using was from 1973... the 407 expressway wasn't even on it, we were so confused.
We were having AWFUL luck because we had to stick to the backloads as it's illegal to hitchhike on any 400-series highway. Hours and hours later, we got our second ride from an enthusiastic man named David. Or I think it was David. Anyways, he took us... somewhere between Burlington and London, past Hamilton... dunno exactly where. Anyways, that was good. We walked up the road, decided to take our chances on the 400 because our night was sucking so much, and sat down under a streetlamp on the highway.
We got a ride not too long after from a guy whose name truly escapes me. He had punk rock playing in his car, though! He only took us a little ways, to just outside of London, where we set up with the hitching again. A pair of older men pulled over for us and drove us up the road all of 20 meters, but we appreciated the sentiment. They were headed to a recovered addict's convention in London.
Sitting on the side of the 400, I was wrapped up in a blanket and playing sudoku when, just our god-awful luck, the cops showed up... FOUR of them. The OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) are extremely evil and overbearing. They'll ticket you for going 106 in a 90 zone. PFFT. Anyways. So, four pigs roll up, get out and begin to extract brutal pleasure from harassing us. We played dumb about it but they still took the shit out of us.
They wasted about half an hour of our time, getting our names and birthdays, then getting our REAL names and birthdays, then forcing me to call my mom and prove I wasn't a runaway, then confiscating my pepperspray (ughhhhh, it's SO not illegal, those shitfaces), then searching our bags. And somehow, through all of this, they missed the two gigantic machetes strapped to the back of our backpacks nearly in plain sight and our large pouch of illicit drugs. Then they told us, no, we won't give you a ride, no, we won't give you money (we didn't even ask: they're just assholes), and told us to go to a Tim Horton's down the road. They were threatening to chuck us in the pen overnight because I was carrying an "illegal weapon." What a bunch of shitlicking, incompetent assholes.
ANNNYWAYS. We went to Timmy Ho's, met some ex-heroin addict in town for the convention and he talked at us for about 3 hours. Then we left to get directions from a guy at a gas station. His name was Matt and he gave us a box of free donuts and free hot chocolates, and let us look at the maps in there without paying for one... he was awesome.
While we were in there this man came in and started talking to us. He said I looked like a psychedelic Snuffleupagus because I was wearing my rainbow blanket over top of my huge backpack. We walked out with him, still talking, and shared some good stories. He gave us some weed, too, he was a nice fellow. He told us we could probably get free breakfast at the hotel he was staying at, but we just wanted to get the hell out of that hole of a town now the sun was rising. We walked maybe 1/3 of the way up a road called Wellington Rd, trying to get to a highway we could LEGALLY hitch on. We passed out on the roadside miserably trying to hitch a ride.
Maybe 10 minutes later I stood up angrily, proclaiming we might as well walk because we'd never get a ride where we were... and seconds after that proclamation, a minivan pulled over just to prove me wrong. The man in it was probably named Lance or something stupid like that. James? I dunno. I cannot remember. But I do know as soon as we got out I found a rock and it broke in half in my hands and had a little fossil inside it! I kept it 'cause that's cool. Then I got into Pirate's sleeping bag and passed out on the roadside.
I was woken up an hour and a bit later. A couple had pulled over for us. They're one of my favorite rides out of the lot... Leanne and Rick. Leanne is this loudmouthed, lovable bitch type and her boyfriend is this skinny, enduring tough guy who you wouldn't expect to be put in his place by a woman, but he is. Leanne is the driver. Anyways, they were just cruising around in their new truck looking for garage sales, but they like us and end up sharing their booze with us and taking us out of their way, all the way to Chatham! Yay! They invited us to go camping with them in late June, up north of Sault Ste Marie. Hellz yeah!
So, in Chatham we call Pirate's older cousin Tina and she brings the fam round to pick us up and take us back to their place, where we stay a couple days. Man, they own a 3-storey house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, a huge front and back yard, a large shed and an awesome pool. They pay... *drumroll* $500 a month. Can you believe it?!
Anyways... we stayed there for two or three days? Then we got a ride from her husband (boyfriend?) Mike out to Windsor, where Pirate's Aunt Elaine picks us up and takes us to see Pirate's grandma who's fresh out of the hospital. Family socializing ensues, then Elaine takes us back to her place and tells us we can have it all to ourselves for the night. Pirate fixed her internet for her and all was well. She had two cockatiels. Between that, and Tina's daughter having a white bunny and a marsh turtle, it was a real trip down memory lane in regards to my old pets... oh yeah, Tina's family had this awesome Persian cat named Fritz, too. He was really, really sweet and soft and cuddly. I loved him.
