M is for Motekye

Grand Finale

2008-08-14T02:59:04Z

I think my travels are over this year. We're back in Vancouver for the foreseeable future. I've been many places, met tons of people, been to hell and back and had an awesome time. Through all of it I've learned that traveling is the bomb, but what's even better is having a place to come home to. It took about 60 seconds to get my old job back and I've already made plans to get an apartment for September 1st.

To recap: we went to Nelson, met an awesome band named Blame the Name from Quebec, some wicked kids from Saskatchewan, got stuck in Salmo for 2 days waiting for our friends. We met an awesome rottweiler on the side of the highway and nicknamed him 'Big Rig' after his affinity for chasing 18-wheelers, until the owner finally came to find him a day later.

We bought Nate's ticket in Nelson and I was going to sneak in. When we arrived at the start of the 6km walk up the ranch property to the site there were cars lined up the whole way and down th highway as far as I could see. So instead of sneak in, I walked the line sparing for change to buy a ticket off a scalper; I danced and sang to entertain the cars and flew a sign. People were so impressed by what I was trying to do that I got toonies and fivers. By the end of the line I had $200, then security kicked me out.

The line had advanced since then and the beginning was past the first checkpoint—which I could no longer cross. At the bottom of the line, there was no getting the cars to stop, I just sat with my sign yelling at every car with an open window "Spare ticket you can sell me?! Spare ticket?!" I made a couple extra bucks, but not much. Things were looking grim.

Then a car stopped for me. "Yes, we do have a spare ticket..."

$200-something bucks and a free ticket. Happy Shambhala.

motekye @ 2008-08-01T11:07:00

2008-08-01T18:12:16Z

We stayed at the wharf for three nights and had big bonfires until the cops busted us. Now we gotta camp out of town until the third. It's just two more nights anyway.

Then we get to go to Salmo! We get to meet up with the Vancouver kids and go to Shambhala! We haven't really planned out what happens after that. Maybe more fruit picking, maybe going out East, who knows. It's the first day of August and it definitely feels like the start of a new month.

I'm going to keep this short. There's free food waiting at the top of the hill and we're due at the YERC at 1:00 to get a job today. After that, we're going to go check out the waterfall at the other end of town.

Until next time.

motekye @ 2008-07-30T12:16:00

2008-07-30T19:23:19Z

We worked our last day thinning apples and collected our combined $325 for our last week of work. Now, we're in Nelson!

The fellow who took us here dropped us off just outside of town, where we hiked up a hill to make camp near a fenced-off waterfall. Man was that something. We hopped the fence to see it, it's like the water cut a deep gorge with trees and grass on either side. I charged my phone with my windup for a few minutes to get a picture. It was amazing. Standing next to a tree I could look down the gorge 50 feet to certain death.

We pitched our tent on a slope again. It was stupid and now our tents broken. The cheapest tent here is twice the size and cost of our old one. We haven't bought it yet.

We got dinner at the Salvation Army drop-in center and hiked past the bridge to the old wharf where we slept. What a piece of work. The thing's damn near a hundred years old. It provided shelter, but portions of the wood floor were rotted completely through. All the guard-rails are gone and the only way to get to it is a long, rusted steel catwalk, high over the shore with no guard-rail.

The rain came down mercilessly on the top of the wharf that night, us and the three punks we met in Nelson were very glad we decided to camp there.

motekye @ 2008-07-23T14:10:00

2008-07-23T21:33:52Z

So we made camp on Sukhi's orchard the night before we would start work. He pointed down a dirt road dividing two blocks of fruit trees on his orchard and told us to pitch our tent wherever. There was a road just off of that with rows of trees on either side, each row had a tent pitched between the trees with a few personal belongings of the owners strewn around—5 other tents in total. This is the camp-site we would come to know as "the lane".

We met a few of our fellow pickers who were still awake and figured out what this place was about. It was very close-knit, everyone here hung out together and got drunk. The first people we met were Felix from Montreal and Sam from Chicago, Illinois—the first picker here we've met who wasn't from Quebec. We picked a spot just after an empty row that the tractor drove down and pitched our tents, ready for work the next day.

We didn't know what to expect, we've never picked fruit before in our lives, but we got the hang of it pretty fast. On my first day, I brought in 17 ten-lb pails, the kids from Quebec each brought in 30 and then called it a day. After our first day of work, we got to know the other pickers here. Jean-Michelle from outside of Quebec City, Emanuel from somewhere else in Quebec and Nayalee from Mexico, I think. Over the course of the two weeks we were there we worked together, we drank together, overcame the language and culture barriers and became good friends.

Over time, I began to notice improvement in the speed and ease of my picking. I would be able to do 20 pails a day before the season ended, Nate went from 9 on her first day to the mid-teens. We quickly learned just what it meant to be a "migrant farm worker". We made $2.50 per pail which for most of us worked out to be less than minimum wage, the toilette was an atrocious porta-potty, and every time I opened the door I was accosted by a rank odor and a horde of flies. It was emptied only once the entire time we were there, and only after two days of hassling Sukhi.

The camp turned into a dump of empty bottles, food wrappers and other garbage, there was no hygene here, our baths were in an irrigation canal, a ten minute hike up the road. We ate cheap cans of pasta and beans from super-value cooked over a fire, or when we could afford propane, Sam's stove. Every night, we drank wine and talked under the stars, then long after the sun had set, retired to our tents in a stupor, only to be woken up at dawn by a cowbell. It was time to work again.

"You pick the cherries now!"

Life was not completely simple, there was drama between the members of our faction from the beginning. Gillian and Nate's bickering and general bad behaviour caused a host of problems that eventually led to Gillian leaving for Vancouver. Chelsea joined us a few days before that and from day one, her and Sam were at each-other's throats. I think the only people in the camp that did not have problems with someone were the Frenchies.

Nearing the end of the cherry picking, our camp was moved to the back of a cherry block so th4e block we were in could be sprayed with pesticide. We aranged our tents in a circle between two wide rows of trees,the stove and fire-pit in the center. This camp would be called the circle. By this time, we had all figured out this whole cherry picking thing, I was making 20 pails a day and on the last day of picking, managed to bring in a personal record of 27 pails.

Almost every day we would walk or hitch-hike into town to make use of the ammenities provided here for us. There's the beach where over the course of a week, I have gone from a thrashing emu to an avid swimmer. I can float, swim out into deep water and dive down and swim around underwater. There's also the park where everyone hangs out. It's always full of pickers getting drunk. And of course there's also this library where I'm making this post.

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Cherry picking is over now, first Emanuel and Nayalee left to go east to Creston for their contract, Then Felix left for Naramata to follow the "Cherry Road"—every town along the way begins their cherry season at a different time. Finally Jean-Michelle left to go back home to Quebec. It feels like the end of something.

The scene in this town has changed. All the french cherry pickers have been replaced by spanish fruit pickers and farm workers. We're picking peaches on the same orchard, but the work is crappy and there's not enough of it. It's pouring rain and everything is wet and miserable, the members of our camp are always arguing. Me and Nate will probably be leaving Oliver soon. Maybe Naramata, maybe summerland. We don't know yet. I'll know by tomorrow...

Dehumanizing String of Bullshit.

2008-07-16T22:32:37Z

So we got work! A while ago now, actually. forgot to update because it's been busy.

So after waking up on a dog beach in a strange and unfamiliar town—it's happened more than once—we packed up camp as not to bother the elderly and proceeded back into Oliver, the weight of our bags crushing our souls. The first order of business was to explore the town and find some work. After the Orchard Association did not help very much, we rolled down to WorkZone and after a little bullshit, got set up with a job for the next day.

We went there and the lady said her name wasn't Joe. We couldn't phone the number back and the address seemed bogus. This would be the beginning of a very dehumanizing string of bullshit.

