Murray ventured into the city of Winnipeg, many people refer to it as Winterpeg. He got to the downtown area, Portage and Main, many people joke about it that it is the coldest intersection in the world, but it was no joke to Murray, his one foot was frozen, he was still wearing the lays potato chip bag on his one foot to replace his shoe. He was shocked to see a lot of tent villages in the area, he couldn't comprehend how people could sleep in tents in such freezing temperatures, he heard one person yelling from a tent "the Canadian dream is to leave Canada" Murray kind of chuckled because it reminded him of that big shot real estate agent he got a ride with.
Murray finally found the Salvation Army, he managed to get a voucher to get some shoes from the Salvation Army store, the gave him a free meal too, it was a very great soup that had mystery meat in it, he wanted to sleep, but the was no vacancies at the homeless shelter, everything was booked up. So Murray just went to the Salvation Army store and he found a pair of shoes that fit him, they had very nice basketball symbols on the tongue of the shoes.
Murray was noticing while walking around the city that everyone was glaring at him weird, it really freaked him out and he thought I have to leave this city.
Murray found three dollars on the ground and that was enough for the city transit there, so he asked bus drivers what was the best way out of this city, so he take a bunch of buses out of the city and he found a twenty four hour husky truck stop that had a restaurant on the outskirts of Winnipeg, he ended up going into the restaurant and went to a table at the corner of the restaurant and fell asleep.
Eventually hours later the waitress at the restaurant woke Murray up and said "hey do you want to mop the floor for me and I will get the chief to cook a burger for you?'
Murray said "yes" because that sounds a lot better than the last meal that he had at the salvation army.
So Murray did a really good job mopping the floor, the chief even put some extra bacon on his burger for him.
After that they closed off a corner of the restaurant where customers wouldn't see Murray and they left him sleep there.
Murray woke up in the morning feeling great, so he left the restaurant and walked to the transcanada hiway, he stuck out his thumb and didn't wait there very long and someone pulled over, Murray ran over to the car and hopped in and as soon as he got in the driver looked over at Murray and said "do you have a driver license? Murray responded with yes I do, so the driver said "good, your are driving then, I need to read the newspaper and have a nap, I have been driving for many hours, I need a rest"
Murray got really exited, he hasn't driven in awhile, Murray asked how far are we going? The driver responded "Regina, it is almost a six hour drive.
Murray drove his car really well and made pretty good timing, the car owner was very happy with him and gave Murray ten dollars for road.
Murray was now in Regina and on the side of the road looking for his next ride.
He stood there for two hours, finally someone stopped, Murray got into the car and looked over and looked at the driver, this guy almost looked like an action hero from one of those movies, he was wearing great big heavy looking boots and the driver said "put on your seatbelt you might need it"
Murray put on his seatbelt, and the driver said, my name is Jerry, here have a beer. Murray took the beer from his hand and poured it into his coffee cup and Murray hid the beer bottle of the seat, every time Murrays cup was empty, Jerry kept on giving Murray a beer.
Murray ended up getting drunk. And then Jerry said "what are you doing? where are you going? Murray responded with "I am not sure, no where to go, no place to call my home."
Jerry said " I'll tell you what I will take you to my house and introduce you to my wife and if she approves of you, you will have a place to stay. I am always working on the oil rigs, normally seven days on and two days off, I need a man around the house when I am not there, my house is in kind of a dangerous neighbourhood in Calgary, if approved we have wifi there and we will feed you as well"
Murray said "sure lets go to Calgary and meet the wife"
And off to Calgary they went.
I thought I was going to take a break from writing this story, but I couldn't sleep.