Anyways, so yeah. Aunt Elaine took us to Jesse's apartment to meet him. The supposed punk cousin turned out to be an indie/hardcore/nerd kid. Yeeep. And furthermore, it turns out that by staying at Tina's like we did, we missed the Casualties playing a bar show in Windsor. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH.
Jesse showed us around town. Do you want to go to Windsor? I'll save you the trouble, it's a HOLE. It's right across the water from Detroit though, and Detroit is cooool. The river that separates them is a bright, beautiful blue, nothing like the Fraser. Pff.
Jesse took us to meet some of his hippie friends, who were awesome. We smoked weed on their roof and they gave us fries and carrot cake! Yep. Umm... we hung there for a couple hours, split up with Jesse and went downtown. I went back to a music store Jesse showed us and bought myself two $10 punk CD's... a Propaghandi CD (not really worth it) and a Guttermouth CD (TOTALLY worth it <3).
Then we called Aunt Elaine and she took us back to her house, stopping to buy us some booze & supplies on the way. Then we had a house to ourselves, got really drunk and had wild monkey sex. For the next three days, I think about four people commented on Pirate's hickeys. Mwahahaha.
The next day we saw Pirate's grandma again, spent the day at her house and had dinner there before her husband Jerry gave us a ride to a truck stop at the edge of town. We sat there for maybe 45 minutes with a sign that said "TORONTO OR BUST!" before a fellow named... James??? Invited us into his car and said he could take us all the way to Toronto!
The whole way there he was wonderful, intelligent conversation. He told us an awesome story about his one and only acid trip. He was drinking at a bar with some friends and a random guy tried to unload some acid on him. He said he didn't really want any, but bought one tab for himself and one for both of his friends. They all took 'em. He gets really uncomfortably high, not knowing what to expect and has a horrible bad trip. His friends go to a party but he doesn't think he can get there with how high he is. He goes to the hospital and gets a shot and goes home to crash. Neither of his friends bad trip but he still decides he's never going to do acid again as long as he lives.
A year later, he returns to the same bar. He runs into the guy who sold him the tab! He takes him aside and says, "What the hell was that shit you gave me? I had the worst night of my life! I only had one tab! Why didn't my friends have any problems?"
The guy was like, "Cuz I put like 6 of 'em into your beer!"
Rimshot please. Anyways, I loved that story. Then he said to us, if you have any acid on you, throw it out the door right now! So we didn't tell him about the two tabs of it we had on us, natch.
We rolled into Toronto around 11:00, maybe 12:00? He took us out of his way to a subway station and we took the subway to Alexis' house. Well, rather, to Queen St and walked to her house. Unfortunately she wasn't answering her phone and we didn't want to knock and wake them up, so we went and camped out on their back porch. We met this raccoon that's apparently been plaguing them for a while. Once it broke in and trashed their apartment and pooped on the floor. Alexis resents it pretty strongly, but I thought it was cute and mangy and in need of some love. Except it kept trying to harass us so Pirate chased it off with a machete.
The next morning Alexis came out back to have a smoke, only to find us! She let us in and we gladly spent the day bumming around their house, watching Judge Judy. Judge Judy rocks. Anyways.
The day after that was the day of the ska show I wanted to go to. It was also my birthday! So we got drunk and went to the ska show. Yep. Except the venue was god awful... unless you were 19 with ID, you weren't allowed to leave & re-enter the venue... that pissed me off IMMENSELY, among other things. 50c for a friggin' cup of water. You can drink it from the taps for free, hel-LO?
After the first band Pirate wanted to leave because it was almost entirely preps despite being a punk venue and a ska show... and he doesn't like ska as much as me, either. I was having a shitty birthday and in a shitty mood so I agreed, there was $20 down the drain. I kinda regret leaving early now. But oh well. We went to a pizza place and ate pizza and fries and played sudoku instead. Seriously, for like two hours. *nerd*
The day after that we spent muddling around the house with the intent of tripping acid at the beach that night. Which we did. In fact we ended up candyflipping. The acid was extremely fun, although I felt like I was underwater when I was clearly not, which got confusing. The candyflip wasn't fun. Also I didn't get to sleep for about 20 hours and the next 20 hours were hell. While in the last half of our candyflip we freaked the hell out and decided to come home to Vancouver right away, skipping half the trip and an assload of plans we'd made. So, on Monday afternoon, we finished taking care of everything and got the hell out of Toronto.