After the first orchard job didn't pull through, an orchard owner offered to let us camp on his property. The only tihng was that he kept asking our friend Razan if she wanted to get drunk with him. The fellow was a creeper. Well, maybe this is what all orchard owners act like, just stick up to him. Aside from that he was very nice and let us stay on his orchard for a couple days with a promise of work later. We stayed there for about 5 days while we tried to get work in the town.

We had jobs lined up each of those days but something always went afoul. The first one we went to, we didn't realize that you have to show up extra early to these things. We got to the orchard around 8 and the lady said no work. After that, we make a phone call and maybe get work starting a few days later, also a few days after that at the Suki guy's orchard we're staying at. Then we make a mistake. Suki kept telling us different days everytime we asked. At first it was thursday, then it was friday—which makes sense because there was a freak storm here on the night before. The cherries might be damaged. Then Suki says maybe saturday instead of friday. So we get work lined up for friday somewhere else. The other place is a two hour walk to the other part of town.

It was a gruelingly long walk. A hike/bike trail that follows a forested area along the Okanagan river for about 10km from each side of town. The trail darts in and out of native land and is peppered with the stern and ever-present "tent with cross through it thingie" signs. Spooky. The river was also mostly closed off with a fence. There would be footbridges along the river and below them, underwater wheir's posted with warning signs like "THE DROWNING MACHINE" and black signs with skull and crossbones on them.

They really did not want people swimming in this river.

We camped in a completely sketch location along the river in what could have been native band land, employing full camoflauge and finding a somewhat secluded spot.
We woke up at 8. 3 hours late. We're irresponsible and stupid.
So we decide to go get orchard certified. Never did that either.
We did go back to Suki's orchard for Saturday work, and when we got there the place had been cleaned out. While we were 3km away walking into town, another group of pickers cleaned him out.

That's about when we realized that we would have to be a lot more assertive about this picking business. We decided, then and there, that we would show up at his house at 9-o-clock at night to get work. Turns out, it wasn't Suki who lived there after all. It was Sukhi. We got to stay at his orchard for the night and started picking the next day...

French People Everywhere!: Part 1

2008-07-11T20:24:39Z

The first night we stayed in Oliver, we stayed in a feild near the dog beach at Tuc El Nuit lake. We couldn't find the public beach. Turns out there was one, but it was pinner. Most of the property along the lake was private and everything that wasn't had no actual beach to speak of.

So for the last few days, we've been trying to get work in this town as fruit pickers. Hasn't been going too well. We explored the town and found a few points of interest. The Dollar store where everything costs more than a dollar, The supervalue where everything we buy to eat costs less than a dollar, the 7-11 where we can get free plastic spoons to eat the raviolli we buy at the supervalue for less than a dollar, the library where I post in this journal about the plastic spoons we get for free at 7-11 to eat the raviolli we buy at the supervalue for less than a dollar, the liquor store, the beach and of course, the workzone and orchard organization.

The last two are of particular interest; the orchard association is the first place we went, thinking we would be able to get hooked up with a fruit picking job in no time. The lady who ran the place was a french woman with hand tattoos. All the people who were there for information were also french. I was noticing a trend here. The Orchard association lady was actually trying to discourage us from picking, telling us it was complicated and dangerous work.

What the fuck.

I smell elitism. I thought I was done with this bullshit when I left Vancouver, but apparently there's a little bit of it everywhere. So we tried the WorkZone. We signed up and went through their little shpeil then hit the boards. I called everyone on there who we thought would need pickers and low and behold, one of them wanted us to come in the next morning. It was an orchard a short walk out of town along #3 road. Have we managed to do the impossible? Tune in next time for the next exciting adventure.

Oliver Twist: Part 3

2008-07-10T19:30:37Z

If you haven't been keeping up, in the first entry the four of us set of in pairs to reach Oliver, each taking separate paths. It was a race to see who would win and it seemed like me and Gillian were in the lead. Of course, in the second entry all our hopes and dreams are shattered when we find out we lost. Lost harsh. You can hear all about how harsh we got owned by reading Nate's response.

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After me and Gillian saw the graffiti from Nate and Razan on the hitching post outside of Penticton, we knew we were behind, but didn't think we could've been that far back. I mean, we had pretty good luck with the exception of Princeton. Judging from the wetness of the sharpie on the post I assessed that it must only be a few hours old. We might still have a chance to beat them!

No.

Before we even set down our bags on the ground a hatchback full of hippie kids pulled over. We stuffed ourselves and our bags into the car—with much effort. The ride from Penticton to Oliver was a short one, we found out that they came to town to pick fruit as well, and since we've been here, I've seen them around town a couple of times. We got to meet their dog named Prada—later renamed to Maya as I've been told. And they let us out near city hall. Just up the road, there were Nate and Razan, sitting in the shade wondering where the hell we've been and what took so long. Goddamn bitches. We rolled into town around 3 in the afternoon and they had been there waiting for us since 10 in the morning. It took us a grand total of 4 rides to get all the way to Oliver and it took the other crew 2. Next time, I'm taking highway #1 through Surrey. Forget this Maple Ridge business.

Nowthat we're here, the next challenge is to get work in town. Easier said than done. Not only is the fruit crop shitty this year, but we're late and the town is overrun by kids from Quebec who've been doing this year after year and have a serious leg-up on us. Not to mention cars to get between the orchards. It was going to take a lot of charisma and hard work to even get a job here let along survive the summer sun and make enough money so the girls can go to Shambhala.

First we hit the library, I went off to the visitor center to get some maps. Since everything was basically closed when we got into town, we would have to wait until tomorrow to get anything done.

So we got drunk at the lake. Time well spent.

Oliver Twist: Part 2

2008-07-09T19:03:55Z

Continuing our adventures from last time, you know that me and Gillian were in Chilliwack and well on our way to beating Nate and Razan to Oliver. After only an hour or so near the vedder crossing exit, we managed to pick up a ride from a native lady heading out to Calgary, returning home from dropping her kids off at the reserve on Vancouver island. We had some good talks about what travelling's like these days, her time on the reserve and her job as a bookkeeper—the usual stuff.

We had to part ways at the split where #1 splits into #1, #3 and #5, since she was taking #5 and going a different direction than us. However, we were now on highway #3 and were no longer trapped at exits lest we get hassled by the police. It's illegal to hitch on #1 in B.C., but #3 is okay. After a short wait I found a broken truck strap which I now wear as a belt. We also picked up some cardboard to make a sign to hitch with...

"WE DONT BITE"

We watched all the cars that drove by turn off to take the #5 Coquihalla just before reaching us. It seemed only 1 in 20 cars were going our way. Eventually we got picked up by a fellow named Craig and his rickety bucket of bolts. His car had some kind of misalignment problem with the drive belt or something. Whatever it was, the car couldn't do more than 40km/h when going uphill and the fact he was carrying us and all our stuff didn't help much either. He would've been able to take us all the way to Penticton but it was just too much for his car. We said our goodbyes in Princeton just as dusk had set in. The highway was dead, no cars, there was no ride to be hitched here.

Another night sleeping in the bush in Princeton. I think I'm pulling a record now.

Waking up in the morning, only 400k from our starting point and at least another 400k to go, things were looking bleak. I knew from a text message that Nate and Razan had also packed it in for the night, being stranded somewhere behind us. I knew we would win, there was no question. Despite our bad luck, two chances to get so close to our goal falling through, we would beat them and reach Oliver on our second day.

In the morning, me and Gillian packed up our stuff, descended the steep hill in search of caffiene and the way to Keremeos. We found both. In fact, we did better than that. Around mid-day a construction truck—the kind with the amber lights on them—stopped to pick us up, being amused by our sign. Erin and Rick were two tree-trimmers who work for Fortis-BC, the power company, as interior BC does not have BC-Hydro. They trim trees that grow too close to the power lines.

The two were an odd bunch, blue-collar Price George boys who've worked together so long they speak their own private language of hashed words and inside jokes. They took us where we needed to go, the point just before Penticton where the highway splits off three ways.

