Day 1 (sort of):
This isn't really the first day of my trip, but it's the first day of our collective trip. See, the drive from Edmonton to Airdrie is never really worth note. We did have some giant slurpees, and we packed the car with junk food, pop, and home-made trail mix. We were stopped twice on the highway, though; not by police, just traffic coming to a standstill. The first time, we didn't see what stopped us. Traffic sped up to normal before we got to the disturbance. The second time, an hour later, we passed between two pink signs that said, "Police Emergency." I've never seen that before. And we didn't actually see any police. We only have guesses.
But those are the events of what I suppose we'll call Day Zero.
Day 1 started with me feeling hoarse, and unable to talk. I was like that from the middle of the night onward. I guess I can safely blame all the sugar from the day before.
We printed off important information, schedules and directions that we won't need for days, and navigational information for our immediate destination: Moore's in Kelowna.
We left in plenty of time to get right on the road, and spent the next hour and a half poking around the streets of Calgary, looking for a Superstore (for muffins) and an alternative way out of town.
After thoroughly disappointing Andrea, because I couldn't find the direct road to Cochrane, we took the Trans Canada out of town, and in less than an hour, we turned off it to head to Cochrane another way, just because we wanted to poke around the streets of yet another city for awhile.
Also because we wanted ice cream.
I filled my car last Tuesday, because everybody knows gas goes up on long weekends. Many folk blame some massive oil conspiracy for this. These people are stupid. It's a market principle called supply and demand. We demand more, they charge more. It's pretty straightforward.
It managed to get us to Canmore today (Saturday) where we filled up with the good gas, 'cause I've got a high performance vehicle. (It's a six-year-old Echo.) Generally I get about 700km for a full 45L tank, and I'm looking forward to seeing what this gets me.
Really, the drive to Kelowna was uneventful. Once we got in, however, we discovered our map was wrong. Moore's was a block East and a block North of where we thought it would be. When we walked in, the girls were trying to get us to sign all the paperwork before testrying anything on, which seemed like a silly idea to me.
She tried repeatedly to explain that it was okay, it was normal, no one was going to try anything funny, and I should just sign it already, but according to the paper, signing acknowledged that I had tried the tuxedo on, which I hadn't. Jumping ahead a few minutes, we signed everything and took the suits with us.
Then we got lost.
Dear mapquest, YOU SUCK!
Day 2:
Today we woke up in Kelowna for the first time.
Yeah, we did find our way last night.
We're staying with a friend of mine. She made dinner before we arrived last night.
We went out to do some shopping, you know, the whole tourist thing. Turns out we wake up way too early on our vacations. Nothing was open because it's Sunday, and everything's got signs advertising that they'll be closed tomorrow, because it's Labour Day.
I am such a third wheel.
We bought some books from an independant book store, and had lunch at the Blue Dog Cafe.
Best. Meal. Ever.
We went into a gentleman's gift store, where we found pool cues, melty clocks, massive chess sets, detailed crystal globes, and cigars.
Got me some Cubans.
It was our turn to cook dinner, after which we took a walk, ended up on a beach, and enjoyed the twilight a bit. Then we checked out a condo downtown. A nice condo downtown. A big condo downtown.
My condo downtown.
And Tylor moved from my friend's air mattress to an air mattress in an otherwise empty nice big condo.
Not true. There's a rug.
Day 3:
Today we woke up and--
Wait a minute, Mark. I just, lemme just, I gotta say it, Best. Day. Ever. On this vacation. So far.
We headed off downtown again for the Japanese garden--
If only for the rock skipping.
We enjoyed the garden. It was nice.
But there were cobwebs. In Japan, there are no cobwebs. There is no rust, there is no decay, there is no deterioration of any kind. They have people whose job is solely to make sure the wood stays polished, and the stones stay clean, and the fish stay fed, and, well, there is nothing that isn't constantly maintained in a real Japanese garden. They've got hundred year old temples that still have all their original wood, it's kept so well.
...And then we went to lunch, at a place that's apparently got world-famous food. At least, that's what their sign said. I had the John Candy skillet.
This was followed by a wonderful game of mini-golf at Scandia, which defined mini-golf for me as a child. Everywhere I've been since has been compared to Scandia and come up lacking. If you happen to own a mini-golf course and would like to test it against my experience, do not be afraid to pay my airfare and hotel bills. I will come. Oh yes, I will come.
After that, we did what everyone probably does when they're nowhere near their homes, on their far off and exotic vacations: we went to the movies. Hamlet 2.
This was followed by random driving, and random beach visiting, culminating in the aforementioned rock-skipping, which we taught Andrea.
I skipped this huge stone. It was bigger than my hand. It was awesome.
Then we went back to Tylor's place, and clarified some things involving the undead.
All in all, yes, a good day.
And on the fourth day, we rested.