Things we missed by coming home early:
-Going to Montreal
-Going to Niagara Falls and throwing the One Ring in it
-Camping with Leanne and Rick
-Partying with Ryan the Hitchhiker, who just got into town as we left :(
So yeah, it was kind of stupid, but... drugs make you kind of stupid. I really regret it now, but... it's still nice to be home. And so ends the actual visiting part of my trip. 2/3, yaaay.
And then there was...
I'll probably forget lots of this one. See, on the trip there I was making a conscious effort to remember names and things that happened, on the way back I was more focused on being in Vancouver ASAP. So I'll forget more names this time. Also, the trip there I was keeping a journal, though it soon fell out of record once we got to Toronto. So the trip there is a lot easier to recall.
Getting home took... 8 days? And we took a different route than we did to get there.
So, we started out Monday afternoon, bussed to city limits and hitchhiked out of the city. It took us many hours to get our first ride and it was extremely disheartening. Eventually a man whose name I can't remember took us to a gas station outside of town. Yay, we thought. We have had such good luck at gas stations, things will surely look up from here!
Wrong, we didn't find a ride until nightfall, hours and hours later. During that time we had left and come back to the gas station about twice and tried hitching on three different highways in the area with no success. Thoroughly disheartened we wrapped up in our blankets and sat by the Husky's door. Pirate solicited each passerby for a ride west, with no takers.
Finally, after the sun set we got our second ride, a nice lady named Colleen. She was a teacher who was in the process of moving to Barrie. So... she took us to outside of Barrie. By then it was pitch black, which is bad for hitching, so we tried to figure out which way we should be going and then find a streetlamp.
Unfortunately we got turned around, walked about a kilometer down the wrong road and spent the night on the side of a crappy back road in our sleeping bags in the gravel. I kept waking up, practically vibrating I was shivering so hard. Dew gathered on the outside of our bags to make us even colder. I thought we might die.
But thankfully morning eventually rolled around and we tiredly hiked back up the road to where we'd been dropped the other night. We took a new direction, onto the 11 highway to Orillia, and hitched there for awhile.
Pirate was fast asleep on the side of the road when our third ride finally showed up an hour later. I kicked him in the head to wake him up. The guy's name was Lee and he was a grown-up punk rocker. He knew who Choking Victim was, and told us how he used to be in a band called Captain Communist and the Red Avengers and once he played with Leftover Crack at the Kathedral in Toronto. Wow! He also told us, as he was dropping us in Orillia, that on Thursday (it was Tuesday) he was going to drive to Victoria and if he saw us along the way he'd pick us up and we'd get a ride all the way through to Vancouver.
In Orillia we stopped in a Wal-Mart to eat McDonald's, then went to hitch on the highway out of town. We didn't get any rides for the next two hours, and we hiked quite a ways out of town in the blistering heat before we did.
Finally, a woman named April pulled up for us. She told us about working for a temp agency (Pirate could relate) and whipped out a J to share with us. Obviously a cool lady. She also drove us up the highway a bit past her turn-off out of the kindness of her heart. She dropped us in a place called Waubaushene at a gas station.
The gas station was totally dead and we knew we'd have no luck there, but we bought some cold drinks and got directions. Just our luck, as it turned out... there was absolutely no way to get to Sudbury (the next major city) without hitching on a 400-series highway.
Well, we managed to dance around a loophole by hitching at the on-ramp-- that's legal. It took quite some time before a man whose name also escapes me picked us up and took us to a rest stop of sorts a couple hours up the road. I have no idea where it was, but we got Wendy's and decided to hitch at the gas station there.
It took until the sun was about to set, but Pirate managed to convince this one lady to take us to Sudbury with her... she was moving, in a moving truck, and there was only one seat so I got to sit on the floor. Still, we were so overjoyed to finally get to Sudbury that nothing else mattered.
Outside Sudbury, sun setting and night approaching fast, the blackflies made an ominous appearance... the first of many. We huddled roadside, trying to cover every inch of skin with limited success. Eventually a man pulled over for us and took us to the highway turn-off to Sault Ste Marie, our next major stop. He didn't take us that far, but it was extremely helpful. That made him our... seventh ride on the way back.