West—the way we came from—to Vancouver via Keremeos/Princeton
North to Penticton and Kelowna
South to Oliver and Osoyoos

We were a mere 20 minute drive from our goal, Oliver. It wouldn't take long before we would be sitting in the shade with fancy drinks that have umbrellas and lime wedges, waiting for Nate and Razan to arrive so we could gloat. There was a familiar lamp-post here. A place me and Nate had been last year and tagged with our sharpie. Me and Gillian went over to investigate to see if we could find my old tags from last year. Sure enough they were there, but there was more...

"Tutti was here." -That's Razan
"Nate the Great, 2008"

AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

They beat us. I din't know how, but they fucking beat us.

Oliver Twist

2008-07-08T19:22:30Z

After a couple months of what I would call a vacation away from a vacation, we've returned to the highway.

for the past month or so, we've been in Victoria with the fellows we met in Nelson, drinking with their roommates at a place called the Steakhouse. We also went camping with another 4 people in Thetis. After that, we came back to Vancouver to work and catch up with old friends.

Now we're back!

This time it's 4 of us. There's myself, Nate, Gillian and Razan. We decided to split off into pairs to hitch-hike and then meet up in Oliver to find work on an orchard. Because Gillian and Razan have never hitch-hiked before, I went off with Gillian and Nate took Razan under her wing—the poor girl wanted to bring her whole house with her, but we managed to talk her down to a reasonable bag.

On the way back out, we were arguing about which way would be faster, the #7 Lougheed hwy out of town or the #1 Trans-Canada. I knew the #1 would probably be the quickest way to get out of town, but hitch-hiking on the #1 highway is against the law in B.C.—except on exits. I was in no rush to get to Oliver and didn't want to repeat the experience I had in Ontario last year where the O.P.P. dumped out our backpacks. Me and Gillian would take the #7 to get out of Vancouver, Nate and Razan would take the #1 and we would see who makes it to Oliver first.

The race was on. We split up at Columbia skytrain station and headed towards maple ridge from Braid. The bus ride to get to ridge took an hour and sent me down memory lane. After getting to Haney place, we hoofed down to the Haney bypass and began hitching.

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The first ride was a lady named Caryl—a punk-rock mom who played Rancid and Tiger army the entire way to Chilliwack. We stopped somewhere in abbotsford to smoke a joint with her daughter Charolette I think. Holy crap was this backwards, the daughter was a Prada-princess and kept reaching over to turn down the good tunes, like "Oh god, mom's player her damn punk music again..." She took us to her house and let us help ourselves to the contents of her pantry. We knabbed some v8, crackers and granola bars. The kids in the house were all smoking, drinking beer and talking about how wasted they got last night. What a trip. I wanna grow up in a house like that.

She gave us her number in case we got stuck in chilliwack and needed a place to stay for the night, and it was then, on the highway 30k out of hope when I got a message from Nate and Razan.

"Just got our first ride, were going to Abbotsford!"

I knew we were going to beat them. I knew it!

motekye @ 2008-06-03T15:12:00

2008-06-03T22:52:49Z

Well, fortunately we weren't stuck there for 3 days. Not nearly that much actually. we waited from mid-day to sundown and eventually someone did pick us up. A man very unfittingly named Bulldog with little teddy-bears glued onto the dashboard gave us a ride in his oldsmobile. We cruised down the Hope-Princeton highway—he was going all the way to Hope!

On the way there it was getting darker and darker, I was talking about where we ought to campthat night until I saw some wildlife. First there was one black bear by thehighway, they a few kilometers later there was another, and a few more kilometers later there was another.

Apparently Hope is crawling with bears in the summer. It was also raining hard. Fuck camping. We stayed in a motel in Hope then set out for Vancouver in the morning. We were drawn between taking the #1 which went right through town or hiking about 5km over the fraser bridge to start on the beginning of the #7. The #1 has more traffic, but we can only hitch on the exits so we chose the harder road.

It looked bleak to start. Cars only came by every few minutes and it was mostly city vehicles. We were at an unusual intersection. In order to reach highway #7 West you must travel East out of Hope along highay 1. Because of the exit position there was virtually no traffic. Eventually—maybe after 3 or 4 hours—The 32nd car that drove by to be exact, we got a ride. It was in a white pickup.

A young native man and his friend were off to a fishing trip somewhere along our way. It was only a few kilometers along the highway, but it was a memorable ride. First the guy turned around and went to a house on one of the backroads I think he owned. He came out a few minutes later with a ziplock bag full of crack rocks for his friend in the car. Then he went to another house up the road, which also may or may not have belonged to him. He asked "So, what's your poison?" This was kind of out of the blue... No crack for us thank you! But he gave us a big nugget of weed that he clipped right offa a plant. Apparently this guy's completely loaded.

Intense. We waited on the #7 half way between Hope and Aggasiz for a few hours until our last ride came. It was a fellow named rick in an old blue van. We stopped off near Dewdney, then again in Maple Ridge, then he took us right to Braid skytrain.

During this time, we experienced Nato getting kicked out of a bar even though she turned 19 a few days ago. We also saw one of the spots we hitched on our way out of Vancouver last time. The lamp-post in the middle of no-where with "Hitching post" written on it.

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Now where back... Until the 5th at least. Then it's off to Victoria!

motekye @ 2008-05-29T21:40:00

2008-05-30T05:11:02Z

So we were hitchhiking out of a small community of mobile homes between Keremeos and Penticton called Ollala! A little background on Ollala; the entire community is 55+ and there's no store. Well, theres one little store that sells junk. But no-where to eat. Or buy food for that matter. Keremeos is a 15 minute drive away and we were stuck in this trailer park hole for 4 days.

It was nice to get to leave, but Nate was feeling sick and waiting on the side of the road was getting more and more grim. Then, out of the dust in the distance, there was a pickup truck. And a man. A man who rescued us from this terrible place and took us to the clinic in Keremeos so Nate could get checked out. The we were off. We walked and we walked and there didn't seem to be any end to this town. There was nothing but houses, houses and farms and stinky animal poo! Then, there was a small dutch cafe. There was pie! Dutch pie.

And there was a lot more walking. Way too much walking in my opinion. I saw a roadsign that said "Keremeos bypass ahead" and when we got there it was a dirt road. Then eventually, a man named Mike came by and picked us up. He took us to Princeton. I remember being in Princeton earlier this year in February. Everything at that point was covered in a blanket of snow and it looked to me like a forest town—then seeing it in the summer made it look like a completely different place. It's more arid and brushy than I originally expected. And I didn't know that it was part of the Similkameen valley either.

We ran into a fellow who I had met last time I was here and I think I remember him picking us up last year. Then we drank under a bridge... Small town tradition. There were marmots there. And afterwards we climbed a hill and camped. Princeton isn't much of a town. There's the ususal fast food restaurants, a couple motels and a big lumber mill. We walked west to the beginning of the hope-princeton highway and stuck our thumb out, and we waited. The lady at the gas station advised us that she's seen people waiting in our spot for as long as 3 days at a time...

Oh boy.

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SURVIVAL TIPS IF YOU END UP IN OSOYOOS/KEREMEOS/PRINCETON:

- There's no services in these towns. They're not big enough.
- You can camp pretty much anywhere. City limits is a short hike.
- Wait outside supermarkets and ask for work or accomidations. People in small towns are more receptive.
- Hitching out is a lot more difficult. Most through traffic to big cities goes along the #1 highway, not the #3.

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We're in Van right now! For a couple days at least. Then it's off to the island for fun and adventures. Stay tuned for the next episode!

Short one.

2008-05-27T21:45:35Z

Goddamn libraries with their only 15 minutes of time!

Okay, after Castlegar, we waited up on the hill out of town to catch a ride. Some gold pickup said "You look like emo faggots". I flipped `em off and they're all like "HEY! Fuck you!" all offendedly. I guess I feel bad for hurting their feelings, but what can you do?

