THE EXPEDITION Chapter 18: Printing Presses, Pie, Pretty Great Music……..and Pikachu (Sec
- Ann Cognito
- May 28, 2022
- 5 min read
In which once again a peaceful dalliance in a grove ends with a disturbing encounter Date: June 22 2019
Carberry to Sidney 20.5 km
The next day took us through more beautiful green trees, and a lot of passing traffic. There’s an astounding number of astoundingly big RV’s out there, you know? Some pull little cars, which saves driving the behemoth around towns. Some pull full sized vehicles. Some pull a large cargo trailer plus a pickup truck, with a quad in the back of that, and sometimes the pickup is towing a boat – I was so surprised at that convoy I forgot to take a picture, I just stopped and stared.
They all end up at campgrounds somewhere and that day, they mostly seemed to end up at the same campground I did. The manager explained there was a bluegrass festival that weekend, and in light of the noise and crowd, she’d let me pitch my tent wherever I could for half the usual price – that was like having cake and eating it, too!
There were quite a few dogs around, but we found a lovely good spot under a few particularly kindly oaks (they were everywhere) and settled in. I pulled out my beans and my road map book while musicians practised and played all around and down-to-earth people paused in their tours to talk about my walk, and about the world.
They throw this festival every year, and people come from miles around to play, sing, and just enjoy. There’s some great talent, lots of regulars, and it would have been lovely to stay longer, but it was lovely to catch it at all.
Date: June 23 2019
Sidney to Portage la Prairie 47.5 km + 10km ride
We came out of the campground while the dawn haze was still lifting. For a moment, when we rounded the bend almost immediately after getting back on the highway, I thought the mist and sun were doing weird things to my perspective… but all I could see ahead was a newly paved six foot wide shoulder winding downhill for miles and miles.
We coasted and braked and zoomed along, laughing and barking as we passed our lunchtime destination too early for breakfast, and rolled into our nighttime goal just in time for the first seat of the day at the local diner.
I pulled out my mapbook; it was too early to stop for the day, but Portage la Prairie was too far and I hadn’t found anything in between in my constant ongoing searching and planning. Pulling out maps in diners tends to create much helpful advice, though, and today was no exception. Next thing you know, a gentleman who’s been farming in the area for longer than most of us will live was telling me about a likely solution.
There’s a PetroCan on the highway a little while before Portage la Prairie. It’s where you stop for gas if you want to just get through the city without stopping, or if you’re heading somewhere from there, or coming home and need gas for work in the morning. They’re not open all night, but there’s lights on and people using the card pump all night, and locals know folks camp there. It’d be a bit of a stretch, but after such an easy morning, and with an mostly cooperative road ahead, it was doable and made more sense than stopping so soon, especially with nowhere really to camp nearby. So off we went.
We had a little time to stop for a break about halfway. I left the scooter and trailer by the shoulder, and Mr Myrtle and I were wandering through a thick windbreak of old trees taking more photos of green things and tiny flowers when someone pulled up on the little access road right beside us.
A very large man in dirty clothes nearly filled a tiny old car. What space was left, he’d crammed full of every kind of Pikachu toy imaginable. He kind of blocked me from passing, and said he’d heard me in the restaurant talking about where I was going. He’d seen the scooter and said he’d worried that something had happened, although we were clearly visible from the highway and clearly not in any kind of distress. He kept rolling his car back and forth, blocking me, and kept pressing conversation. Within a few minutes, he’d contradicted himself multiple times regarding his destination, home, trip purpose, wife, and I don’t even remember what else. He showed me photos of his now-deceased (at various dates) partner and child, but the people in them were inconsistent and didn’t resemble each other.
As this was happening, a woman jogged by. She looked over, but didn’t say anything. She returned from the nearby farmhouse with another woman almost immediately, in a quad, and they went back and forth a few times. The Pikachu man kept trying to talk me into a ride, but looked disconcerted whenever the women passed, and honestly – he gave me the creeps.
Citing the women as an excuse, saying they must be annoyed at trespassers, I said loud enough for them to hear that I’d better get going and let him go wherever he was going.
He went back the way he’d come, but I looked over my shoulder all the way to that gas station. Staying there when creepy Pikachu man knew where I was didn’t seem too wise… but what was the alternative? There hadn’t been a likely spot to stop, and I wouldn’t want to be so easily found anyways, but Portage la Prairie really was too far.
The young man working asked me to wait for a lull and talk with him. He agreed with my misgivings, and said a lot of folks coming through were regulars. He’d help me find a ride into the city.
We weren’t there very long before a young family moving to the Maritimes with a truck and van-cum-trailer offered to take me. They didn’t have much more idea about what was where there than I, but we knew there was a campground. Looking it up, though, we discovered they were in the process of spraying pesticide treatments in that area – that made camping there out of the question.
They had small children and had to keep going, so I asked them to drop us at the 24 hour Tim Hortons where I could have a bite (and probably nap) and figure things out.
By evening, Mr Myrtle was full of accidentally-made chicken nuggets and we’d both had a few hash browns and good conversations. I’d gotten myself a news interview the following morning, and a little bit of groceries to pack, and had also gotten in touch with a woman whose family lived back the way I’d come, but we got together and had such a good visit. She was following the walk on facebook, and offered us a place to stay, but I was concerned about coming back through creepy guy’s stomping ground again afterward… it felt awful turning her down, but he really was disturbing. We found a nice, clean, quiet, and cheap room for the night, with help for the bill. The couple who run the HiWay Motel loved what I was doing, and we talked a whole lot. They also work very hard – that was one of the cleanest rooms we had, and so quiet. There was even lots of blue, instead of the ubiquitous hotel stain-hiding drab pattern.
Comments