Then, as it got dark, a young man pulled over for us. He was on his way home to Espanola and kind of had awful taste in music, but we were grateful for the ride because the blackflies in Ontario are seriously out of hand. I'm still healing from all the damned bites.
In Espanola we hitched from a gas station after stopping in a Tim Horton's for delicious hot chocolate. It didn't take too long to catch a ride with a kind nurse, Patrice, and her elderly mother Rose... to Sault Ste Marie! Patrice was very awesome, she made good conversation, let us sleep and gave us food and money when she dropped us off (and her pack of smokes, bless 'er heart). She also said if we ever went back to Toronto, where she lives, we could stay on her sailboat and gave us her contact information. Tres awesome, yes?
In Sault Ste Marie we hit a catch. We arrived at that particular Husky/truck stop around 1:00 AM and were there until 10:00 or so the next morning. First we slept on a bench outside, then inside the Husky 24-hour restaurant when we got too cold. We had some delicious Husky fries also. I became quite fond of Husky truck stops on this trip.
The waitress let us sleep in the Husky but sent us packing at sunrise, anticipating lots of business from truckers and travelers alike. We went outside to lay around in a heap and try and hitch a ride with our sign that said "Thunder Bay" on it.
It took quite a while from there, but eventually an old fat couple brought us into their truck and took us to just outside Marathon, a two or three hour ride. We stopped in Wawa to appreciate the irony and the couple gave us ham and cheese sandwiches and some pop.
Random Note: Wawa is like hitchhiker hell. We've had at least three different hitchers warn us about it, or tell us horror stories. Mike, one of our drivers on the trip to Toronto, told us about how he got stuck there for three days once and had to sleep under the giant goose statue to keep dry in the pouring rain. Giant goose statue, you ask? Wawa is home to Canada's largest goose statue. Two, actually. No one really knows why.
After that we were dropped at a place called the Hilltop Cafe just outside Marathon. Their fries suck. So does hitching there. We wandered around in the heat and blackflies for about three or four hours, asking everybody who passed through (which wasn't that many people honestly) if they could take us to Thunder Bay. Eventually we found a fellow who could, a friendly trucker named James (or something like that :S). He took us all le way to Thunder Bay. He was our eleventh ride and when we arrived in Thunder Bay it was the end of our third day. I left my hat in his truck and shall never see it again :(
We camped out outside another Husky restaurant with no luck soliciting a ride. A random dude did come up to us and give us $30, though. And the gas station attendant, who came outside to smoke a cigarette every half hour or so, gave us half a J once. Good times. We had delicious crinkle-cut fries there as well.
The next morning the attendant's shift ended, a new one came on and the asshole kicked us out. So we walked out onto the highway and found a spot to hitch. There was a post there and it'd been marked by previous hitchers coming from Quebec to BC. They noted as we had upon the assholery of people in Thunder Bay with tags like "Thunder Bay is full of assholes" and "T-Bay: The Asshole of Canada". It was kind of cheering to see other people had suffered our plight as well.
Eventually, maybe an hour into our morning, a couple with three dogs pulled over for us and took us up the highway to where the Trans-Can met with some other highway. On the side of the highway here it didn't take too long to get a ride an hour up the road. Of course then we were in the middle of nowhere with blackflies eating us alive, and suddenly the sun split through the overcast morning to cook us for them. Great.
An hour of misery, and then someone pulled over for us. It was a man who told us he was going to Dryden, which we'd been warned to avoid because it was awful for hitching by hitchhiker Ryan. Throwing caution to the wind we got in his vehicle anyways. He took us to, and through Dryden to a place called Vermillion Bay. Also, I lost my knife in his truck, which sucks ass because I only got that knife like a week before, and it was a super sweet knife. $30 at an army surplus store... $4 at a garage sale Leanne & Rick took us to. :(
It had started to rain when we got into Dryden, so the man bought us an umbrella. Kind of him. But it didn't stop us from getting wet as we waited for hours and hours in the middle of nowheresville. Hiking down the road we found a restaurant and went in to have fries like the drown rats we were.
Then it was back outside to hitch in the rain. I can only say one good thing about the rain opposed to the blistering sun (well, aside from the fact I prefer being cold to hot) is that there were no flies.
