This one time I was hitch-hiking home from BC. Somewhere on the Yellowhead. Anyways this guy picks me up and we're driving. Right away he shows me a picture of his daughter that he's going to visit and we talk about her for a while. After a while he asks me where I'm headed.
"To Edmonton."
"You're going the wrong way!"
For a second, just a split second my heart kind of skipped but of course I wasn't going the wrong way. "No man, this is the way to Edmonton."
"No, because I'm headed to Williams Lake and that's this way."
We argued about this for a few minutes and finally I pull out a map and show him. "Look, here's where you picked me up, this is the highway we're on, here's Edmonton, and Williams Lake is the other way. See?"
"Ah shit! I'm going the wrong way! I gotta let you off, sorry man."
He pulls over, lets me out, does a u-turn and screeches away.
It was lucky for him that I came along, so that he wasted minimal gas and time going the wrong way. Not so lucky for me as I was now stuck in the middle of nowhere and spent the next 8 hours waiting for my next ride. Which only got me a few clicks down the road where there were already other hitch-hikers going nowhere. I wound up tenting in the bush that night, and was woken up by the silhouette of one of the other hitchers breaking a branch off a tree just outside the tent. That was kind of freaky.
Anyways.
I remembered this story because yesterday I picked up this kid whose car had broken down, just outside of Edson. He was headed for Saskatchewan. But he had started in Edmonton. So he drove 2 hours the wrong way.