FUCKING VICTORY!

"NO. That's not how shit works on the road. You should know this - you've been hitch hiking for how many years?"

We'd spotted another hitchhiker holding his thumb out at the only liable hitching spot on this chunk of highway, and Squanch had decided she wanted to park her ass a hundred feet down the road in front of the other guy. This would ensure, in all its conceited stupidity, that we got the first ride.

Hitchhiking étiquette may not be common knowledge to the general population, but it's pretty fucking common courtesy to give the right of way to an individual who's been bracing rain, cold, and whatever other ungodly whether for ungodly amounts of time. If someone's been standing out overnight in the rain waiting for the grand sale of an IPhone 200 or some shit, they're not going to be pleased if somebody without a reservation barges to the front of the same line. Hitch hiking's not much different, except that there's no security guards to enforce the rules - only fists (and the occasional blunt weapon.)

I pointed out her ignorance, but our argument was misguided because we realized that the hitchhiker was just a shared mirage. It evaporated and we grabbed the spot that our delusional figure had occupied.

We finished the journey to Halifax in four short, adrenaline soaked rides. Each minute closer procured a more erratic heartbeat; each mile the cars drove east sent me a mile closer towards my only sense of accomplishment.

Our last ride was perfect. As we crossed the main bridge into Halifax, I was ambushed by swaths of nostalgia. It's strange how subtleties in foreign places can feel just as homelike as the town in which you were born. The bridge's suspension rose to a mighty nexus - cross sectional pyramids that sliced the cerulean sky into bright polygons. I was reminded of days past when I still lived in my single digits. My mother used to take me on trips to visit her grandfather (my great-grandfather, rest his soul.) Before the infrastructure of Vancouver had been butchered more than it already had been, we'd always ride across the great Lion's Gate Bridge. Each time we approached, shudders of angst rattled my body; once we had survived, relief would fall over me like pollen blown by a summer's breeze.

It was this relief that I felt now as we entered Halifax. We (I) was here. The East Coast was ours(mine). It was a shame that me, Scrib, Fernweh and Aids couldn't have arrived together, arm in arm, laughing at the five thousand-odd kilometres that couldn't separate us if they tried. S

That was what we'd imagined as we'd turned our backs on my mom on the opposite side of the country. A teardrop (no, surely just the sunlight reflecting on her sparkling eyes as they rested atop a smile laced with the loving admonition of our pointless journey.) A camera held in her hands clicked silently at us as it preserved the astonishing colours of our gear. Surely the full spectrum was accounted for in our bags, clothes, and headgear. Our footsteps were in unison as we tread towards the ferry to the mainland.

Months later, only two of us had made it to Halifax - hell, I wasn't even sure if Fernweh was here yet.

I was though, and I was ready to kick some East Coast ass.