How We HItchhiked Across Canada / Day Four

Travel Day Four / Sudbury, Ontario / July 3, 2019

Donnie would drop us off in Sudbury where we’d get a good night's sleep. But as we stood amongst the mid-week, early morning work traffic, my faith wavered. Hundreds of vehicles had passed us by and my frustration at the vulnerability of our situation had boiled to the surface.

With bike travel, we were independent. We could load up our lives and ride away on our own accord, but this was new territory. I knew there was a lesson to be learned in having patience and asking for help, but I hadn’t yet internalized it.

“It only takes one,” Mat reminded me, his sentiment making our odds seem better as a wave of rush hour traffic passed by. A little brown car with Massachusetts plates lagged in the distance and pulled in behind our bags.

“HITCHHIKERS!” the driver exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air enthusiastically as he got out of his car. “I’ve been looking for you!” Kevin was from Boston, but decided to travel back from his high school reunion in North Dakota through Canada. He was hoping for some company to pass the time. We were as grateful for Kevin as he was for us.

As we travelled East, we had what he referred to as ‘level three conversations’ deep, stimulating and introspective contemplations, a far cry from surface chit chat. He was an open-minded, progressive thinking baby boomer, which he attributed to his newfound relationship with the mind expanding nature of cannabis, and his two millennial children. We loved him.

As we approached Mattawa, ON, we asked if he would make a brief detour. Our friend Denis had always told us to stop at his friend Danny’s chip truck there for ‘the best fries on this side of the Atlantic.’ He obliged and before we knew it, we were standing in front of the Turcotte’s Chip Stand, drooling over a menu that’s been filling bellies since 1944.

We met Danny and his wife Tamra and told them about Denis and the adventure we were on. To our utter amazement, they gifted us with three of the most deliciously fully loaded chicken burgers and heaping piles of fries our eyes had ever seen. This trip was getting better by the minute.

Stomachs and hearts full, we waved goodbye to our new friends and got back on the road. We went all the way to downtown Montreal with Kevin that day, navigating the congestion of after work traffic and the confusing signage of the city. As we parted ways on a dead end street, we hugged him wholeheartedly, wished him the best and watched him disappear in the distance.