Hitchhiking Memoir Part 7 - Waking up under a bridge, sexism and 15,000 Litres of Malt Liquor!

You are about to read Part 7 or my hitchhiking memoir. I logged a near 10,000km month long adventure and am sharing it for the first time! Each part is only a couple minutes to read and I think it makes for a pretty good story... but I do suggest you start from the beginning... but you don't have to. At the end of Part 6, I went to sleep under a bridge in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan... you are up to speed. If you want to find out what led up to me sleeping under a Saskatoon freeway, the links are below.

Part 1:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-1
Part 2:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-2-globalization-callcenters-and-drywall
Part 3:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-3-sobriety-warehouse-workaholics-the-big-idea
Part 4:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-4-humanity-stripped-tourism-and-fear-doubt-courage-and-the-will-and-a-bmx
Part 5:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-5-tipping-point-survival-the-homeless-and-getting-robbed
Part 6:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-6-day-one-on-the-road-cannabis-homophobia-and-cold-beans

Enjoy Part 7!

I had an okay sleep. Semi trucks driving 3 feet above your head is not that quiet and there were many bugs out so I had to keep my head inside that stuffy sleeping bag... but, all in all, I had an okay sleep.

The sun was up and the birds were chirping but there was not too much motion on the streets. It must have been really early in the morning. I thought that I should get an early start rather than risk getting caught sleeping in under this bridge. So, I ate a nut bar, had a pee, got dressed, brushed my teeth, packed up and shipped off. I had to walk for maybe half an hour out of the city and found the junction back to the yellowhead highway (at some point it turns in to the trans Canada highway but...). I got picked up really quick by Luke. It was 5:40 a.m when Luke picked me up. He was on his way to work.

Luke is a 22 year old man, married for a year with a 2 year old son. He has picked up many hitch hikers in his day and has had no problems what so ever. He “has done a lot of bad stuff” and tries to make up for it by helping people out when he gets the chance. Seems good to me. I mentioned that I lived in Edmonton and he told me that he has spent some time there as well as Cold Lake where he was working on the rigs. He told me that he was making $6500 a week in Cold Lake. He also told me that he and his buddies spent $2200 last week on booze! The more you make the more you spend is a true statement for the most part. He did mention that his wife and kid were out of town for the week, so, I am assuming that he is not partying that hard all the time.

We passed one of those chicken trucks with stacks upon stacks of rows upon rows of chickens in little caged boxes. I pointed it out to Luke. Luke told me a story about a time when he passed a truck with sheep in the back. He was on the phone with his friend when he said “I am with your girlfriend and she wants to talk to you.” He then help the phone out of the window to the sheep and one let out a really loud BAAAAAAA! I thought it was kinda tasteless… but pretty funny.

It really irks me when men assume that we are all pigs. That we all see women as sexual playthings. A good sheep joke is humorous in its right, but there is a line somewhere. Luke said, “Hopefully you get picked up by a hot chick so you can pound her out.” Uhhhh. Pound her out. First off. If someone picks me up, I am thankful and will do my best to honour them. Second of all, women are people going places and living their lives. They don’t just jump into porno movie mode. Thirdly, I am not into this. If a ‘hot’ girl did pick me up and say, as unlikely as is, “hey big boy, why don’t we pull over so you can pound me out... ya, you heard me, pound me out.” I would likely be a bit disgusted. Even if I were with a girl and took the time to build up a relationship to the point where we would consider getting intimate... pounding her out would not be on my list of things to do. I want to keep that phrase out of my vocabulary. I am a timid guy so I just ignored his comment and we kept on driving.

He was playing Raised Fist in his stereo. They are super dope. One of the best bands and most original sounds I have heard in a long time. We talked about music. He was playing AFI and Offspring as well. I told him about the 3 times I saw AFI in concert, back when they were really fast and high energy punk rock, in the “answer that and stay fashionable” and “very proud of ya” days. I like to mention the time when they opened up for Rancid at the Dinwoodie lounge on the University of Alberta campus. I was only 16 at the time and there were only 650 tickets printed. This was right after “...and out come the wolves” came out. Maybe right when Rancid was getting some recognition in the mainstream.

