THE EXPEDITION Chapter 17: Serendipity (Section 2)

In which serendipity comes through again
 

Date: June 17 2019

Virden to Oak Lake Brandon 26.5 km 78.5 km

One thing and another took longer and longer. Repacking the trailer was always an exercise in extreme morphogenic Tetris, but this day, it just kept not working out right. Eventually, I got everything together, By now, breakfast smells wafted from the restaurant. Mr Myrtle had been awfully patient, but his eyes followed the smell and got bigger and bigger. I was pretty hungry too – it was already midmorning. So we had breakfast.

But that meant we got to say more goodbyes, and I was glad of that. It also meant I had to pee by the time we were about to get back on the highway so I backtracked to a little convenience shop. The lady who ran it was so friendly, and so interested in my walk and my petition… and Mr Myrtle. She gave us both treats for the road.

It was almost lunch time as we turned right and finally started the day’s distance. I was kicking myself so much for being so tangled up and for things going sidewards and for being so late, and I was seriously wondering how the heck we’d make it to Oak Lake before dark at this rate.

We turned onto the highway, but had barely gone ten minutes when all of a sudden, a little car pulled over onto the shoulder ahead of us. A tiny person bounced out and around the car and sat on the trunk till we caught up.

“Hello!” A pixie with spikey pastel rainbow hair and elfin ears, serious boots, and a smile bigger than herself called as we got close. “I’m Erin” she announced. “I had to ask… what’s up?” She looked at my furry sidekick and I like we were new books. She seemed so genuine, I liked her right away. I told her our story, and she loved it. We had a great chat right there, but she had to get going. First, though, she gave me her phone number and invited us to stay when we got there. She’d clear it with her partner, too, of course, but was quite sure he’d be fine with the idea and the company. I figured it would take us a few days to get there; she was fine with that. “Just let me know when you’re close, like the morning you set out for Brandon, or something like that, when you know!” She popped back into her little car and zoomed off.

I waved and started walking again. As she disappeared over the furthest hill, there was a thunk and grating noise and the trailer hit the ground. I sighed and went to hitch it back up… but it was hitched. I spent several minutes crawling around trying to figure out what the heck had happened. As I stood up and stepped back and shook my head, someone called from behind me. I turned to find a man on the service road about a hundred feet away. He was waving and shouting, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying. Next thing I knew he was bounding down the big divider ditch, and back up my side.

This spry senior and his wife had seen Mr Myrtle and I on their coffee shop’s facebook page – the Gopher Creek Coffee Company. They figured they’d see if they could catch up with us to say hello. “But what’s going on here?” Doug asked. He got right down there with me and we ended up removing a few bolts and screws, and unattaching a bit of the trailer fabric. The weld holding the hitch bar to the trailer had snapped. Not surprising, considering it had been hauling two to three times the recommended weight for several weeks now! But I needed a welder.

Doug brought his truck around to where we were stuck.

“This is my better half!” he said cheerfully, introducing me to Linda.

He explained what had happened, and they discussed possible people to call who might be able to do a spot of welding. They couldn’t think of anyone nearabouts, though there were a couple maybes or folks who might rig something up and McGyver the hitch, a bit further away. They didn’t seem like they put a lot of faith in the maybes, so I started wondering to myself about staying in Virden another night.

Doug looked at Linda.“Well honey, how’d’you feel about going into Brandon? You had a few things you’ve been wanting to do there for while, right?”

“Oh, sure, yes, and you’ve got some things to do there too, don’t you dear?” She turned to me. “We wait till there’s enough reasons to go to make it worth the trip. We put them off, and then go do them all together so there’s less trips that way!”

Linda really did need to do a few things there, and Doug had a list as well. I couldn’t go anywhere with a busted hitch, and certainly trusted their evaluation of possible solutions. They had a way better idea of who was around and what they could do than I or google possibly could.

I really hope I find their phone number again too, I meant to keep in touch forever.

My phone number has changed twice since beginning the walk, which threw a whole ‘nother wrench into my keeping in touch intentions. I also sometimes have to take complete (or incomplete but longer) breaks from social media, and even email, for quite a while now as I write, and the hiatus will probably be extended.