Day 5:
Woke up, shook off the last of my illness (I hope), and shared with our hostess that Jay will be married at (secret location). Apparently, she's stayed at (secret location) before, and has nothing but good things to say about it.
Then we went downtown again, to do some more shopping, check out some more shops, and we discovered that the ones that were closed on the weekend are also closed Wednesdays. That's alright, though, we could see everything through the windows, and they didn't have anything we wanted. Picked up something for Jay, though.
Following this, we all went to the beach, where two things were made absolutely clear:
1. September is not as good for swimming at the beach as, say, July, when the water is at least a couple of degrees warmer(though still freakishly cold), and...
2. Tylor is a huge pussy. (In his own words.)
I got around to reading great lengths of my most recent prized literature, THE DEATH AND RETURN OF SUPERMAN. I've discovered something rather disappointing about it: it is incomplete.
I read WORLD WITHOUT A SUPERMAN, when that collection first came out. I was looking forward to reading it again in the collection that was supposed to include it. Problem is, they've left out several issues. Maybe they're only including the issues that were specifically SUPERMAN comics.
And there are events in the missing pages that are referenced in the ones that are there! Lex Luthor has an inexplicable broken leg at one point, the theft of Superman's body is referenced, and the whole thing has a stink about it that closely resembles the theatrical release of LEGEND; in putting too much emphasis on getting the story from one plot point to the next, they've removed so much of the flavor of the director's cut.
After laundry, a shower, and a nap, we went out to another nice big downtown condo, where we watched the movie version of Jules Verne's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. We're convinced that the actors were all seriously pissed off when they found out how much the director was going to hack up a classic written by a celebrated 19th century author, but by then they had already signed their contracts, and had to finish acting in a TV miniseries with a level of CG sophistication reminiscent of CAPTAIN POWER AND THE SOLDIERS OF THE FUTURE.
Tomorrow, we're set to see a boat, and get ready to leave for (secret location). I'm really looking forward to it.
Day 6
We woke up in Kelowna for the second last time this trip. Having done our laundry the night before, we were ready to just pack it all in the car. But first, we were to pick Tylor's mother up at the airport. We slept in.
It's all good, though, we got moving in plenty of time to be late enough for her to have just retrieved her luggage, and Tylor spotted her coming outside as we pulled up, so we dropped him off and headed off to IHOPtm for breakfast.
This was followed by a follow-up game of mini-golf at Scandia, where we chose the outside course this time. About sixteen holes in, we realized that we were both in shorts and sleeveless shirts without sunscreen. We finished our game and went for some ice creamy treats, only to discover that they were out of the ones we'd spent five minutes deciding on.
It's okay, though, the one I ended up getting had an online instant-win game, and I won instantly, so that balanced it all out. Sadly, it wasn't the $25,000.
After this, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up the stuff we'd need for more homemade trail mix (can you say homemade if you don't grow the peanuts yourself?) and went back "home" to take our hostess out for dinner at a restaraunt with a French name, possibly Greek staff, and really great tortellini. The restaraunt was empty except for the family with the toddler at the next table, who was adorable.
Then we collected Tylor, went home, packed the car, and while Andrea tried to sleep, he and I walked to a convenience store while I marvelled at the fact that my best friend of 21 years was about to be married. I'd managed to wedge my way onto the speech list, which made Janis terribly nervous, but since I had sworn that I wasn't going to write anything down, tell anybody about it beforehand, or even use cue cards with key words and phrases, I really didn't know what I would end up saying, which was making me a little anxious.
Then it was off to bed, with a six o-clock wake-up deadline.
Day 7
Up at six in the morning, teeth brushed and on the road by six fifteen. Our directions from Kelowna to Vancouver were written a week ago, and haven't left our car. They were, however, taken from mapquest.com, which has already proven that it can't be trusted. We learned our lesson, though, and picked up a road map of Alberta&BC.
We'd been on the road until about 8am Edmonton time, which was always visible because I never changed the clock in my car, and I'm never going to. My phone always tells me local time, unless it's out of power, which it was.
I guess the route we took has a name, and I guess it's a nasty road where bad things are known to happen, but I've got a theory about roads with names: as soon as a road has a name, it has a place on the great scoreboard of traffic accident history. What about Highway 2, you ask? Even before it became the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, it was big enough among roads to count. (The other roads called it Mr. 2.) My point is, we didn't see any accidents.
When we started this trip, we had to leave the TransCanada Highway to get to Kelowna, and we didn't join up with it again until now. We look forward to seeing the whole thing, at least all the way back to Calgary, sans Calgary.
Into Vancouver, and we started seeing signs for exits that would leave to ferries, but our route was clear: no leaving the TC. It would end with the ferry we wanted. When we started seeing signs telling the distance, I started getting it into my head that I might be able to pull off the stunt I pull when I go to the movies, walk in just in the nick of time.