I feel like an old man telling that story... You know how old men always have some sort of a whopper concert story that is gonna make you think that they are the coolest. My dad has one about Supertramp. They played, but one of the vocalists, I think Roger Hodgson but I am not sure, was sick. My dad said that it was the best show ever but Supertramp at the end of the set mentioned that everyone in the show will get to see them again because the quality was too low. So, they put on a free show later that year and my dad got to go again for free. It was again, the best concert ever. I think that is a pretty cool story. Supertramp is pretty awesome. Watching Rancid and having AFI open when I was sixteen is currently my best old man concert story. It is funny though, cause it is a bit of an attempt to gain respect on such ridiculous grounds... whatever.

Luke works at the Lanigan Potash Corporation. He drops dynamite down 35 foot holes and then detonates it. Sounds pretty cool, but is likely like any other job. Novelties wear off. Luke dropped me off just outside the entrance to the mine at 6:30 a.m. and I was ready to roll out again.

I walked down the highway, but there was not very much traffic this early in the morning leaving Saskatoon. I was pretty impressed that I was already an hour out of Saskatoon before most people think about waking up. Sleeping outside has that effect on people. I remember camping (vaguely sometimes) and would wake up and be astonished to find out how early it was. It is hard to ignore the sun in the sky when there is not much between you and it.

At around 7 or 7:30 in the morning a large tractor trailer carrying some kind of liquid saw me and stopped. I didn’t even notice that it stopped for me because it took such a long time to get stopped that it was a quarter mile away. He honked his horn to catch my attention and then waved at me. I started to jog to let him know that I am appreciative of his time and offer to give me a ride. When I got to the truck and stepped up and into the cab he greeted me in French. I greeted him and he could tell that I was an English speaker so he started speaking to me in English. He was on his way to Montreal and couldn’t help picking me up due to the sign that I was flashing which said MONTREAL in large block letters.

The truck driver was a 40 something year old man with a little black dog he called “Poo” who was not afraid to sit on my lap from the get go. I think I stole his seat so I owed Poo this much. Plus, I love dogs and Poo was so friendly and also turned out to be a huge suck for attention. I did not mind a bit.

We exchanged names and stories for a bit. There was much tranquil silence, never awkward, and some radio listening. I asked him if it would be okay if I took a nap and he showed me how to recline the seat. The bridge sleep was awesome but, as it turns out, I needed a whole bunch more sleep. I was in and out for much of the ride.

The truck that I was in was carrying ridiculous amounts of malt liquor. He did not specify which type but I know that it was around 15,000 litres of the stuff. Whenever the truck stopped, you could feel the malt liquor wave push the truck forward and then pull the truck back. I thought that this was quite amusing and also a little bit disturbing that these huge trucks are on the road transporting mass amounts of poisons around but... this is where we live.

The truck driver, who will remain nameless as I quickly forgot his name after our exchange (too early in the morning for me), told me that he was going to Montreal and was willing to take me the whole way if I didn’t slow him down or get on his nerves or what have you. This sounded like a pretty sweet deal to me. He also told me of a time when he hitchhiked to Manitoba from Edmonton, where he lived for a few years. It was January and really cold and he ended up sleeping under a bridge in Saskatoon also but under much different circumstances. He was only in a jean jacket and had no sleeping bag or anything like that. He somehow survived the ordeal and is a part of the hitchhikers brotherhood, a trend that I started to notice.

We stopped at a truck stop, a Husky, for lunch and I had the toast and eggs with a soup of the day. The trucker had some soup and shepherds pie. I had a nice washroom break, with toilets and sinks and everything... wow the luxury. I also filled up my water bottle. The bill for me came to under $5. I had spent a total of $8 thus far on the venture... not too shabby.