We had little ways down the trail to get a good spot with out-of-town traffic. Out of town traffic is a must when you're trying to get from one small shit-town to the next. See, the majority of cars that are passing you by are just people running errands slightly out of town. They're not going to be inclined to give you a ride. What you want to do is hike about a kilometer past the suburbian areas where the houses are sparse if present at all.

The problem this creates is access to services if you happen to fail at hitching that day. This is one of the reasons I liked the prairies for hitching. There would be gas stations out in the middle of no-where! It was perfect. There was access to water and food and all through traffic would be going a long distance. A lot of the time the attendants would let us squat outside with a sign reading our destination.

But back to B.C. We hiked up the narrow valley about 20 minutes before we found an appropriate spot just before the 100km/hour speed limit sign. This is another good place to hitch. Traffic, in most cases, will be coming out of city limits slowly until it reaches a posted sign allowing it to speed up. By hitching just before the sign, it not only brings their attention to the fact you're standing there trying to get a ride, but it's also the pivotal moment when the driver will decide whether to stop and pick you up, or just speed along. Generally it's the latter.

Eventually, we were picked up by a wonderful couple named Shane and Dian. They took us to the A&W in Grand Forks and we chatted for a while, told them some stories of our travels. Very few people pick us up, but the ones that do are always friendly and always seem fascinated by our stories. I told the A&W guy to go to Europe. What the fuck are you doing working at A&W, man!

Grand forks had a much larger youth population than the small towns we were used to going through. Well, Castlegar was like that too, and Nelson, but once you hit the southern Okanagan, it's mostly just old people... And Hicks... And old hicks (they're the worst). We camped the night in a wooded area near the bridge on the highway, though it was dark and we didn't know how heaty the spot was—and we kept hearing rustling in the bushes reminiscent of a large racoon, in the morning we found that our tent was very well hidden, albiet on a slope. I thought I learned my lesson last year, but apparently not. Do not ever, EVER pitch your tent on a slope. You will regret it—as Nate tells me over my shoulder.

So, crawling out through the door which was on the bottom of our tent at this point, I stood to greet a brand new day! We hiked back into Grand Forks city to check the place out. There was a restaurant called Gilly's and a hobby shop called Heather's Hobbies. Two of our friends back in Vancouver would appreciate that. There was a Subway... Uh... A shopping center? WTF do you want from me people. It's a hole. A goddamn hole full of American tourists and a crazy crackhead/doctor/RCMP officer. All that and he's on welfare! Good times.

Getting out of Grand forks was shockingly easy. I stuck my thumb out and the first car that passed us pulled over and gave us a lift. Incredible luck. I never thought that would ever happen and I'll be damned if it happens again. The point is, we got out of there and we were headed to Osoyoos! (World record holder for most O's in it's name!)

We walked through Osoyoos because we had already been there once on our way into B.C. and it was getting dark. We needed a place to camp, so we followed a new gravel path following the highway, out of town until we reached a circle of trees. We pitched our tent, got rip-ragingly drunk and passed out. It was beautiful. It was comfy and secluded and nice and far out of town. Keep an eye out for brushy spots like that off the highway, they're gems.

We woke up in the morning and I felt a little shitty in the stomach. This was the beginning of something truly horrible.

Hitching out of town wasn't that bad. I kinda keeled over a bit with my thumb out and sat on my backpack. Between the cramps and desire to vomit, I spotted a black and grey pickup pull over in front of us. A trio of natives offered us a ride in the back of their pickup! Being the adventurous soul I am—I mean, I was ready to puke anyway—We accepted and lied down with our bags. I watched the mountains and trees and road signs fly by, looking up out of the flatbed. They turned off the highway to deal with some business at an orchard. My alarms started going off, but eventually we were back on the road and I felt at ease again.

They dropped us off in beautiful downtown Keremeos after a ride that seemed to take hours. Nate disagreed and thought it only lasted a few minutes. I was about ready to pass out at this point. I was delerious and seeing crazy colours and patters. I kept dry-heaving outside the library, where two locals were very annoyed to have to stop their game of Runescape to let us check our e-mail from distant friends and loved-ones. I swear, some running-bird asshole in a poncho with feathers and shit, who was white as bleached flour, thinks his game of fucking runescape is more important than me updating you people! The nerve.

Sitting outside the supersave—which they locked at mid-day because they were scared of us or something, a nice lady named Margaret offers to let us stay at her house. Trying to contain my puke, I thank her and give her a big hug. We were going to Olalla!

I spent the next two days lying in a half-finished room of a trailer puking up everything I tried to eat. On the third day, I we did some housework for her, and that about when things went shitty. We watched some movies, we told her stories and she started preaching the word of god. And kept on talknig about Jesus and Archangel Micheal and stuff. It was bearable for a time, but being stuck in that situation for 3 days because you can't stand up without puking really gets to you. Then when we were about to leave, she had the nerve to accuse us of stealing $15 from her purse! Ugh. There's no way we could prove we didn't. That woman has a PhD in guilt tripping.

On the way out, Nato began getting my cold too, and now we were on the road again. Things were looking grim...

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Well, out of time once again. You guys are still not quite up to speed on our story. We're headed back to Vancouver to visit a few friends, have a little camping trip on the island and maybe hitch-hike the island too if we feel like it. The next time I post here, I'll probably be in town anyway.

Spoons? Knives? Grand Forks.

2008-05-22T18:27:15Z

I'm in Grand Forks right now, you guys are seriously behind...

Getting to Castlegar was a pain in the ass. The town is only about an hour out of Nelson, but extenuating circumstances caused the trip to take about 7 hours and two rides. At first, we tried to hitch right at the edge of town, too much local traffic was coming by. There was no good shoulder for nearly a kilometer, we were almost in the next municipality before we found a good spot to hitch. Leaving Nelson via highway 3a means a big hike—I'll have to remember that.

The triangular area between Nelson, Trail and Grand Forks looks somewhat like a spiderweb of highways and miniscule municipalities. Almost like a labrynth of major routes and backroads. The first ride was short—a fellow named Dallas took us only about 20 minutes up the road to a fork. The wait for that ride was about 3 hours.

You spend a disproportionate amount of time waiting for rides opposed to being in cars. The wait is dull, however it provides an excellent opportunity to harbour impressive talents. I've recently taken up hacky-sac. Nate reads, I think. Every time I meet travellers, they can almost always do impressive things, like firespin or stand on a ball and juggle—now I know why. And being in the car is no picnic, either. I mean, it's cool that you're going somewhere instead of drowning in dread on the side of the road, but after maybe 10 minutes of "Hello! Where ya headed? Oh cool..." The coversation dies down... Then it gets awkward. Either you can do the rude thing and sleep, or practice your conversational bull-shitting skills.

Dallas took us to a fork in the road near what looked and smelled like a reserve town. I cried when I saw it, because I imagined for a moment living there. The houses were shacks and there was an unattended fire burning in a field of woodchips and debris. I wanted out of here. Unfortunately we were not alone. There was a man already hitching here, so our wat would be even longer. Every oncev in a while, a car would cruise by—"a while" being 15 minutes or so. Mr. Grumps up the road who wouldn't even tip his hat to us would stand up and hitch, then sit down again when the car enevitably did not stop. After about 3 hours, it looked like grumpy got fed up and went back to town. Three cars later we got a ride!

A kid younger than us driving an older model sedan took us into the city and made some good conversation. He took us to an open gas station within city limits, blazed us up and dropped us off. Now, we would have to find Pete and Lexi and return their camera...

A couple of phone calls got us in touch and we got directions to the highway exit where they made camp. Quite a good spot—heavy brush, large area, close to all emenities such as a liquor store (well three actually), A&W, Internet cafe (even if it was $2 for 15 fucking minutes), and all the exotic scenery Castlegar had to offer. In Vancouver, a spot in the bushes like that would run you a good $750/month plus utilities.

