CHAPTER EIGHT
LIGHT SHOW
After the second border guard had turned us down to enter the beautiful country of the U.S. of A. I was beginning to wonder if this was going to work out. Rich wanted me to join him in visiting his brother who I heard was a hippy. Being one myself this seemed like a good idea. I think Rich was keeping my spirits up. The border guards were now asking if I had ever been turned back at the border and this was beginning to trouble me. My only offence it seemed was that I wanted to cross the border.
On the third attempt after stuffing our stash up the heater hose, the guy took one look at us and waved us through. I could not believe our luck. I didn't want to celebrate too much as we were driving away now in the U.S. on the road to find out. When we got a good distance away from the border station I let out a huge, "Yelp!!" equal parts happiness and relief.
Rich the dude yelled, "I told you, I told you" and I responded, "You sure did, you sure as heck did." The highway, I remember went very straight south with the ditches falling off on either side of the road so it seemed that we were driving on a black smooth narrow mound with farm fields on either side.
As late afternoon dissolved into dusk, then evening, the sky got suddenly very dark. A huge prairie rainstorm with high winds descended on us. The rain beat against and over the windshield of our little Valiant, shaking the car and splashing the rain off the window in buckets with each swipe of the blades. We could barely see the road for the rain. The sky burst into light with jagged lightning striking across the whole horizon and illuminating the black road.
It was a spectacular light show like no other I'd seen before or since. I felt very small but somehow safe inside it all. I was where I was supposed to be. I think we decided to keep on driving late that night to make more time and eventually Rich booked into a cheap hotel beside the highway. He had a bit of money so it was no problem. I slept on the sofa and Speaker and Rich got the bed.
The Badlands of North Dakota were exactly cut out of a John Wayne Western. "How ya, do'in partner? That's a might fine blue steed you're ridin'. What's his name?" "Valiant," I answered in my head.
We traveled through Bismark, Billings, New Salem and Dickinson. In between were one-pony towns that had sagebrush blowing along beside the road. We were getting closer to Rich's brother and would soon be in Montana. I noticed that the land was more rugged and now there were trees and mountains. The world seemed simpler out here. I was getting into the solitude of it all. I felt like this was a bit like Northern Ontario, as we drifted like sagebrush on the wind further west.
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Non-FictionA memoir, Hitchhiking In America Trilogy is about a Canadian Huckleberry Finn, a green farm boy who goes on an acid laced Homeric journey of discovery. The journey takes him to the mountain people of Montana, the streets of America, and transvesti...
