Hi folks!
Hope you enjoyed the first report! My parents absolutely adored it!
Well, after Vancouver we started heading North. I’ll be capitalizing North
wherever possible so we as Canadians can all give that destination the respect
it deserves. There is a travel book called The Milepost that details, (I’m not
kidding) almost every single mile on every single North Country road. This book
will inform you about normal things like the nearest gas station or tourist
attractions. However, it will also indicate if you pass a destination where the
majority of Canadian geese take a crap or where Feeblebern Humperknot perished
in a campfire accident after playing with gasoline. Heck, at one point the book
actually indicated where ‘ol Sam Juggernut’s tire fell off his camper and flew
into the nearest birch tree. The book continued by explaining how old the birch
tree was, how high the birch tree was and the medical treatment the birch tree
needed to recover from this horrendous accident.
It seems like Mary and I are starting to get into the groove of trailer life. My
parents promptly rise every morning when the sun does. In the far North that
will eventually mean around 3:00 a.m. Since my father likes to wander aimlessly
in the morning, he creates seismic activity within the trailer. My mother’s hair
curlers usually fall with a clatter all over the floor, creating my daily alarm.
At the end of the day, my mother enthusiastically announces bedtime at 9:30 p.m.
Eventually, the sun will be setting at midnight on this trip but my mom will
predictably continue to yawn pathetically at 9:30 p.m. Mary and I must climb
over my parents’ bed in order to reach ours. Since my dad suffers from extreme
insomnia, (he hasn’t slept since October ’99) we must all be very, very quiet at
night just in case he has actually fallen asleep.
Sleeping in this trailer is an exercise in yoga. Two feet above our heads is
some of the abundant storage space my mother raves about six times a day. My
head has managed to connect with these fine oak cabinets every time I sit up. My
parents have placed a space-aged foam mattress on top of the regular one to aid
our comfort level. Great idea but this spaced-aged foam mattress tends to carry
our bodies to the foot of the bed every night and practically dump us into the
shower. Ah yes, the shower…hot water lasts about 3 seconds, then the glacier
setting begins operating. The water pressure is sufficient enough to allow a
caterpillar to comfortable surf.
Since my father gets up 4 hours earlier than Mary and I, he tends to unhook the
water, electricity, cable and sewer before we have a chance to perform our
regular morning duties. As a result, we tend to lack some of the necessities of
life every morning. My father even mockingly washed out the sewer hose in front
of the window while Mary was eating breakfast. Mary didn’t finish her breakfast
that day…
Our trailer is split in half by a privacy door. Usually everyone understands
that when it is closed, someone is taking a shower in the upper half. Not my
father… In fact, as I was typing this, he slid open the door to use the toilet
across from the shower. He forgot to slide the door closed and inadvertently
showcased his naked wife to the world. Fortunately, I had this laptop screen to
hide behind.
If we are fortunate enough to get cable, my father insists only on the weather
network. It is 24 hr entertainment for the whole family. Usually it will
announce clouds and rain wherever we are travelling which severely affects my
father’s light deprivation disorder. In other words, he becomes terribly grumpy.
My mother then calmly aims a hair dryer his way and shines the make-up mirror on
him. He usually feels much better by then.
I guess I should shut up about trailer life and get back to our actually
journey. Sorry…sometimes I get sidetracked…
So we left Vancouver in rain and travelled North up the Fraser River Canyon past
Hell’s Gate. Although my father believes I should be sent there for writing
these reports, Hell’s Gate is simply the narrowest part of the Fraser River.
Naturally, they charge you $14.00 to ride a cable car to the bottom of the
canyon and be rewarded with a damn gift shop.
It was a beautiful drive along the Fraser and Thompson Rivers eventually taking
us back into the interior of B.C. My father was quite pleased with the abundant
sunshine and was in a good enough mood to stop at a gift shop for the ladies. My
mother proudly emerged from the gift shop with a gift for my sister.
Our campground that night was beside a lake called Lac La Hache (Lake of the Ax).
Apparently, Jason, from the Friday the 13th fame, visited this campground a
couple of years ago. The campground offered its guests to walk their husky dogs
for free. What a bunch of lazy-ass people. They get complete strangers to walk
their dogs. Mary and I obliged as we were dragged along the lakeshore by the
dog. However, my mother would not let the playful pup into the trailer and
subsequently chased us away with a frying pan.
The scenery absolutely sucked the next day to Prince George. The mountains
seemed to have disappeared giving way to nothing but trees. Even our travel
guide simply inserted a page with only a sad face with a caption underneath that
read, “Why the hell are you wasting your time driving this route?”
Prince George, B.C. is exactly like any other Canadian city. As we approached
our campground, we passed a Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Wall-Mart, Tim Horton’s,
Superstore, Winners, Boston Pizza, Mark’s Work Whorehouse and numerous other
strip mall atrocities. Our campground had a nice heated pool (which was 25C
while the air temperature was 15C). Only a Norwegian named Olaf and myself made
use of it.
One thing I forgot to mention was our lunches every day en route. We usually
huddle around the table without the extension pulled out in the trailer. Mary
and I tired of frozen pre-made sandwiches after a couple days so we purchased a
whole bunch of Mr. Noodles type soups. Many of them were of the Thai variety.
Mary meticulously wraps the long noodles around her fork using a spoon to
balance them. I simply gobble them up and bite off the rest once my mouth is
full. My parents were appalled with this behaviour and I was scolded quite
viciously. However, the attention was mercifully directed to my father once
again when he asked me to eat my “Thigh Soup” properly.