I really am a hermit. I also have social anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and (sometimes debilitating) agoraphobia. It’s a bit messy in a lot of regular everyday ‘normal’ circumstances, but works just fine for hermitting and gypsying. I was basically living in public though, all through this walk, as well as afterwards, and even before for a bit. Online and in real, physical life, I was a walking billboard. It was like being naked in front of the world, all the time.

Physically, being online, and on computers and laptops, and on a phone, and all that sort of thing, makes me sick. It actually physically hurts, not just in terms of posture and wonky body parts, but it makes everything hurt… my skin, my brain, my everything. It also makes me itchy, and it gives me splitting headaches, like having an axe stuck in my brain. I can’t think right, and I don’t process or retain electronic information properly, be it audio or visual, talking or text or reading or watching. Electronics don’t work quite right around me sometimes anyways, especially my own.

I also have a really crummy concept of time. I’m chronosophically challenged. Time doesn’t make sense. I mess it up a lot. I still feel connections with people and places, regardless of time, but that doesn’t replace the actual staying in touch.

So I’ve lost touch with too many people. I hope they’re all well and I miss them all.

I also misplace or lose things, or they get otherwise somehow gone.

On the way to Brandon, I realized Erin’s phone number was on a piece of paper in a bag now stowed and secured unreachably in the back of the truck. There wasn’t a particularly opportune place to safely stop and unpack enough to find it. I called her from the Denny’s on the highway coming into Brandon, where we stopped for lunch.

I started off by saying I’d already gotten to Brandon because stuff went sidewards, but I wasn’t calling to turn up on her doorstep with no warning – I just needed to ask if she could recommend a good welder, who could fix a trailer hitch asap. There was a silence. Oh dear, I thought, I’ve gotten here too soon and I sound like a creepy stalker….

Then – “I’m a welder!” piped my prairie-pixie friend. She really is. She’s a welder, and a heck of a good one, too. You should see the things she’s built… she turns metal into amazing things, as beautiful and well-made as they are strong and useful. She’s even wrought and welded fantastic spiral staircases.

Doug and Linda brought Mr Myrtle and our things around to Erin and Anthony’s place. We hugged goodbye, though we stayed in touch quite a while and I’m sure we will again. Meanwhile, we unloaded everything, and Erin took off with part of the trailer to mend it, and Mr Myrtle got to run around in the back yard. Anthony and I talked, mostly about rocks.

Rocks are great. I pick them up everywhere. So does Anthony. Crystals, gemstones, chunks of concrete, memories of mountains, sparkly stones on the sidewalk, colours winking from the dirt, rain-polished souvenirs of geological history, Some are special, some are pretty, some have purposes. We both like learning their uses and properties, and Anthony also studies them geologically and whatnot. He has a lot of rocks, and rock-collecting stories. We talked about stones and their stories the whole time Erin was gone, and when she got back, she said “I hope you didn’t talk her ear off about rocks the whole time!” We all talked quite late, about all sorts of things other than rocks.

We also checked the map and I asked for whatever road and camp advice they might be able to impart. There’s a campground not far out of Brandon heading east. I wanted to try to get a news interview somewhere the next day, and would only have to make it to that campground afterwards.

Mr Myrtle and I were very comfy on their couch the rest of the night. Before I fell asleep, I thanked the universe for such a frustrating morning… If I’d gotten going as intended, early in the morning, we’d have been halfway between here and nowhere when we broke down. We’d have been in trouble. Instead, the universe kept us near, and sent us a ride, a welder, and most importantly, friends.

Date: June 18 2019 Brandon

In the morning, I called all the news outlets I could find contact information for, in Brandon and in near upcoming places. Some weren’t interested, and one called me back to tell me off and shout at me for bothering his station with such “stupid ****”. The news station most folks in the area watch asked if I could come the following morning to do a spot for the daily news show.

Erin and Anthony didn’t mind Mr Myrtle and I staying another night. Mr Myrtle and I went out to get some kibble, and did our laundry. I got the trailer all put back together and packed while Mr Myrtle had a great time running around in the back yard, where they’ve got a little wooden boat jut like the one I learned to sail on. It’s a six foot plywood dinghy with oar locks and a removable tiller and mast. My mother and grandfather built ours in the driveway one summer when I was about seven, and I puttered all over the lake we went to on weekends with an old sunfish sail. Erin and Anthony use theirs in summers to putter about too, and on rock-collecting trips.