See, we'd been planning to make the 12:55 ferry, with a worst-case scenario of missing that, and catching the 2:30 or 3:30 ferry. The 10:40 wasn't really even a consideration, until we hit Vancouver at 10am. We pulled into the toll booth at 10:40, and watched it sail away, perfectly content that now we'd have some time to grab lunch.
After loading, no sooner had I stepped out of my car than I saw Jason's mother, who gave me a hug as we waited for the elevator. This ferry was huge! Three passenger decks, including the sundeck, and a length that could hardly be seen from either end! We spent the whole crossing standing at the bow, goofing off in the wind and sun.
Arrival. We crawled with traffic out of the port city, and made our way to the city of (secret), where we tried to follow the directions we had, also from mapquest. Though two-thirds of the people in the car kept saying so, we were not lost. We were merely facing the decision of either calling for directions, or exploring until we found the place. I chose to have my naysayers call, which just encouraged them.
(Secret Location) is really awesome. There are spa suites, oceanview suites, and cabins, but let's face it, lots of places have those. But every suite came with a kitchenette, a fireplace, a seperate bedroom, and enough room for a serious party.
But the real treat was the tides. When they were in, the beach was a short walk down from where we were. When they were out, it was a full-on hike. Made for excellent pictures, some of which I'm likely to share.
Rehearsal was at 5:30, and I played choreographer a little bit. There was much observation and noticing. After that, Jason went one way, and his Bride-to-be went another. It was time for the pre-wedding partying, which was capped off by Jason wanting some McDonalds at 1am, and running off with some groomsmen only to find that nothing in (secret location) is open after midnight, other than a single gas bar, where Jason nearly got us into a fight with some guy, but we told him that Jay was talking about Tylor.
Silly drunken groom.
Shortly thereafter, everyone was asleep, anxiously awaiting the day to come.
(If you're wondering how someone can be anxiously asleep, you've never participated in a wedding, a concert, or a post-secondary exam.)
Day 8 - WEDDING DAY
With clear instructions not to go anywhere without first co-ordinating with my favorite bridesmaid to keep the bride and groom apart, I woke up and immediately started being a dick.
That is to say, I took out my video camera and filmed all kinds of things that no one asked for, in a clear and straightforward attempt to annoy Jason. (It was my duty!)
I gave him a call to see if I could wake him up, but he had already been lying awake for an hour. His every move was pre-scheduled for him that day, and we were told the day before that we just had to make sure everyone was dressed and out there for 1:30pm, half an hour before the ceremony. So I asked him what the plan was for breakfast.
So we made plans for breakfast, and called around to see who would join us. On his last morning as an unmarried man, his last meal was shared with his three groomsmen and two others he's known since childhood. I filmed that, then discovered that his parents were at another table, so I took my camera over and annoyed them too.
Funny little detail: Andrea called me to tell me to be sure to have him dressed and ready by noon, something we asked about the day before, when we were told to have him ready by 1:30. Got that call at 11am, before we got our breakfast.
Once we were fed, we rushed off to get dressed. I had the marriage license, his best man/only brother had the ring, and we collected our suits at my room, the closest to the wedding site. At noon, a photographer walked in, and got some shots of a couple of us in varying degrees of readiness. We'd made sure to have Jason dressed first. Then we went out and got our money's worth out of him. The photographer, I mean. We'll get our money's worth out of Jason later. We knew he had to get through at least this day free of groomsmen-inflicted trauma. Relatively free.
During the ceremony, a bee flew up and started crawling on Janis. My feet hurt. From what I could see, Janis, Jason's mother, and many others fought hard to keep their eyes dry. My feet hurt. Then they went over to sign the paperwork, and I talked quietly with Tylor. His feet hurt. Then they all came back and we shifted back into position, and the priest said a few more words. Our feet still hurt.
Then there were the off-site photos, where I took a plethora of pics myself with my trusty digital camera, and a few were taken of me with it as well. I'll give those shoes this: they may hurt when you stand still on them for an hour, but they are totally secure when you're scrambling around on giant stones and tree trunks in your tux. (I call that picture, WORSHIP ME, MORTALS!)
Ever have one of those moments where you just can't hold it any longer? I had one of those just before dinner. Specifically, just before the bride and groom were announced. The wedding party was all seated before they came in, but the wedding planner had to stall and I had to scramble for that to be the case.
After dinner, or possibly before, I'm not really clear on it right now, came the speeches. I think I did alright.
And the post-wedding party began, and two things became clear: none of the groomsmen were going to bed before Jay, and I guess it turns out I can dance.
After the last dance at midnight, we men all headed back to my place, where everyone but Jason got out of our tuxes. I believe there are some photos of this somewhere.
We all gave our suits to Jay, because he had arrangements to drop off his suit in (port city) and we were going to use the TransCanada to skip Kelowna, and be off the island on the 6:20am ferry.
This day's entry ends with many happy returns to the bride and groom.