Finally, as it grew dark outside, a man named Henry (I think :() pulled over for me. Pirate was back in that restaurant getting more fries and had to rush out. But he did get us fries. Anyways, Henry took us to Winnipeg! THANK GOD. It felt so HEAVENLY to be escaping Ontario, which is truly hell if you ask me.
When we rolled into Winnipeg he offered to put us up at a hotel because he owns a company which has a deal with Best Western or something, and it's cheap for him. Pirate STUPIDLY declined, relegating us to a night of misery on the side of a highway outside Winnipeg. The reason? "adurr that Lee guy might come through and I don't want to miss him!" Fuck. You know what? We were freezing and miserable ALL night because of his bad decision. Also, we never ever ran into Lee again.
The next morning someone finally pulled over for us. All I really remember is they had a 4x4 and the driver was male. I slept most of the ride. He took us to, um, uh... wow this part is so HAZY in my memory. I'm remembering it took us three rides to get to Brandon but I don't remember the towns in between. Anyways, we were SOMEWHERE and we went to McDonald's for breakfast, then hit the highway again. Not too long after a guy pulled over and drove us to a gas station a couple km up the road. We bought chips and coke and headed on our merry way.
Next an enthusiastic lady picked us up and took us to Brandon. She was very chipper. And pretty. She told us she was headed to a family wedding in Brandon. I can't remember her name, though.
We rolled into Brandon in the afternoon. It was sunny and lovely but not quite unbearably hot. Pirate passed out on the roadside and I hitched for a while, but with no luck. We switched it up and I fell asleep for who knows how long. Perhaps two or three hours after the drop, someone pulls over.
The guy in the car is this drunk-ass native guy with an arm in a cast and a blind eye, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and shorts. His clothes are in the back seat soaking wet for whatever reason. There are two 30-cases of Budweiser in the back seat, one is empty and one is getting there. He tells us to get in. I had one of those bad gut feelings you hear about, but Pirate didn't even question it.
After we got in, the guy looks at Pirate and mumble-slurs out, "Can you drive?" Pirate doesn't have his license yet and he told him so. The guy's response is "Ah, it's not that hard." Then he gets out of the driver's seat. So next thing I know we're cruisin' down the highway in Manitoba with my boyfriend behind the wheel, veering off to the right every so often. The native dude is knocking back beers two at a time and I'm extremely uncomfortable but whatever, things could be worse, right?
Damn right they could, AND they get there. We start running low on gas, so Pirate decides to pull into the next gas station he sees, which happens to be in a town called Virden. When he does, the native dude gives him three bucks. Three bucks. Pirate donates his last dollar to the pile and gives it to the gas station attendant.
So basically we didn't get almost any gas, but that's all we had. We continue on, the fuel tank still pretty close to empty. Things are alright, though. Then suddenly the guy demands we turn off the Trans-Can onto highway 83, he says we should go to Yorkton where he can get some gas money and then he'll take us to Regina. "Right on!" says Pirate, but I'm freaking the hell out because leaving the Trans-Can is a baaaad idea.
About 36 miles up the road we get into a town called Birtle and we're basically out of gas. The native guy is drunker than ever and Pirate finally realized what I had been trying to tell him- Yorkton's not "just up the road", it's THREE HOURS AWAY. So we tell the guy we'll go to the gas station and try to get some help, then we bail to the highway and hitch back to the Trans-Can.
Two rides here, a short one from a cowboy and one all the way back to the Trans-Can. The ironic part of the story? The ride we got back was from a car full of drunk ass natives. They got Pirate drunk and told us we should come back to the reserve with them to party. We politely declined, wanting nothing more than to be home.
So, we're back on the side of the Trans-Can, mid-afternoon. The Birtle escapade took all of 20 minutes, and we're relieved. And maybe 20 minutes later, a trucker slams on the brakes to pull over for us and take us to Lethbridge! Thank god.
Note: Lethbridge is the town Pirate grew up in. Initially we were planning on stopping there, but it got jostled from our plans... so, it was good luck for Pirate that we ended up getting dropped there anyways!
We roll into Lethbridge at 1 am and he drops us off at a Tim Horton's. There we sit and play hangman on napkins for a few hours. Finally, around 5:00 the sun starts to slowly rise... it's kind of that pre-dawn grey outside. We decide it's time to go check out Lethbridge.
