Moncton, Round Two.

Hey,

We're in Moncton again, staying at the same hostel. We're on the victory lap now, heading back to the East. We'll likely end up in Montreal or Toronto, trying to catch cheap plane tickets back home.

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We woke in the morning disgruntled from the poor night's sleep, headed to the gas station for supplies and started thumbing. A car approached. A young woman peered out. "I never do this, but you look like my friend. Climb in." She was an archaelogist working on the local Native sites, but had an interesting dichotomy: "Yeah, I wouldn't have picked you guys up if you were Native. I saw the white-skin and thought, 'this is probably safe.'" Many of our rides through the prairies mentioned a level of contention for Natives. Yikes.

She dropped us off by the parliament buildings in Regina and we explored the city for a few hours before catching a bus to the highway.

Two hours passed before a car pulled onto the shoulder. We tossed our packs into the bed and climbed in. An unassuming middle-aged woman sat in the driver's seat eating cold french fries. You're from BC? Have any weed?" she said jokingly. The conversation quickly progressed into her years of crystal-meth abuse in North Dakota. "The longest I stayed up was fourty-two days; I started tweeking real hard after the first week." She continued, "Yeah, eventually I was arrested in a motel, but the charges were thrown out for illegal search and seizure. I was real glad too; Any amount of meth in the states is a felony." I doubted the fact.

Despite this first impression, she was actually quite friendly; She eventually took us on a brief tour of the surrounding landscape and surprised us with bottled water after hearing our complaints about Regina's water quality. She unfortunately dropped us in the middle of nowhere in the cold.

Weather on the prairies was unseasonably cold this Summer. A strong southern wind dropped the temperature to a paltry seven degrees celcius. It wasn't surprising to see your breath in the evening.

A trucker eventually took pity and pulled over, using the ride as an excuse to flex his ego. He spat stories emphasizing his benevolence through a soup-straining mounstache, alternating them with banter about his truck. He had an over-the-counter stocked pharmacy residing in an ice-cream bucket in the front seat. Bottles of pills threatened to break the levee and spill into the cab. His short-term memory was unsurprisingly absent due to sleep deprivation and he appeared quick to anger. I wanted to take a photograph from the cab but couldn't muster the courage to poise the question. He dropped us in Moosemin Saskatchewan, fearing our extra mass through a weigh-station.

Moosemin appeared to be a typical highway strip-town on first glance. The town was built surrounding the CPR line and had progressively expanded upon the introduction and revision of the highway. We received a tour of Moosemin from Adam, a temporary resident working on a near-by oil pipeline. "There's nowhere to live here now man," he bemoaned. "Rent is close to two-grand a month and motels are booked a year in advance." He seemed bored, and chatted for close to an hour.

We camped in a secluded field, hidden from the highway, spending our evening drinking Pilsners and writing.