(For anyone out there in online-land who's interested in passing their own best wishes on to Jason, an appropriate gift would be an Avatars guest strip,
sent to imagician@magi-creations.com)
Day 9
Simple plan: we wake up at 5, we're packed, checked out, and out of there by 5:30am, and we take a really good shot at hitting that ferry in time to board. I know they suggest being there forty minutes ahead, and we would be there with only ten to twenty to spare, but who takes the 6:20am ferry? That one's gotta be relatively empty, right?
Damned if I know.
Here's the background: the stars of yesterday's show purchased, a few weeks ago, gift certificates for the bridesmaids for their hair and makeup to be claimed on the morning of the wedding. They were in the bridesmaids' names. Here's the part that I can't fathom: the salon gave one of them away to someone else! So we were out some money we weren't supposed to be. If you want to piss me off, all you have to do is take more money from me than you should.
So I approached the salon staff, and they quite agreeably told me that it would be taken off my bill. I was pleased by this. This occurred right after the wedding on Day 8. So on the morning of Day 9, when I didn't see any evidence of this on my bill, I was, shall we say, displeased. It completely overshadowed the fact that when the alarm went off at 5am, I hit it, and went back to sleep until 5:30.
To add insult to injury, while I was trying to get them to give me back my money, they forced Tylor, by way of making the in-room checkout option unavailable, to come to the front desk to get money back. But if he wants to share the details of that, he can add to the post.
Then I saw that there was a single piece of tux rental stuff (the studs) still sitting over the fireplace. I had to go wake Jason to give them to him. Sorry, dude. But I'm pretty sure he just drifted right back to bed. All the same, though, to be woken in the middle of your wedding night.
And as the angels lifted him to heaven, they asked if there was anything he would have done differently, and ye, he said, I would remember the studs such that mine pal could sleep the night and rest more completely. And said they he should consider his more significant mistakes, perhap the ones that might alter his destination, and he said nay, for he did feel worst about the studs.
So we reached the port by 6:40. We were the fourth vehicle there. I'm thinking had we been there a half-hour earlier, it would have worked. That cost us two hours.
And we spent the next two hours marvelling at a trick of the light wherein the mountains of the mainland seemed to begin after the sea met the sky on the horizon, and discussing the science and the mythology of Ilara, the sky mountain range under which phosphorescent sea life glows at night, inspiring the second half of the mythology, from the perspective of multiple cultures.
In particular, we discussed the relationship the people of the mainland had with the gods they all knew to be on Ilara, but none had ever seen. It's a one way respect thing, wherein the presence of the gods has benefits for the wee humans on the mainland, but the people have nothing to offer the gods. So they pass their respect down from generation to generation, keeping mindfully aware that should they forget, over the course of the future, to give back meaningfully to the gods when fate eventually permits, they make themselves and all their ancestors no better than parasites. Also, they sang cautionary tales of sailors that everyone knows about but no one ever met, who sailed under the floating island, saw various wonders, and then met a horrible yet mysterious end.
Then we hit the mainland, which turned out to be firmly rooted under the waves, at about 11am. Then we drove until about 1pm, when we pulled over to a DQ to eat a nice big lunch, because we didn't plan to stop again until Golden, where we would gas up.
The trick to following the TransCanada is, oddly enough, to get off the TransCanada on an exit that advertises two ways to get to Kamloops. Skipping the little cities along the way by taking the TC should save us a good hour of time, we just had to take the right exit.
It was a perfect execution, a complete success.
Day 9 - cntd
The TransCanada through British Columbia is one of the most beautiful drives. It's no wonder it's the road with the big number "1" on it. Seriously, you drive around the mountains and it's one of the most beautiful sights, renewed and refreshed and never the same around the next corner.
The trees cover the mountains like moss on rocks, and the glacial waters treat the landscape like a woman bathing in a stream, swirling and pooling around every turn. It's a shame I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked. This was my third early morning in a row, after my third late night. I can only imagine how much I would have appreciated the scenery if I was more lucid. Then again, it's possible I'm seeing it the way I'm seeing it because I'd rather be in bed.
But in the interests of survival, I made the decision to get off the road for a little while. Back at the DQ I stretched quite thoroughly, but it wasn't enough to totally limber me up for the rest of the drive. So I kept an eye out for a good spot to stop.
I'll readily admit that I was tempted to pull over in the shade of a mountain, sit with the windows open, and try to nap. But while that would have been only moderately unsatisfying to me, my passengers might have been slightly annoyed, especially since I had them all up early enough to miss the ferry this morning. On a long drive such as this, however, every passenger appreciates a good rest stop, as defined by having a restroom. Preferably a good restroom, but lesser specimins will do, in a pinch.
These rest stops appeal especially to those for whom "find a bush and give it a shake" do not apply.