After Prince George, we really started heading north. Everything became limited
whether it was gas stations, tourist attractions, or my father’s patience. We
finally ended up in a place called Kitwanga, B.C. It was the first stop on the
Cassiar Highway that would take us North to The Yukon. I always wondered why
people say “The Yukon”. You would never hear someone say “The Ontario”, would
you? I guess it all boils down to that respect thing for the North again…
Anyway, the campground office had a brown shirt hanging on the wall for sale
that read “This shirt was white before I drove the Cassiar highway.” My father’s
face turned absolutely green. My father enjoys taking care of his truck. If it
means waxing his truck every other day, ridding the steering wheel of
fingerprints every hour or even “Windexing” the plastic thingy that covers the
speedometer, he will do it! This T-shirt slogan confirmed his worst fear. Mary
and I had to steady him on our shoulders as we walked him to the campsite.
The trailer itself is a piece of crap according to my father. Every day he would
remind us that the workmanship stinks. That night a fuse blew. This fuse was
part of a motor that levelled the trailer. We searched the metropolitan area of
Kitawanga for a 30-amp fuse. All we found was a Playboy magazine from 1987 and a
stale-dated bag of pork rinds for sale at the local general store.
The next day (July 15th) we faced the mighty Cassiar Highway. My father could
only eat a couple blueberries for breakfast. His stomach was in knots. However,
the first 250 km were actually in better shape than the Trans Canada Highway.
Then all hell broke loose. We reached the washboard/pothole/hairpin curve/steep
incline portion of the highway. Picture the ride on your daddy’s knee at the age
of three and multiply the sensation ten-fold. My mother blurted out obscenities,
my wife slept and my father gritted his teeth so hard he could turn coal into
diamonds within seconds. We stopped at a rest area hoping we didn’t lose
anything. However, we were greeted by a New Zealander with our sewer hose. A
German returned my father’s dental floss to him and my mother once again gained
possession of her stray hair curlers from a burley man on a Harley. This New
Zealander, by the way was going to lead a motorcycle brigade from Prudhoe Bay,
Alaska (on the Arctic Ocean) to the southern tip of Argentina over the next 5
months. And…this was HIS JOB!
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Before and After the Cassier Highway
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(click for larger images)
The bugs had decided to join us on this part of the vacation. Maybe it was my
mother’s hairspray that finally lured them out of the woods. Whatever the case,
construction workers on the side of the road all wore bug nets over their heads.
We finally made it to a fairly new campsite after a rainy day. Our trailer was
now a subtle shade of brown instead of its usual pearly white. Our truck
retained its golden colour with a hue of mud highlighting its finer points. And
my father remained green…
I have to mention our dinner that night. Hot Mexican sausages… Mary and I
enjoyed them profusely; my mother, however, did not. She managed to only devour
one before retreated to her salad bowl in a feeble attempt to douse her flaming
taste buds. My father merely complained the sausages were too fatty.
Our campground had a gorgeous view of the mountains and an alpine lake. My
father watched as an American fisherman cast out his fly fishing rod. This was
truly a moment where we all felt that we had made it to the Northern country.
Mary and I couldn’t believe that one short year ago we were among millions of
people in Europe with no place to escape the stranglehold of humanity. Now we
shared the scenery with only my parents and that fisherman. Perhaps the Cassiar
highway was worth the effort after all.
Day 2 of the Cassiar proved to be a bit more of a challenge. The road was paved
most of the way but had so many dips in it that it made most of us nauseous. The
trailer meanwhile would have tossed around its contents like a salad but my
mother had secured everything in the trailer with clothespins and the occasional
dab of crazy glue. My father, in all of his wisdom informed us that the
mountains all lacked heavy snow cover because we were travelling north and
looking at the south side of the mountains. Sure enough, as we turned our heads
backwards (except my father, the driver, thank God) the mountains were covered
in snow. Mary and I were the only ones who ate the Mexican sausages for lunch.
Apparently, my mother threatened my father last night if he ever ate those
sausages again.
We are finally getting into the touristy region we had aimed for. We stopped at
a Jade gift shop and watched the process of creating overpriced pieces of junk
from the actual stone. The owners of the gift shops kept proudly proclaiming how
this area of B.C. actually produced over 75% of the world’s jade. Of course,
they neglected to mention the only use for jade was gift shop junk. My beautiful
wife did purchase a beautiful jade necklace that complemented her beige shirt,
grey-blue eyes and stunning copper hair… This necklace of course wasn’t junk at
all…
We made it across the 60th parallel to the Yukon Territory of Canada. Our stop
was about 22 km west of Watson Lake (interestingly enough mile 1004 on the
Alaska highway). The bugs greeted us enthusiastically. I have never in my life
been confronted with black flies, horseflies, mosquitoes and deerflies at the
same time. My father happily sprayed me with insect repellent including the
interior of my mouth and nose.
We drove into town (Watson Lake) and purchased the necessities of life…beer and
diesel fuel. Mary and my mother decided to treat us to groceries as well. Diesel
fuel up here is $1.08 cents a litre. It cost over $70.00 to fill up the truck
after driving just over 300 kilometres. Our gas costs have been impressive on
this trip so far.
We visited our first authentic tourist attraction on the trip…the signpost
forest. It is literally a forest of signs. Visitors from all over the world nail
stolen signs, homemade signs, professionally custom made signs onto hundreds of
posts. These signs range from freeway signs to mileage signs to welcoming signs.
Most were from the U.S.A., Canada, and Germany. A few were from as far away as
Taiwan and Iran. It was very impressive. Mary and I found signs from Ottawa,
Kansas, Ottawa, Ohio and finally Ottawa, Ontario.
So here I am now on July 16th at 7:30 p.m. finishing off this latest report. The
sun will be setting around 10:30 p.m. tonight but I’m sure my mother will chase
us to bed an hour before that. So once again, thanks for reading! The next
report will be from somewhere within the great expanse of the U.S.A.’s largest
state, Alaska!
Steve