Castlegar is an interesting town. It's a Dukabour town. At the turn of the century, a couple hundred drunked Russians decided to settle down in this skinny little valley. A hundred years later, I'm standing on this intersection and I shit you not, theres a liquor store on all four corners. And there's a borcht barn! And old people with funny wooden shoes!

On the first night, the four of us plus Pete's dog set up camp in the brush, drank ourselves silly and ended up getting a very pleasant night's sleep. Around 7 in the morning, I woke up to sunshine and birds singing and people picking flowers and riding tandem bikes—I couldn't take much more of it, so I crawled back into our little hole. Around noon after I had slept off my hangover, it was pouring bloody rain.

Pouring... Rain...

The roof of our tent began to intermittently drip on our heads and the sleeping bag became progressively less dry and comfortable as the wetness crept in from the edges of the tent, like blob monster from some terrible B-movie, trapping us. I tried to roll over and pretend it wasn't happening, but I was getting colder and wetter by the minute. Eventually, Pete and Lexi ended up packing camp and going to A&W to keep dry. Me and Nate toughed it out for another 3 hours before the rain stopped.

We were miserable...

After taking out all our damp clothes and ruined belongings, I picked up the tent and poured out the water. Rolling up the tarp under our tent I discovered a telling square of dryness. Dammit, next time I'm putting the tarp OVER the tent. We ended up moving 50 yards down the highway to the overpass when the rain picked up again. Checking my wind-up radio, the forecast called for rain until Thursday. It was Tuesday. My plan was to sit under this bridge until then. It was a good plan.

After having a "getting kicked out of ten different places" adventure, Pete and Lexi joined us under the bridge. We were all like trolls, and after about ten hours, we were all like drunken trolls. We dragged a couple pallets from marks work warehouse and set them up to sleep on, there was not enough overhead clearance for a tent. Strangely enough, we were almost in plain view and yet nobody seemed to bother us. Six cop cars drove by and none of them stopped. Even weirder, we did not see a single other traveller or street person for our entire time there.

To me, Castlegar seemed like a hole. I asked every local there the same questions: "What do you like about Castlegar?" And if the answer was "nothing", like it usually was, the follow-up question was "Why are you still here?" I got some very interesting replies, I think I convinced the woman at the Chevron to pack up and move to Montreal. One man answered my question very well. He said "Everything." Some people can be happy in a place like that.

I was done fucking with their innocent little town and the morning after we slept under the bridge Pete and Lexi left to go their own way. Getting out of Castlegar was no fun time. There's four ways out of the town: to Nelson, to Trail, to Salmo and to Grand Forks. Our plan is to loop back through Osoyoos and head up to Kamloops, so we picked Grand Forks. Fortunately, we were sleeping right under the highway exit bridge for the #3! How convenient.

We dried ourselves out at the landromat first, then set off!

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Well, out of time, folks. I'm going to miss a lot of things about Castlegar...

The $8.60 six-packs. Cold.
The disenfranchised population.
NOT the dumb kids who yell "crackheads!"
NOT the shitty weather.
The pigs who don't bother you for sleeping.

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SURVIVAL TIPS IF YOU END UP IN CASTLEGAR!

- You can sleep without being bugged by cops. Just be subtle.
- There are no services that I had found, then again the entire time we were 3km from city center.
- There's a lot of liquor stores. A LOT.
- the town is only 8 blocks wide. It's easy to get out of.
- Get out of Castlegar. It sucks.

Castlegar?

2008-05-21T15:48:46Z

Castle.... Gar? Castle?.. GAR!

I'm in Castlegar and this computer charges $2 for 15 minutes... YIKES! So this one's going to be short but I'll try and get you up to date.

So in Nelson, we met a lot of very cool people. There's the general vagabonds who spend some or most of their time camping out in the city. You have Nate; Same name as Nato! He's shockingly like a friend we had back in Vancouver named Eli. He looks almost the same, talks the same, has the same voice, same attitude and he played many of the same songs Eli plays on guitar. It was like talking to someone we knew for years. Then there's Ryan, he was a fellow traveler going through the city selling weed before Shambala. I gave him a tattoo! That weird japanese letter thing that looks like a square with a line going down through it.

But mostly, we met some punks from Victoria there at the laundromat. Pete and Lexi. They live in the Steakhouse in Vic and were some of the coolest people we've met on our trip. They're basically in the same situation as us, not so crust that they're too good for us and not complete fish out of water, either. We drank with them on the beach in Nelson and had a rip-roaring good time. I gave them both Tattoos. Pete got Lexi's tag on his ankle and Lexi got a spiral with an arrow on hers. We exchanged information and promised to keep in touch. I think we have to show them around Vancouver sometime and they have to show us around Vic.

I bought Acid in Nelson. Or at least what I think is Acid. Nelson-Nate told me the place I got it from is good, but it seemed really sketch. This shirtless gangster dude comes up to me and asks, "What do you need?" ACID! So he takes me to this apartment building beside the homeless shelter, takes my $5 and comes back downstairs a few minutes later with a white press-cap, says it's 3 hits of acid. I'm a little skeptical, but I'll give it a shot when the time is right.

there's a lot of very cool things to see in this city... There's a nude beach just outside of town called Red Sands, lots of good camping spots around there, too. On the way there, there's an abandoned wharf outside a community-in-construction... It's so run down I thought looking at the thing would make it fall over, so I climbed around on it for a while. I was going up the wooden stairs before I noticed that half of them were gone! Not to mention the thing felt like it was going to topple over. I saw a guy fishing there, not a bad idea. Then of course, on the other side of the shore is the dog beach. About a kilometer long, with lots of peninsulas covered in brush, we ended up sleeping there two nights, nobody bothered us.

One place to check out in Nelson is Baker st. It's the main downtown drag and it's basically Commercial Drive but better. In fact, the entire city has that feel to it. There's a $2 train that crosses the city, but it wasn't open when we were there. We missed out on a hippie market beside a waterfall that we only saw briefly while leaving town. We never saw the lookout above the city either; too much of a hike.

Nelson is the kind of city that sucks you in, as the locals told us. After spending a summer there, you wont ever want to leave. The reason we left, actually, is because I accidentially scooped up Lexi's camera while drunk at night, thinking it was one of my pouches. So after we spent the morning looking for it, they skipped town. The next day, I was going through my bag and low and behold! It was there. Which is funny, because I was afraid they thought I stole it when they first lost it. They never so much as accused us.

A phone call later, we found out Pete and Lexi were in Castlegar, so off we went!

motekye @ 2008-05-17T12:43:00

2008-05-17T20:07:00Z

Walking back to the highway outside of Osoyoos after drinking a big bottle of wine was BRUTAL. The sun is intense there. It's a desert, and apparently the hottest city in Canada—Hotter than the prairies even. We said our goodbyes to the french punks we were hanging out with there and began the long trek out.

We were stopped outside a dairy queen, just about ready to pass out. After a few hours of hopeless thumbing, I decided to go get us a blizzard. Half way across the highway a black car pulled up to pick us up. I figured the only reason he stopped was because Nate was sitting there alone—a lot of the time girls hitch-hiking alone have to worry about pervs trying to pick them up. I darted back and ran up to his window and was like "Buddy! Gan we get a lift?"

Turns out, he was okay. I don't quite remember his name, he was quiet but very friendly. All along the way he was blaring punk and metal bands we've never heard of. He played Casualties for a while, the guy's a treeplanter, driving back to Nelson from Princeton where he was working. The highway was closed because of a flipped semi, so we had to take a longass detour through this old mining road, passing these creepy darelect houses late at night. Also, all the other cars were travelling down the one-way road too, so every once in a while we'd have to pull over to let someone try and get past us.