I managed to find a little cafe on the side of the TransCanada. It was a cute little place, with six types of ice cream and a full menu, if you define a full menu as things what get here good from where they been. Maybe I'm being uncharitable, as we didn't try anything but ice cream, but there were a few things about this place that stood out.
First, it was located pretty much right on the TransCanada, with virtually nothing nearby. Second, the sign that said "Restrooms are for patrons only." Third, the signs on the actual doors of the restrooms that announced a two-dollar charge for using the restroom without buying something. And fourth, the unceremonious way in which they reacted to Tylor, the first of us through the door by a matter of, like, a minute.
Tylor walks in, and the guy behind the counter looked instantly uncomfortable. From the doorway, Ty scanned for the restrooms. When he did, the guy asked, in a tone that didn't sound like asking, what Ty would like to order. Ty said he was more in the mood for something small and cold, so the guy said something along the lines of, "You'll want ice cream, then." Note the conspicuous lack of a question mark on that sentence.
It was a long drive on a hot day, of course we wanted some ice cream. But seriously, there are better ways to sell your menu. Guy could have put up pictures of well-manicured plates of food in the bathrooms, to encourage a longer stay and greater payout. Or he could treat people as though he didn't just see them as strays with the malicious intent to use his bathroom. I mean, what does he think he's gonna do if someone rushes in with their own immediate "personal emergency", and runs back out? Will he chase them down?
Scene at a Kamloops gas station:
"We meet again, you thief."
"Um... What?"
"My toilet paper came a long way before you ripped me off."
"...?"
So after I spent some time on a big concrete roadblock, trying to work out the knots in my back while losing all my change, which my girlfriend promptly confiscated for her own use, I went inside to get myself something as well. Five out of the six flavours of ice cream were distinctly unappealing to me. Fortunately, the sixth was downright delightful.
After some more stretching and fresh air, we got back in the car and once again headed east, or possibly north, along the TransCanada Highway.
It looks like we're leaving the more winding mountain roads behind. Pretty soon, we should be seeing signs for Kamloops.
Still more of Day 9:
The thing about driving a new route, one you've only seen on the map, is that you don't have any landmarks in your experience, you know? You don't have any familiar way to measure your progress, like, "We'll be in Sicamous in an hour."
And after that sign that told us we could go right to Kamloops or left to Kamloops, when we took the right to Kamloops, we thought we'd be going right to Kamloops. Not right away, but with more time left than left, in terms of daylight. Right?
No, when we chose our course, we should have taken a closer look at that road map we bought. See, it looked very much like both routes were about the same length. I remembered that, and I thought, "It's gotta be coming up soon."
I mean, the signs said both routes lead to Kamloops. That means it's gotta be there, right? This was the hope that I clung to as we drove past increasingly bright fields and hills, starting to bake in what we called "the BC desert."
Including our stop at DQ, driving back to Kelowna the way we came would have had us through there by 3:30. 4pm if we'd stopped at another ice cream cafe along that route, but I'm pretty sure that whole thing happened around 4pm anyway.
But I was wishing I'd paid attention to my odometer when we came through Sicamous on the way to Kelowna, so I'd have a little more to go on. 500km from Canmore to Kelowna, 400ish from Kelowna to Vancouver. Those were my only numbers. And the roadsigns refused to tell me how far to Kamloops.
You want to slow time to a crawl? Just drive with no idea how far you are from any known point along your route. We weren't being touristy, we wanted to get home. And as far as we were concerned, we were off the map, driving in limbo.
The crops we passed were green and lush. I made a few comments about BC's most famous product, to pass the time. It passed all of two minutes. Then it was more road.
I used a cold can of coke to work out some knots while driving.
Yup. Thrilling.
Stupid scenic TransCanada. Misleading, that's what that is. All pretty and mountainous to begin with, but then what? Lots of road and... er... road, that's what.
So much road.
Where the hell is Kamloops?
Will Day 9 Never End!?
Kamloops.
Kamloops.
We'll see signs for Kamloops eventually.
Dammit, TransCanada! What is wrong with you? Why won't you hurry up and get to the places on the map? The map... The map says this road has two names, here. In greater Canada, we call it the TC, but here in BC it's Highway 97. That must be the trick. Two names makes the road twice as long. Makes sense to me. That is the only fricken way that Kamloops is so far away that we STILL haven't seen any signs for it.
TransCanada Highway: See all of Canada. We said all of it!
But there are signs. There are signs, and Kamloops does exist! But while we want to use it as a reference point, we can't, because we don't know how far it is from anything. Anything but where we've been, anyway.
TransCanada: It's probably better to just keep going.
But as long as it took to reach Kamloops, and as gratifying as it was to finally see it, I don't remember it. There might have been a right turn there, but that's as much significance as it held for us after that. Experiencing Kamloops, for us, was something akin to mixing a fundamentalist fervor with a five-year-old's attention span. From Kamloops to Sicamous.