We walked around town and eventually ended up at his old house, which is huge and very pretty. We walked around it and took pictures, yada yada yada... then we headed up the street to his old elementary school, which has an absolutely epic playground... I'll show y'all pics later. We played on it for about an hour or so. By the time we were done the sun was in the sky.
After that we went to the library because Pirate thought he might be able to run into some old friends there... fat chance, I told him, and I was right: no sign of anyone. He was very disappointed and wanted to leave Lethbridge. I was surprised that he didn't want to stay longer but said okay.
On our way out of town a guy stopped us and told us about a place called the shelter that would give us free lunch if we got there within the next half hour... sweet! So off to the shelter we go. It's a homeless shelter and soup kitchen combo.
Standing in the lunch line we meet two of the volunteers, who are "alternative kids" and are totally excited to be meeting some punks. They told me their names, Kate and Sean, and promised to help us out. In the end, after we had our tasty free meals, we helped them clean up and they called all of their friends looking for someone who would lend a car to them.
They even took us back to their apartment, letting us use their shower and their laundry machines. Their roommate totally blazed us up, too. It was absolutely beautiful. They gave us a bunch of CDs and Kate gave me some fabric.
They eventually found someone who would lend them a car and drove us out of Lethbridge and just across the BC border through the Crow's Nest Pass... about a three hour drive I think. We were extremely grateful... and those are two people I know I'll be seeing again.
Random Interesting Facts About Kate & Sean!:
They're in their early 20's, happily married, devout Christians, yet somehow not preachy or condescending at all. They also organize punk shows at a church/venue called the Gate in Lethbridge, the Punk After School Special (Punk ASS), every Tuesday after school. The shows are free and all ages! Pirate wants to go there and play a show in September.
Anyways, after they dropped us off we hitched a ride not too much later with a man headed to Sparwood, not that far up the highway. Outside Sparwood we caught a ride with a trucker whose cab was packed full of snacks and drinks ("you gotta be prepared"). He took us to outside Cranbrook.
Unfortunately, around the time we were dropped, the sun set, meaning we became almost invisible to those driving by. Also, we heard moose or elk scuffling around in the wilderness around us and making scary noises, and it freaked us out, for realz. It took us like an hour or two to get picked up, and when someone finally did it was a fellow with a very nice car whose name escapes me. I feel kinda guilty actually, considering how nice he was to us!
He took us all the way to his home in Trail and let us spend the night in his spare room, in a nice comfy bed. By the time we got there it was late at night, I hadn't had proper sleep in a couple days and I passed the fuck out. Apparently he had a cat but it was somewhat feral and I never got a chance to meet it.
The next morning when we got up there were three big bowls of fruit in his living room which Pirate and I devoured greedily... then he said we could have English muffins, so we went to get some. Pirate made me eggs to put on mine. And after that he gave us cereal and fruit snacks! This guy seriously rocked. He also blazed us up a couple J's and took us up the highway further to some lake, though I don't remember it's name, blazed us up one last time and dropped us... Okay, I don't really know where he dropped us.
From there, we got picked up by a guy heading to Christina Lake in the oldest vehicle of the trip... it was about 40 years old. It was pretty awesome, though. Tragically, Pirate left his leather jacket in the back of this guy's truck... lost forever, on our second-to-last ride home :(
I don't really remember that part so well. I do remember that the sun was blazing out because we were in BC's desert. Later, we would even pass through the hottest town in Canada! So anyways. I threw down Pirate's sleeping bag under a tree in someone's lawn and passed the fuck out. I can't take the heat, you see. He thumbed for the next hour or so. Some nice couple who passed us on their way home came back with cold water for us!
Then this lady pulls over, and you know where she's going...? SURREY! Sweet, sweet Vancouver. So we get in and the rest of the trip is smooth sailing. I remember passing through Osoyoos, reportedly the hottest town in Canada, and it was friggin' 40 degrees out. NUTS.
I passed out long before we ever got to Princeton (the heat REALLY gets to me) and when I woke up hours later we were in Surrey. I can tell you right now I've never been so happy to be in Surrey in my life. From there it was a short celebratory skytrain ride and bus ride home. Adurr.
Aaand that was my trip? Eventually I'll probably post more crap, like photos and anecdotes and, if it ever flies, a recording of Pirate and I telling stories about the trip.
Til then: THANK GOD I'M FINALLY DONE! I swear I got carpal tunnel syndrome while trying to do this in one shot. I fell asleep, 2/3 done with aching wrists.
... And that was my trip.