After passing through Grand forks and Castlegar, we eventually came up upon Nelson city limits. the place lies in a sunny valley, just below the alpine tree-line. Even though it's blistering hot, you can look out at the mountains and see that some of them are snow-capped. The town sits along a beautiful, clear lake. The streets are like trail, everything is steep hills. Lots of hemp shops, lots of crazy hippie stores and a huge candy store with everything from "Duff energy drink" to chocolate from Britain. A huge downtown core and a huge alternative scene for a town of only 20,000 people.

The fellah took us to a campground inside city limits, something I've never seen in any other town. He advised us that it was free, but he was wrong. The fee schedule sign wanted $17/night for a tent, plus $3 from each of us. $23 in total to camp for the night. After making use of their facilities, taking a shower and chilling in the mess hall for a little while, we decided that, because there's no-one there and also because it's 1:00am and we couldn't pay anyone if we wanted, we would just pitch our tent and see how it turns out.

Nobody came to our tent. So, in the morning we quickly packed up, Nato took a shower and we hoofed it out of there as quickly as we could. An interesting thing to note is that even though it was past midnight when we got there, there were still tons of people walking around on the streets and even in the residential areas. It's like a town full of night owls.

The second day there was spent looking around the city. We found out that there's a library there where we can use the Internet for free, a Salvation army where we picked up bread and a food hamper, a visitor center where we grabbed a map of the town and every ammenity you'd expect in a city twice the size.

We got some pizza and ended up running into some cool punk kids outside the laundromat. It's the first time on this trip we've met some kids just like us. The people in Kelowna were cool, but they were hardened, they lived there a long time and while we felt welcome, we didn't quite feel like we belonged there. They were a couple named Pete and Alexi. They came from Victoria and, like a lot of the people we've run into, stayed at the same $4 campground—Loose Bay. They also got a ride out of Kelowna from the same people we did. And while in Kelowna, also hung out with Scooby, Nick and their crew and felt pretty much the same way.

Finally, some like minded people.

We headed directly to the liquor store and I think you know the rest of this story...

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SURVIVAL TIPS IF YOU'RE IN NELSON:

- There's a salvation army open on the weekdays. They'll hook you up with a hamper.
- There's a library up the street from City Hall, free Internet.
- There's a soup kitchen where you can get a free lunch somewhere in town, haven't been there yet.
- near the beach, there's a visitor's center where you gan get a map.
- there's a campground in the middle of the city, but Nelson is very compact and most of the cops are pretty lax. hike out of town 5 minutes and you can pitch your tent almost anywhere.

Yeah! They let me on for another half hour...

2008-05-16T19:51:39Z

Alright, so after Rick and Tina picked us up and took us out of Penticton, a very lovely french girl named Pascale pulled over and took us a way's out of town to a fork in the highway. I think it was one of the first times a girl picked us up alone. Girls don't give you rides very often when they're alone, sort of a security thing. There have been some very good exceptions, though. Generally, you want couples if you're a couple and a lone male driver if you're anyone, because they usually wanna talk.

Standing at the fork in the highway in the middle of nowhere, we could look out over highway 3 going east and west and highway 97 north where we came from. From here, we could choose to hitch-hike west back to Vancouver via Princeton and Hope, or out East to Grand Forks, Trail, Nelson and the Kootenays. We choose the braver route and put our thumb out to go east.

Around dusk, Mark, a very chill french hippie dude with dreads pulled over and took us down the highway to a campground outside of Oliver. $4/person/night. That's a friggin steal! Everyone there was francophone—it was a camp for french fruit pickers. All night, the site about 50 feet away from us was blaring metal, french punk and french folk music—some very, very good tunes. We were comfy and warm and safe for the first time in a while. There was tent sex... Twice. We thought of socializing, but not knowing Francais would likely get us no-where.

The hike back down to the highway didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. Another girl picked us up and took us into Oliver—Kat was her name. She had some good music, a couple bands I recognized patched onto her denim jacket. There seems to be a lot of punks around this area. That pleases me greatly.

We took a little stroll through Oliver. It's a very small town with a lot of wineries. We stopped at a BCL to sample some of the area's fine exports. A 750mL bottle of 13% White wine puts you back about $7.50 here. We got the 1.5L for 14-something. In season, we heard you can get a bottle of the year's wine for four bucks! Insane man.

Hiking out of town, we caught a ride from a Franco surfer named Sam from the Island. Apparently he came out here with his dog to visit friends and his van broke down on the Vancouver Island ferry. He had to hitch with his dog most of the way, and someone ended up GIVING HIM A CAR. Three months of insurance thrown in, too. Why can't WE have that kind of luck? So there the three of us were, crammed in with his dog Oochie, he took us to Osoyoos, to a beach where a couple of his friends were hanging out. We caught some rays, drank our whole bottle of wine and I took a dip in the murky Okanagan water.

Osoyoon seemed like a pretty nice town, beautiful and chill. But it was time to move on to the next town, so we hit the highway...

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Okay, now I'm REALLY out of time. Check back in a day or two for updates!

motekye @ 2008-05-16T11:36:00

2008-05-16T18:54:16Z

Okay, two days and I hafta write it in 19 minutes... Here goes...

So we left Kelowna early in the afternoon, setting out for Nelson. Once you cross the bridge out of downtown Kelowna, you're in Native land—it's an area called Westbank. We said goodbye to our newfound friends at City Park and began the trek out of town.

There's two ways to get out of Kelowna. The northern route through Vernon takes you past a small town at a three-way junction. I believe it's called Nakusp. Anyway, we were warned not to get stuck there and we would basically have to stop there unless we got a ride straight through to Nelson. Instead, we decided to take the southern route out through Pentiction. The hike out of town was grueling—there was no shoulder to hitch on for about 4km.

After a couple hours of hitching, we got picked up by three fellows in a van heading back to Penticton from work in Kelowna. Ryan the driver, who's car broke down half way down the highway and we ended up stopping to give him a jump. Dom, a quiet fellow with a scar and Sam, a charming young gentleman who passed the time by stabbing things and hitting signs with garbage along the way. These guys were cool, between the blaring french rap, they stopped to pick up another hitch-hiker. And then another. And then another. Apparently they pick up everyone they see along the way—the three of them included, there were 8 of us crammed into this van. That's a record, I think.

We arrived in Penticton about an hour later. The city is small and white-bred, with lots of heritage homes. There's a scrubby desert backdrop to the town and apparently a park where the travellers stop over by a Casino. The city had the same feel as Lethbridge to me. It was fucking hot there, hot enough to melt your eyeballs, hot enough to burn the skin off your bones! We didn't spend very long here, we basically took a little stroll down the main drag of the city and said "fuck it, let's peace".

On the way out, we ended up running into a kindred spirit—another ttraveller named "Freedom" who had spent a great deal of time in Vancouver. He invited us to join him in the park to drink, we were drawn, however a game of rock-paper-scissors had us saying our goodbyes and hitting the road out. An interesting thing to note is Freedom had apparently punched out a couple people in Van that we dislike. Score!

A couple with a hilarous drunken native they found at the liquor store picked us up and took us to the outside of town where we could find some further rides. It wasn't a very comfy ride, but they spared us a beer each and $20 so we could buy a lot to camp in. We elected to continue hitching after we drank.

Goodbye Penticton, we barely knew thee...

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TIPS IF YOU'RE STUCK IN PENTICTON:

- There's a city bus that runs to Kelowna every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. $5 apparently.
- There's a park by the Casino there where a lot of travelers and vagrants hang out.
- The landscape is pretty desolate and the town's small, it wouldn't be hard to find a good spot to camp.
- We didn't stay lkong enough to find any information regarding missions or drop-ins, but it doesn't look large enough to harbour either.

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Shit, I'm out of time on this computer... More soon!