We came through Sicamous on our way to Kelowna. I was wishing fervently that I had paid attention to the odometer then, but I hadn't, and now we still had no idea. So the only thing we had to go by was the familiarity of the landscape.
"That look familiar to you?"
"Large, rocky, got some trees on it. It's a mountain."
"Yeah, but is it a familiar mountain?"
"When we came through here the first time, we saw the other side of it."
"But are you sure we saw this mountain?"
TransCanada: We have mountains. Thousands of them. Count 'em, bitch!
Then our destination city became Revelstoke. Not to be confused with the hardware store, Revelstoke is a city in the mountains that contains a pay-before-you-pump Petro Canada.
I don't get pay-before-you-pump. How do I know how much I'll need? Sure, I could guess, but I'd rather just know I'm gonna have a full tank. And when you pay $1.50 for every litre you put in, I'd rather not overestimate my fuel consumption. So we went across the street to the Shell.
I was feeling peckish, and it was about 8pm our time, which is what we were measuring by because we felt reasonably certain we would be going home today, and we'd have to think in Alberta time anyway. How were we supposed to know what we'd stumbled onto?
TransCanada. No, it never ends.
I remember approaching Revelstoke. I remember the signs, telling us we were close. They advertised it like a tourist destination: the Frontier. Frontier? Okay, I understand that at one point they were on the edge of a developing nation, but the gold rush has been over for a while now.
Revelstoke: We don't get out much.
I'm gonna get letters about that one.
Didn't really see much of Revelstoke. I've got this theory that if you were going somewhere other than a gas station or a Denny's, you would have to stop at either the gas station or the Denny's and ask directions, which would obviously brand you.
Revelstoke: So you're not from here.
But when I made the wonderful decision to pass on the Petro Canada in favor of the Shell across the street, I learned about curbs. Specifically, the curb that was almost perfectly hidden. See, the parking lot for the PetroCan was accessible only by a one-way backroad, which met itself pretty close to where we got off the main road. It looked like the parking lot was shaped for us to get back on going right back to that junction, but as we approached, we could tell there was a full curb there.
We were driving in a Toyota Echo. It was designed by tiny Japanese people. I live in the land of farmers and lumberjacks, of Rockies and Redwoods. If any of my 200lb+ Canadian friends sit in the back, I bottom out on speed bumps. And we were loaded down with luggage. And my backseat had two people. Someone from this wacked out province of never-ending mountains was trying to make a break for it!
No, an old friend of mine flew out to the wedding and caught a ride with us for the trip home.
Home. I remember home. I remember home having streets you could navigate, not like that stupid PetroCan parking lot. I thought I saw a way around the back, where we could get back on the road. It got us back on the road, alright: It got us back on the one-way backroad, because we drove around behind the PetroCan only to come out in front of their neighboring McDonalds, from which we had to just get on and drive until it was good and ready to let us go.
Revelstoke: We just don't like you.
Before hitting Revelstoke, I'd toyed with the idea of not filling up until Golden. It was only 100km. My car can guarantee 17km per litre. In Revelstoke, it turned out there were only four litres left in the tank. Wouldn't have wanted to push. That would have sucked. Especially because Golden isn't a fan of staying stationary.
When we fuelled up, I suggested we eat, but since the only things we could see were the Denny's and the McDonalds, and no one was particularly hungry to begin with, that idea didn't fly. I made do with trail mix, while we set out for Golden.
When we left Revelstoke, it was a bright, sunny day. We drove for quite some time after that. We listened to music, we talked about zombies, Tylor questioned my ability to survive an undead apocalypse, and we smelled a fire. We also saw a creepy evil-looking face made of rocks and trees, sticking up out of a mountain. It was an anthropomorphization, of course, but it was still quite creepy. Tylor was napping in the back at this point, all zombied out for the hour. He missed a mountain that had a perfect image of Ridley from METROIDtm made out of the negative space in the trees, complete with eye. Seriously, it wouldn't surprise me too much if I found out that's where they got the idea for the image.
The signs kept claiming that Golden was getting closer. Thing is, the signs didn't seem to agree with the speed I was going and the length of time I'd been going it. Golden is right on the TransCanada. In theory, you will drive right through it. But we'd see a sign, drive for an unreasonably long length of time, and then see another that told us it was 10km closer.
Golden: Golden's not here. Go away.
Do you know how long it takes to drive 10km at 100km per hour? Six minutes. Do you know how long six minutes is? It's pretty fricken short. It's two songs on your IPOD. One and a half, if you like long songs. It's not even one full song if you're listening to Meatloaf. But on and on the road went, signs popping up every now and then assuring us that Golden was, in fact, getting closer, or possibly that we were gaining on it.
Golden: Why do you keep following us?.
I remember a sign saying it was about 29km away, and then we drove for half a day before seeing another one that said 14km to go. You can bet we were all alert, now. Like maybe some sick bastard had gone out and moved all the road signs.
