Road Trip B: North American Style

I’ve recently moved from southern Ontario to Winnipeg, Manitoba. When my friend Z and I were driving out, it got me thinking about the differences between road trips in North America versus road trips in Africa.

The trip from Ontario began relatively smoothly. I own a pickup truck, so instead of hiring movers (which you can bet I’ll do next time), I decided to rent a trailer and haul all my earthly possessions out myself, with Z and my two dogs for travelling companions. Now, I’ve never driven with a trailer before, so I was a little bit nervous. I asked my father, who was a bona fide farm kid growing up and has driven every kind of equipment from golf carts to airplanes, if he would come with me to pick it up and then show me how to drive it. He agreed.

U-Haul hooked the trailer up for us, and our first stop was an hour away at my mom’s house, to pick up some stuff I had stored. Now, like I said, I’ve never driven with a trailer but watching my father try to back my truck into my mother’s driveway (it’s at a funny angle to the road) made me think that even I could do better than that. The old man’s skills were rusty. He stalled it no less than seven times and alternated between calling the trailer “sweetheart” and “you cocksucker” as he painfully inched it up the lane. I tried my best not to laugh, since he doesn’t really have that kind of sense of humour, and because I knew I’d likely make a bigger fool of myself when my turn came.

Days passed, the trailer got loaded, Z flew in and we were suddenly ready to leave. “Did you check the tire pressures?” my dad asked. I told him what the pressures were, and he decided they were too high. “Give me a pen or something pointed,” he said, and proceeded to let some air out.

Our first hurdle was the American border. Z has a ding on his record due to some time misspending his youth, and we were worried the U.S. customs would deny us entry. This was a big deal, since driving through Canada would add an extra day.

We crossed on a ferry, and the customs officer started interviewing us. Halfway through he stopped and said, “I’m sorry to inform you but your passport is invalid.” I looked at Z, horrified, with a million thoughts flashing through my head. Z looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights. He managed to squeak at the officer, “Uhh…what’s wrong?”

“If you read page three, paragraph 2 you’ll see that this document is not valid until you sign it.” We both burst into nervous laughter, and Z was shaking so badly the customs officer had to offer him his own pen, since Z couldn’t find ours. And just like that, we were in Michigan.

Z is a travel bug, and he insisted on seeing Detroit. I tried explaining that Detroit is a cesspool of urban decay, but some people just can’t be reason with. I capitulated, and we agreed to take the I-75 so that the downtown skyline would be visible from the road.

Sure as shit, the first thing that happened once we saw the skyline was traffic grinding to a halt for construction. Z sighed and turned around to open the sliding rear window into the back of my truck, where the cooler full of goodies was. It was also where the two dogs were riding.

Did you know that it’s possible for an 85lb lab/newfie mix to squeeze through two half-opened windows into the crowded cab of a truck? Well it certainly is. Abraham (the lab) decided that he’d had enough of riding in the back and, to out horror, decided to crowd into the front. Z started laughing and tried, unsuccessfully, to hold Abe back. I started swearing and tried, unsuccessfully, to yell commands trying to get him to stop. Finli, my terrier, knew a good deal when he saw it and followed in on Abraham’s tail. Now there were two adults, one big dog, one little dog, pillows, food, and all the other junk that accompanies a three-day road trip packed into the small cab of my F-150.

Did you know that an 85lb lab/newfie mix will only fit through two half-opened windows if he wants to? That passage was only one-way, evidentially. No amount of pushing or swearing was getting Abraham to pass back through the hole. Thank God traffic was stopped; I pulled into the breakdown lane, shoved Finli back through the hole and got out of the truck, with Abraham by his scruff. He wasn’t too interested in getting back into the bed of the truck via the tailgate, either, but I had adrenaline on my side and picked him up and threw him in the vehicle. I didn’t find the situation as funny as Z did.

The trip itself was relatively uneventful. Z was remarkable; I’m never excited about moving, but his enthusiasm was infectious. The only time his spirit lagged was somewhere in Podunk, North Dakota, when we were trying to get the phone number of the hotel in Winnipeg.

He had to dial 411 no less than three times, and each time the conversation went like this:

"I’m looking for Hotel X in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg. It’s in Manitoba. No, Manitoba is in Canada. No, Canada is not in the United States. Yes, I’ll hold. [Pause] Winnipeg. Hotel X. Okay, 204-6...shit!”

Because I kept entering valleys just as he’d finally get the number and he’d lose the connection. Eventually, we were on a flat stretch of road and he was able to hear the whole number.

“Okay, go ahead. 204-69...shit! This pen just exploded all over me!” It turns out that letting your dad use your truck pen to let the air out of tires isn’t the best idea for the long-run.

We arrived in the ‘Peg three days after leaving Ontario. We were hungry, tired and the dogs badly needed to be walked. It was at this point I started having some doubts about the fine people of Winnipeg.

I was storing all my furniture with U-Haul, so we had to do paperwork for the trailer return as well as for a storage locker. It took some time, but we got the trailer stuff done. The U-Haul guy moved on to the storage locker info. I gave him my name, and he paused, thoughtfully. “Now, why does that sound so familiar?” I stared at him blankly.

“Um, because we just five seconds ago returned a trailer?” I asked.
”Oh, yes! That’s right!” Jesus.

The hotel wasn’t any better. “Is your vehicle oversized?” the girl at the desk asked.

“Well, I’m not sure how big you consider oversized,” I said, “It’s a Ford F-150.”

“Oh, I don’t know what that is,” she replied.

[pause] “You’ve never seen an F-150? You live in the prairies!”

“Yeah I don’t cars.”

Or this exchange with the bellhop. We’d brought the dogs in and they’d run up to everybody, jumping on people and licking faces (including the bellhop’s). We needed help loading the kennel onto the elevator. “Wow!” he exclaimed, “You must have a big dog!”

[pause] “It’s the one that just jumped on your chest and licked your face.” Maybe we were tired, but this was getting ridiculous.

The only other incident involved a hornet’s nest and the back of my neck, but after such a long day I’m willing to write that off as bad luck.

There were no water buffalo, crocodiles, giraffes, or pretty pictures of sunsets on our North American road trip. However, there was also no malaria or red dirt, so I consider it a job well done.