Chapter 3

2008-05-14T17:49:45Z

Kelowna blows. I mean, it's really pretty but there's fuck all to do here unless you're some billionaire politician who can afford a lobster dinner on a floating restaurant. There's a hotel here a ways down the shore that takes up 6 city blocks, it's fittingly called "The Grand". I don't know how comfortable it is on the inside but it looked very appealing from what we could see across the water, on the beach where we slept out last night. Fuck it was cold.

We woke up this morning around 5:30 to the sprinklers just over the seawall behind us. Because the City park is only open 6-11, we had to hideout in a shadowy little corner on the beach just above the tide-line. We barely slept. Every half hour or so I would hear footsteps and get spooked. The sleep sucked, but the view was nice. A beaver came up to within a meter of us and just chilled out for a while. The night before, we crossed the floating bridge to an area called Westbank—Native land. Scooby and Nick showed us a safe spot to camp since the brotherhood patrol has been known to rob or murder tresspassers. We were woken up by the sound of a fleet of escavators a hundred feet up the mountain from us and on the way back down the hill we swore we heard a shot fired.

The people in Kelowna are a lot unlike the people in Vancouver in that they're unified. When we first landed, I saw some kids with dreads and camo and just started asking questions—where's the shelter? Where can we get a free meal? etc... Later on we went to the City park and there they were in a clique with most of the other street youth in the city. We just plopped our butts down and it was as if we had known them for years. The street people here are very friendly. And there's quite a few of them, too.

See, here's the problem with this city—there's a large population of transients for the summer months, there are shelters and for a town of this size, even three different places to get a free bite to eat at certain times of the day. But it's a RESORT TOWN! They have rent-a-cops that patrol the streets here (except they call them "Bylaws") One of them meekly harassed me and Nate when we were checking out sleeping gear over at a bargain shop and told us to put our bags behind the counter. Then the same one came over to the circle in the city park we were sitting in and harassed us. Today they told us we could get a ticket for sitting on the sidewalk—it's against city bylaw!

We got harassed for SITTING ON A BENCH by the security at CIBC. This is fucking unreal. I mean, we're carrying backpacks bigger than ourselves, but we're not doing shit! The holy wrath of the "SS POLICE" as one tag read, coupled with the fact there's nothing here for the poor of the world means we gotta peace. There were only 4 or 5 posters in the whole town and it was for shit back in March and April. They have a venue here called "Habitat" but it's all indie music for rich highschool kids. They have a place akin to the Grind called "The Bean Scene" and besides that, not a whole lot.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from a city of only 100,000 people, or maybe I'm not looking hard enough. I mean, Scooby said that when he got here he found paradise. All there is to do is sit in the park and smoke pot all day. And damn, there's a lot of pot in this town. We've seen other punks around—they might be over in Rutland. We haven't had a chance to connect with anyone but the downtown circle, there could be more here. But one thing I do know is that there's a lot of B.C. and a LOT of Canada left to explore; I'd love to come back here now that I know how to get along in this town, but I feel like it's time to move on to my next destination.

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Survival tips if you end up in Kelowna...

- The cops are nasty. Don't get caught sleeping in city limits.
- Don't sit on the sidewalks either. In fact, don't sit anywhere.
- If you're camping on the west side of the lake, hide yourself very well.
- Most of the shelter services are on a street called "Leon".
- The downtown core is on a street called "Bernard", it's a passable Commercial Drive.
- If you want bud, go to City park or look for scruffy people on bikes. Everyone sells in this town.
- Go up "Ellis" away from the highway and past the hospital, there's a library where you can get free internet access and keep warm.
- We came a few weeks too early, but you can score a job picking on an orchard. They usually let you tent right on the property, too.
- If not, they have a labour ready, TLC, Labour unlimited and a Mission to stay at on "Leon".

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Anyway, we're thumbing out! Wish us luck.

Chapter 2

2008-05-13T18:14:29Z

So we got a ride from a nice hippie fellow named Brent all the way from Abbotsford to Kelowna. He lives on an orchard and let us stay at his house overnight. We jammed a bit with guitars, a Sitar, african drums and a banjo he just bought. He also advised us that there's a temple outside of Merrit where we can go for 10 days to practice this type of meditation called Vapassana. 10 days of waking up to a gong, deep breathing and concentration and vegetarian meals, all free. Sounds like an experience I'd be up for. All in all, a very swell fellow.

Kelowna is an incredibly beautiful city. There's mountains on every side and this small bastion of culture tucked into a narrow valley. The city practically stops after the highway bridge. They even have their own version of Surrey, it's called Rutland. In the morning Brent took us into town. We hit a post office and mailed a few things back to Vancouver. We're going to have to send a few more things back soon, we're terribly overweight. We hopped on over to a park on the main stretch of town—a street called Bernard. It's 12 blocks of commercial drive/hastings/davie all rolled into one.

We ended up meeting some street people down at the City Park by the lake. We spent the day smoking pot, socializing and later on that night two of them fire-span. Two fellows named Nick and Scooby who took us out into the country that night and showed us a safe place to sleep. they affirmed our assertation that Nelson B.C. is supposedly the shit for travellers. We'll be heading up there pretty soon I think. For now, we're going to enjoy a little more of what Kelowna has to offer, get us a free meal at the drop-in and mail a few more things back to Van today.

The amazing journey: Chapter 1

2008-05-12T19:58:22Z

I couldn't think of something better to name it than that, but it really is amazing. At least so far. Me and nate basically bailed on our place and left our belongings to the mercy of our friends and roommates. It's time to go explore. More than just Toronto and back, this time it's less about the destination and more about the journey.

Before leaving, we visited a few people. I gave tattoos to Gilly and Heather and Nate so they can all have a part of eachother with them everywhere. We visited my old boss Luc who promises I'll have a job if or when I come back. We caught a ride from Luc out just past Surrey. We were waiting at a bus stop with our thumb out, thinking that noone would pick us up, it only took 15 minutes before we met our first ride—Aaron.

Aaron, like most of the people we meet, is a kind fellow. He has a lot of ideas about how the world is going down into shambles. Some I agree with, some not. He is a christian, I do not judge him for that, because in my experience, some of the most helpful people in our journeys have been christians. He took us out into Abbotsford.

We made a stopover in Abbotsford to visit my mother and her dogs and began hitch-hiking the No. 1. It was very slow going. We began on the Clearbrook highway entrance in front of my mom's house and it was there where we realized that ABBOTSFORD SUCKS! After several hours of not getting rides, getting dirty looks and people flipping us the bird, a car sped along and released a DQPW at us. For those unfamiliar, that means "Dairy Queen Projectile Weapon". It was a direct hit—completely ruined our day up to that point.

So we decided to hike up to the McCallum highway entrance. We had even less luck up there, although Nato did find a $5 bill along the highway. We even tried to catch a bus down the road but one never came! Eventually we hiked up to the Mission connector entrance and hitchhiked right on the side of the highway—screw the law.

Our defiance paid off. after 7 hours of hoping and hiking and thumbing in different places, our second ride came like a shining beacon of salvation. His name was Brent and we were going to Kelowna!

Anarchversary

2007-10-08T02:45:45Z

Well, me and Nate's one year was yesterday. To celebrate a fun filled year of love and excitement, we baked a celebratory cake.

Happy Anarchversary to us!

motekye @ 2007-06-03T23:06:00

2007-06-04T07:10:09Z

Zeph's gonna make a video of us tomorrow telling the story of our trip. So I'm just going to post that up here instead of write a big long entry.

I'm glad to be back in Vancouver. It's been a long month on the road, sleeping out, getting sunburned in Saskatchewan, rained on in Manitoba, eaten alive by flies in Ontario and hollered at by hicks in Alberta. Tim Hortons feels like my second home and I think I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome in one thumb.

Hope nobody changed since I left.

motekye @ 2007-05-22T21:02:00

2007-05-23T01:41:18Z

The prairies were fucking dullsville and I got some nasty ass sunburn to boot. It seemed like we were passing through the same town over and over. Same fucking WalMart with the same MacDonalds on the east side of every town. It wasl ike something out of the twilight zone.