Tylor, having just finished the sequal to the ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE, was starting to envision the undead wandering out of the trees to block our path, like maybe they'd consumed Golden and the foliage had just grown over.
Eventually, after night had fallen and the sky was dark, we found Golden. By now, the frustration and anxiety about our eternal drive through Super, Natural British Columbia(sic) had worked up everybody's appetite.
Those of you familiar with (sic) in the literary world are wondering why I put it up there, after BC's new provincial slogan. "That's not misspelled," you'll say. "Surely he's mis-using that error marker." No, I'm not mis-using it. I've put it there for a very specific reason: they've got a comma there. It shouldn't be there.
The only possible reason that we could still be in British Columbia after all that driving is that the premier's office is meddling in powers they can't possibly understand. They want you to spend your time in BC. They want you to spend your money in BC. And then they want you to become so bereft and lose your hope of ever going home, so that you'll just get a job and live in BC. That's how they keep their work force stocked, they just keep filling their positions with long-term tourists, who just came for the weekend.
We stopped to eat in this quaint little cafe. It was built in the 50s and it stayed there. The time vortex that was keeping us in this hellish province of mountainous beauty had brought forth this place, where the food was excellent.
What? I can't find something to appreciate while being tormented by the British Columbia Time Vortex? Tylor said the fish dish he had was excellent, which was another form of cruel torture: good fish and Alberta are mutually exclusive. The better the seafood, the farther from home. By the quality of his meal, we could guage ourselves to be somewhere just off the BC coastline.
Golden: So you found us. Didn't help you, did it?
When we left the cafe, we walked out into total blackness.
Golden: hehehehehehehehehe!
There's no escape from Day9:
We walked very carefully to the car, navigating by memory rather than sight. Yes, it was that dark. When we did get in, some of us encouraged the stragglers to hurry up and close the doors, because pitch blackness in the mountains isn't the most comforting thing in the world. And off we went to drive in it.
I have driven that pass before, and I will drive it again, and I will probably never be able to recognize the twists and turns we experienced that night. All that was clear to me was that the next rise, the next drop, the next curve, was a complete unknown.
People started tailgating, but so long as they couldn't pass me, they were stuck going somewhere between 40 and 60kph.
The shadows cast by the headlights started playing tricks. Great mounds of rock looked to rise and fall. There were massive mouths, and eyes not far away.
Dammit, Tylor. Getting all creeped out about one thing paves the way to be creeped out by just about anything else, especially in the mountains after dark.
Eventually the vehicles behind us did pass, and sped up into the night ahead, leaving us alone in the dark.
One of the least comftortable feelings in that situation is when you realise you're starting to get tired. After a little more time, I spotted a mountain motel parking lot. I pulled over and got out, for some fresh air. I had some water, crunched on some trail mix, and realized I needed a washroom. They had a gas station, but it was fenced off, and something tells me that when it isn't, they point people to the motel. I recognized the motel. I've stayed there before. I walked to the front door, seeing a couple of people moving around inside. They were patrons, though, not employees. The door was locked.
Find a bush did not apply.
Having to get back in the car and look forward to the next couple hours of driving in that situation, that's also pretty uncomfortable. We thought we had to be in Alberta at that point. We weren't.
But we persevered. We persevered all the way through. Once we saw the "Welcome to Alberta" sign, we thought we were home free, that all our troubles were over. Little did we know we had only angered the BC TC by escaping it. And it has connections. It sent after us four most wicked ironies, to extract their vengeance upon us.
Funny thing we noticed on the way there: we didn't pass any toll booths for the Banff National Park. We passed one going west, but not going east. Rather stupid, we thought. But maybe they don't expect anyone to manage to escape.
Canmore was a delicious sight, one that brought tidings of freedom and gas stations. Into the fair city we went, and we found freedom. Oh yes, there was freedom. Freedom is about the only thing available after midnight in Canmore. Forward, then, away from the mountains, as fast as the speed limit will allow... until we hit the fog.
That's right, after crawling through the mountain pass, unable to see more than twenty feet ahead around blind corners and great slumbering stone beasts, we hit the straight fricken line and had to slow down due to fog.
But all was not lost, there was still success to be had, because we knew that once we hit Calgary, the road was under construction. It's a true pain that backs up traffic something fierce, and it cost us an hour the last time we tried to drive it. So this time, with the morning hours advancing, we used our trusty map to get us around it, skipping straight to Airdrie.
No no, this isn't a matter of us not having learned our lesson with the TransCanada, we already knew from all our experience that this way was quicker. Even slowing significantly for the fog, it's a little quicker.
Unless it's under construction too. And they're actually out there working in the middle of the night. Seriously, WHO DOES THAT!?
