Winnipeg teen with autism back home after hitchhiking to Ontario

WATCH: Rob Read speaks about having his son back and how he’s doing now

WINNIPEG — A teenage boy from West St. Paul who went missing last week is back home safe after hitch hiking to Ontario.

Nicholas Read, 16, was found in Pickering, Ontario after he ran away from West Kildonan Collegiate Wednesday morning.

“I don’t think this was the fun adventure he thought it was going to be,” said Rob Read, the boy’s father.

READ MORE: Dad of missing autistic teen says Nicholas Read could be ‘anywhere’

Read says his son, who has autism, walked about 23 kilometres to the Flying J Truck stop in Headingley.

Lori Stroud says a fellow waitress at Denny’s restaurant served Nicholas pancakes and says he looked nervous and found it odd when he tipped her three dollars for pancakes.

READ MORE: Manitoba family says their 16-year-old Autistic boy has been found

“Every time she tried asking him questions he steered away from it and wouldn’t answer,” Stroud said.

Stroud says Nicholas kept saying, “‘Did you know it cost $300 to get a room at the hotel next door?’ She told him it doesn’t cost that much.”

WATCH: Lorraine Nickel’s full length video story:

The waitress noticed Nicholas asking people in the restaurant for a ride.

He then sat down with a trucker and had dinner.

He paid for his pancakes with nickels and dimes then the two left together.

The waitress didn’t know Nicholas was missing until the next day when she saw a Facebook post.

“She’s telling me this and I’m going maybe you shouldn’t have let them go,” said Stroud, “but you don’t know and she didn’t know he was missing until the next day.”

Stroud says RCMP were called.  They came and confirmed it was Nicholas after looking at the restaurant’s surveillance cameras.

Three days later on Saturday evening, RCMP tracked down the trucker but Nicholas wasn’t with him. He had already dropped Nicholas off in Pickering, just outside of Toronto hours earlier.

RCMP located Nicholas and he was returned home Sunday.

Read says his son is resting and appears to be in good condition and not hurt but he wonders why the driver didn’t call police sooner.

“I wish this guy would have had enough fore thought to think, OK, I’ve got an underage kid here with no baggage, no backpack, no nothing, he wants a ride out of the province maybe this is a bad choice,” said Read.

RCMP will question the driver but no charges are expected.