In Regina we scored some luck, though. I caught a trucker going east and he4 gave us a ride to a truck stop just outside the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border. Hin name was Al. He was nice to us and everything, even spotted us some food, but I felt kinda on edge around him, my nedneck detector went off. I couldn't have been more happy when hitching outside the rest area around midnight, a station wagon pulled up.

I love station wagons. They have big bums.

The fellow was Mike, his story was that he was going to Montreal for work before he got jacked up outside a campsite. A couple grand got stolen and he lost his gas money. We spotted him $160 to get us from the Manitoba border to Sault Ste. Marie. The entire time we just blazed up and talked about bullshit. It was like going on a long road trip with an old friend.

The Canadian shield was the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. There's just rocks jutting up from the ground everywhere that are millions of years old. The trees are only half the size of the ones in BC though, it was kind of an adjustment.

We caught a ride from SS Marie by a wonderful lady who took us outside of Sudbury. Late at night, a fellow name Ryan picked us up `cause I had patches and shit. He was a punk rocker. He was going to leave us under a bridge somewhere to camp out, but there were no good ones and it was pouring rain, so he invited us to his lovely cottage in Alban. We drank a couple beers, watched the & wonders of Canada on CBC and blazed. He had a Misfits clock, some Op Ivy thing he made one day and some awesome music. Apparently he used to put on shows in Toronto before he settled down and was in a couple bands too.

It was nice to meet a punk on our trip. Made me feel more at home there.

A quirky fellow with goggles picked us up outside of Sudbury and took us to NewMarket, right outside of Toronto. We refer to him as Bubbles. He was dorky, but I loved him. He told us all about this rat he found and wanted to show to his ex-girlfriend because it had a really long tail. He gave us joints.

He also bought us Wendy's, gave us Toronto transit tokens and paid our bus fare from NewMarket to Toronto. What a nice guy! Hope we see him on the way back.

After a long ass bus ride, we finally made it to Toronto. Spent a couple days with my sister and her two gay roomates. We bummed around Toronto, saw Queen st. (kinda like our Broadway/Hastings), Younge st.(Grandville), Church st.(Davie), Kensington Market (Commercial Drive, with a big outdoor hippe market). Overall we had a pretty fucking awesome time. Wish we coulda met some people, but we weren't there long enough. There's a show at a place called the Cathedral next Friday and we're going to be back in town for that.

Set off Friday morning for Windsor to see some relatives, hoping to be there by Friday night so we could have some fun there. Windsor only has a population of 200,000, but it's right by Detroit and there's a lot of punk venues there. I also have a cousin who was supposedly into punk and could show us a good time.

We didn't make it there by Friday, in fact, it took us until around noon Saturday just to get to fucking Chatham, where we met up with my older cousin Tina. We stayed at her house in the country for a couple days, helped them set up the pool and fix their garden for the summer. Her husband might be able to get me some work in the coming weeks, which would be cool.

On the way, we ran into this couple from Sarnia. I has hoping to visit Sombra, but they told us it was a dump and don't bother. Shucks! I was born there, it woulda been nice to go back. maybe I will anyway, who knows. They're going to drive us from London to Sault Ste. Marie in the third week of June to go camping with them. (Woo! Camping with strangers!). That'll cut two days off our trip back.

On Tuesday Morning, Tina's husband gave us a ride to Windsor where we met up with my aunt Elaine. She basically left her apartment entirely to us for a few days because she's taking care of my deteriorating grandma. The night for me and Nato included Vodka mixers and some much needed sex.

We met up with my cousin Jesse. He's not a punk, more of an indie-kid. He was fucking covered in tattoos, though. He showed us all around town and we hung out with some of his friends that are moving to Calgary soon. Perhaps we'll see them again.

Now I'm smoking a cigarette and typing up this post. You can get a big bag of 200 cigarettes here on the native reserves for $15. No fucking preservatives or tax! They grow the shit right there.

Seeing if we can catch a bus out to Toronto for friday. If not, we'll probably leave tomorrow or the day after to hitch-hike there. I hope you guys are having lots of fun in Vancouver. We'll be back for Cannabis Day.

The Trip

2007-05-17T03:42:20Z

We started the trip a day late, actually. Out of all the unnecessary items we could've forgotten, we had to forget the weed. It warranted a trip back to Van.

My mom dropped me and Nate off just on the highway outside Mission. After only a few minutes of despair and worry that we would not get picked up, our first driver pulled to a stop ahead of us. His name was Jimmy, Some fellow on his way to work at a saw mill. He took us to Dewdney. Shortly afterwards, Nate scored us a ride to Lake Erock. After a few hours, a local named Old Dave was going to take us a few blocks down the road, but thanks to my irresistible charm, we convinced him to take us to the next rest stop where we had a small meal and his friend Cam dropped us off just outside Aggasiz.

Standing at a merge in the highway with a tall lamp post labeled "hitching post" in graffiti, We waited a couple hours again for our next ride.

We caught a ride with a fellow named Rob, who just so happened to be a furry. He told us about his youthful days playing Dungeons and Dragons, his mechanical wolf suit and childhood dreams of fox-women seducing him, etc... He gave us some smokes for our ride, so I say he is A-OK.

Walking into Hope, I caught a trucker strapping down a load and asked him directions into Downtown. It just so happened that he was going to Calgary! We hitched a ride with Ron that lasted 13 hours and took us clear across an entire province. Ron played tour guide, traded anecdotes with us and just generally proved to be good company on a long ride through a scenic landscape.

Going from the rainforest, to the BC interior desert to the high mountains on Rogers pass was quite the trip. Ron even let us get out at Rogers Peak, the highest point of the pass and smoke weed and look at the stars.

By the time we got into Calgary, we were wiped. We saw our first other hitchhiker, who we would later learn is named Ryan. When the sun rose up a bit more, I went to some Christian gated community to refill our water bottles, I overheard one of the teachers at the school talking about "sex-ed permission slips". When I got back, I saw a truck parked up by Nate. It appeared she had managed to secure us a ride while I was gone.

Alfred, an Alberta oil worker, was taking some courses out in Calgary that day, but was on his way home to brooks. He got us a ride to city limits and from there, we hitched a ride with another oil worker named Dave. Dave got us to Medicine Hat making excellent time as he had a radar detector and scrambler and did 130 on the highway. I liked Dave.

We had to camp outside Medicine Hat in some bushes. It was cool, nobody bothered us and we had a good sleep. The next day, we hiked up the highway a bit before we were finally picked up by Cam, who Nate says in NOT a Narc. He was a government worker and about 5 minutes into the trip, he tells us we have to surrender any drugs we have.

"We have no drugs, sir!"

Three hours later we were in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. I smoked a bowl right away. We saw Ryan from Calgary again. This time we actually talked and made camp. He told us stories about all the places he had been and the things that had happened to him hitching. Turns out he was coming back to Toronto from Vancouver. Making the same trip as us. We ended up seeing him once more later on, but that was the last we saw of him.

A rail worker named Kevin took us to Moose Jaw. I unfortunately don't remember anything about him. I had to ask Nate his name. I feel terrible.

By this time I began to feel like I had been thrown into the twilight zone. It seemed at every prairie town, we had stopped at the same MacDonalds in the same WalMart on the same side of town and seen the same people. It's like we were stuck hitch-hiking through the same town over and over again! Then out of no-where, this total yuppie fellow named Darren picks us up outside the WalMart parking lot and takes us to Regina and buys us Booster Juice.

Darren works for an organization that finances local farmers. He came up with an idea to make a model farm to house drug addicts while they get clean. We were in Regina soon.

So that's about half way. It's getting late and I don't wanna finish right now. I'ma go to bed. More later...

There!

2007-05-16T00:24:29Z

We made it to Toronto! Took 7 days. More later....