That's about the point we concluded we weren't gonna make it home that night. Tylor started searching for his keys. And he realised he didn't have them. So we all figured we'd just hit up a hotel for the night. Tylor opted out, had us drop him off pretty close to his place, where he was going to go wake someone up to let him in at 2:30am.
Went to the first hotel we could reach. It was full. Went to the second. No one at the desk to tell us it was full. That's right, Airdrie Super8, there was no one at the desk the morning leading into Monday the 8th, 2008. See to that, would you?
Went to the third hotel. There was a convention in town. Don't know what kind, but it didn't really matter. Airdrie was booked solid. Tylor's place? His sister had friends over. On every couch slept a young girl. He was lucky to get his bed to himself. (Editor's note: apparently he didn't even get that. Slept on the floor, I'm told.)
So we went north. Red Deer. A motel. We had to stop. $80 got us two beds and a clean bathroom, and that's all we cared about that night. We checked in at 4am. We'd checked out of (secret location) at 6am. To get this far had taken us 21 hours.
And we still weren't home.
The unattainable Day 10 arrives...
with us rising unceremoniously from the motel beds which were, though surprisingly comfortable for the price we paid, not our own, and therefore not as satisfying after such a day, especially when we had to have a wake-up call at 11am, to make sure we could get out on time.
All the same, you know the movie, GROUNDHOG DAY, where Bill Murray goes through a never-ending day so long that when tomorrow finally arrives, he's just about struck dumb with glee? Yeah, that's where we were. But we weren't there too long.
No shower, no relaxed meal, we were up, dressed, and out of the building as fast as my little credit card could swipe. Breakfast was cheap fast food burgers. It wasn't even the meal, because we were less than two hours from home and we didn't have the appetite to consume more than necessary.
The drive home was relatively quiet, because none of us were truly awake. It's a shame, really, because that was a really nice motel. For $40 more we could have had a jacuzzi.
The drive back to Edmonton was, thankfully, uneventful. I watched the odometre to keep track of when we'd need to fuel up. After we dropped Kyla off, I made the executive decision to cut it pretty damn close, according to my calculations. Within 10km of what my tank will give me in the city, with regular gas. I wouldn't know until the next day that it still had 5L left. That premium gas, it gives back what it takes at the pump.
We took only the suitcase and my computer out of the car. It made it in the house, but only about five feet from the door. Andrea walked right past the stairs, and collapsed on the couch. Me, I was more intrepid. Also, our only bathroom is upstairs.
Now, I don't know if I've mentioned that we have a room-mate again. This one's not transferring his problems onto me like the last one, but he is kind of... Well, he's just not all there, to be honest. Yes, I know you're reading this, Rene. Every now and then, he acts according to a logic that can't be followed by ordinary humans. We knew this beforehand, and we knew it when we left. I specifically told him that if the place burned to the ground, I didn't want to hear about it until September 7th.
It can be good for sport, though, and when it's brought to his attention, I think he really appreciates the novelty of it, or rather the novelty of having other people perceive such novelty. That's really an area in which the two of us relate, because I do that myself, sometimes, so I can appreciate his perspective.
So maybe there's some distant form of logic, some crazy mixed-up thought process that might have made me expect... no, no there isn't.
When we left, we'd cleaned our room thoroughly. We'd cleaned the whole place, because we wanted to come home to something reasonably intact, but we did what most people do when they travel, we put fresh sheets on the bed, and made our bedroom an oasis wherein we could sink into post-travel recovery.
When we got back, it was filled with his stuff.
I reduced his crazy mixed-up logic to ashes.
Epilogue
Jason, I know that very little of what transpired was your fault, either directly or indirectly. I know that you didn't create the police emergency that resulted in the pink signs on the road, and you didn't make mapquest suck so much, nor did you make the girl at the Moore's in Kelowna try to get me to sign without trying on.
You didn't intentionally offend the guy at the gas station, you didn't make me completely forget what I wanted to say when I woke up on your wedding day. (I honestly didn't really know what I was going to say as I stood up, and I didn't remember what I said until I saw the video at home.)
You also didn't make the stripper cost me the shot at the pool table.
You didn't make us miss the ferry, you didn't make the guy at the diner in the middle of nowhere so unpleasant, and you didn't make the BC TC swallow us, and force us to drive around every tree and hedge in the province before we could escape. (If not for the Pine beetles, our trip would have lasted twice as long, I'm sure.) You didn't fill Tylor's home with young girls, or the whole town of Airdrie with conventioners, and you didn't pile your crap on my bed.
No, you didn't do or cause any of that. Except for the guy at the gas station. (And I'm pretty sure that had he not believed you were talking about Tylor, he wouldn't have said anything. You dwarfed him.) But all of those horrors and inconveniences and haunting mountains that rose out of the night to swallow us whole, that will always in my mind be a part of the experience of your wedding. And if were to wake up a few weeks in the past, knowing then what I know now...
I would remember the studs.