I’d vaguely considered trying to get around part of northwestern Ontario by boat, though something a little bigger. I’d emailed about a small boat recently, but the seller responded while I was at Erin and Anthony’s place. She flat-out refused to sell it to me because it was such an impossible idea. I’m not sure anything’s impossible, and I had fully intended to stick to the shore like glue on paper (or like the macaroni on the glue on the paper), but oh well.

Date: June 19 2019

All over Brandon to Bry-Mar Campground 28.5 km

The news interview was all the way on the other side of Brandon. I thought I left in time, but hadn’t counted on hills and bridges. As I slogged up an already hot hill, I realized there was no way in heck I’d make it on time. They were squeezing me into this timeslot so I could get on the road; it’d be unforgiveably rude to be late. I looked up at the sky and asked for help. Right on cue, one of the road crew guys hard at work in the middle of the road there passed me by and asked how we were – so I asked him for a hand getting up the hill. Evan still stays in touch, he’s such a dear human being.

We talked all the way up the hill and a little further, and I managed to cram in a lot about what I was doing and why. He really wanted to know more; he’d had a lot on his mind about things related to the climate crisis, so I gave him lots of advice on what to look up… environmental and activist groups including XR, and some particular articles, and me.

And thanks to Evan, I wasn’t late for the interview. It went really well. They took the issues seriously, asked relevant questions, and gave the story more time than I’d expected. I think everyone there was personally interested in what I was saying and doing, too.

Mr Myrtle almost disappeared, though. He wears a tshirt to keep his harness from rubbing. The current shirt was a nice, bright, visible green – green screen green, it turned out! Fortunately, they tweaked something-or-other and it showed up as grey instead of invisible. He curled up beside me and minded his manners very well.

I grabbed something to eat nearby before heading out, and the station manager stopped in for her lunch break as well. We talked a bit, and went for a walk to a shop about a block away, called World of Water, where she introduced me to Gorp bars and the manager decided to support our walk with a whole bunch of them. He also signed the petition, and was such a nice, positive person to meet.

Gorp bars are another incarnation of the ubiquitous granola/energy bar. They’re organic and gluten free and low sugar, like the others I was eating, but they’re even healthier… and even yummier… AND they’re made on a farm in Manitoba! It’s a small scale family operation still, so at the time, they weren’t available outside the province yet. Hopefully they’re doing spectacularly well. I admit I’ve tried reverse-engineering the recipe, but haven’t even gotten close, and I miss them.

Instead of going all through the city again, I took the quickest way, figuring I’d grab a can of beans or something for dinner at a corner store along the way or the gas station on the way out of town. There wasn’t any at the only corner store I passed, nor at the gas station. They actually had absolutely nothing I could eat. I forget why I was so set on getting those beans, maybe I hadn’t found any at the grocery store before. The man at the counter suggested the next shop west… I sighed, but thanked him and went.

They didn’t have any either. I ended up back at the one by the Denny’s where we’d come into Brandon, where the waitress remembered us and gave me a cup of coffee and a hug, with a dish of water for MMS. I could go back into town, but I felt like I was going in circles – actually, I was. It would take too long, we wouldn’t make it to the campground before dark, and it would all be more walking than poor old bod had signed up for this day, or was going to agree to. As I kicked myself and decided Gorp bars would be an excellent dinner, a woman getting gas wondered what I was doing. I explained, and it turned out that a friend of hers who’d been an environmental activist had passed away recently, and his service had been this day. That explained why so many people had been interested and stopped to talk. She offered to take me down to the grocery store in town and back. The man at the counter let me lock our caravan by the door and promised to keep an eye on it, which he did, and I got my flippin’ flappin’ everlovin’ beans, in packable packages, even, and as a consolation prize from the universe – a dark organic chocolate bar (I got one for my kind ride friend, too). Sometimes I’m really the least organized person I’ve ever heard of and thank goodness for helpful people… the ones I’ve known forever, and the ones that pop out of the blue, or float through like leaves on streams do for wet bugs.

Bry-mar Campground is about 15 kilometers from where we started in the morning… we finally got there shortly before dusk, after having travelled more than twice as far. I was so tired I really hope I wasn’t rude to anyone while I tried to get settled.

#WalktoWakentheNationexpeditionbook