The trucker had a bad kidney and had to make frequent stops to use the washroom... at one point he had an accident, I believe because I was there. He told me to take the dog out for a little walk. I did. The trucker used this time to get into some fresh clothes and if it was not for him mentioning what had happened I would have been none the wiser. The truck driver usually just goes in a bottle while driving, but, for my sake, refrained. I was glad about that. He is not one of those truckers who throws the bottle out the window after he does the deed. As a former highway cleanup guy, for a harsh slave driver might I add, these urine bottles take on somewhat of an adversarial role. The slave driver ensures that you take the lid off and pour out the excess “liquid” (as if tip toeing around the truth to make the job seem a little more extravagant). He leaves his bottle in the side compartment until he takes a stop and disposes of it in a proper manner.

I felt like there was a real connection between myself and the truck driver. He felt comfortable letting me know of his problem, it is not like he has any choice or control over what problems he has to deal with, just like all of us, and it is nice that we could be really open about it. He mentioned this to me to and added that “like attracts like, and this is probably why I decided to pick you up.” He added that he normally does not pick up hitch hikers.

Driving across the prairies you get to see some interesting sites and a whole whack of beauty. For all of those people who say that the prairies are boring and flat, they have never drove across the prairies or failed to open their eyes while doing so. I saw some tragic roadkill, deer, birds, rabbits, coyotes... I think even a skunk. I saw a sign that said “the official radio of summer” and remember laughing to myself. Who has the authority to name you the official radio of summer, deodorant of the CFL, or boxspring manufacturer of the Nascar circuit? Seems kind of ridiculous to me. I saw a sign in front of a church that said “Drive safe, you might hit an Anglican.” I could not make out what church this sign was in front of. Was it an Anglican church encouraging you to not hit other Anglicans or was it another brand of the same old same old making a crack about hitting Anglicans? I guess I will never know now, it still puzzles me a bit. I saw signs saluting NHL players such as Theo Fluery, Kelly Buchburger, Ron Low, and a sign next to Kelly Buchburger’s sign saluting another Buchburger who is a champion gymnist as well... athletic family I suppose. There was a welcome sign with a slogan that said “the best place in the world to live” (unfortunatley I don’t remember the town otherwise I would be living there) and in Radisson Saskatchewan, its slogan is “Taste Our Water.” I did not get a chance to taste it on my hitchhiking voyage but recently have gotten a chance to taste the water... it is good. Worth having a sign up noting that it is wonderful water. Fresh. Crisp and ultimately thirst quenching. Likely from a spring, although I didn’t want to seem to obsessed with the Radisson water so I did not find that out.

We rolled into Kenora, Ontario around 8 pm on July 5. In 2 days I have managed to hitch across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and make it into Ontario, spending $8. I was pretty happy about the progress I was making.

The truck driver let me out of the truck and told me that if I was ready to roll at 7 in the morning, or earlier, he would take me further. At this point in the voyage, just entering the Ontario sticks, where there is a lot of forests and not much else, having a guaranteed ride through it seemed to be pretty good. Also, I was under the impression that there would be no real turns that would need to be taken, that you just stay on the one highway. This is somewhat the case, but there is a lot of turns that need to be made to keep on that on highway. So, I could easily get lost. Really easily. I was going to try my best to make it into the truck and keep on rollin, but was not to worried about it. When you are somewhere between somewhere and somewhere else and you have nowhere to be, it doesn’t really matter how you get there or when. The adventure was going to continue whether I liked it or not. I hung around the Husky station and ate a can of beans on a big rock. As the sun started to head towards the horizon I set up camp and rocked out to some tunes. Pedro had lent me his disc player and I had burned two MP3 discs so that I had lots of songs and not much weight. It was nice to fall asleep with the tunes blasting. I felt really good, really free and really euphoric going to sleep.