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Saturday, March 9, 2013

My Flog for March 6 - From Calgary to Kamloops to Prince George and All Mixed Up - I May Have Dampened Jeans, But Definitely Not Dampened Spirits ... - Road Trip Day 3

Now, this is where my memory and photos may get a bit mixed up, but since none of you were with me, you probably won't be able to tell the difference. After a couple of days on the road, my sense of time went askew - for example, in Calgary, after sleeping about five hours, and waking at 7pm with darkening skies, I called Howard - heard Steve playing guitar in the background - and wondered why Howard was at Steve's early in the morning instead of being at work making oodles of money. It wasn't until the next morning? afternoon? .... sometime in the next something, anyway, that I realized I was going absolutely bonkers.

(When the black-out curtains are drawn against the frosty sunshine, and you tuck yourself in the bunk, and say 'Nighty night, son', it's kind of hard to believe it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon.)

We spent the remainder of Tuesday night heading towards the mountains. This time I was awake through Rogers Pass, and we pulled into the Superstore at Kamloops about 7 o'clock in the morning.

Unfortunately, even though they were expecting a delivery between 6 and 7, their receiver went home at 6, so another wait stretched out in front of us. When the store opened at 7, I dragged myself to the washroom, and went on a snack hunt - I hoped to find the same selection of goodies as the bakery wall in the Richmond Superstore - however, this was not to be. About the only pastry they were selling by the each were Cheese and Onion buns, and I didn't think that was a good breakie choice. So I opted for a 6 pack of chocolate chip muffins and a fizzy lemon water.

It wasn't until I half way through my muffin I remembered I was giving them up for Lent. Oh well, a gal's got to eat whatever was available. The label said they were baked in store, but we were left wondering where that particular store was - they looked like Costco muffins.

This was my chance to Discover  Kamloops with my camera, but I didn't - do you know how cold it is in Kamloops on an early March morning? Well, I do. So I'll let Kamloops Tourism department do that job for me - thank goodness for the internet, without it my blog would be quite boring and not very educational.


Scrubby hills - quite different terrain from towns in the mountains and near the Pacific shore.
This is where I thought I'd drag out the knitting - can't spend hours rolling on the blacktop or sitting in the parking lot and not do a few yarn overs. However, after dumping out all my bags, I still came up one needle short - oh well, the yarn got to breathe some interior air before I tucked it back into the backpack.
Finally, the container was partially unloaded - most of the cargo was heading to the Superstore in Prince George -and we were almost on our way. However, when Neil did his truck check, he discovered a problem with one of the rear air brakes on the trailer. It seems that's not a good thing, so he called dispatch and they sent us to a Peterbilt service centre up a long high hill - seems like a good place for a truck with faulty brakes to travel, doesn't it?

However, the guy there couldn't wouldn't and didn't take the time to check it out - he said they were busy, and if it warmed up a bit, he'd send a guy out to look at it in the afternoon -and suggested we go to Pine Ridge Trailer and Equipment Ltd, which was just a wee bit place farther up the hill - another call to dispatch, and they sent us there - so we were all fixed and ready to go in about another hour.

So, if your semi breaks down in Kamloops, be sure to call Pine Ridge, and not Peterbilt.

And on the road again, through the wide-eyed wonder of Cariboo Country, to Prince George.
Somewhere along the way, I decided it was a good time to try some Lemon Fizzy water. Note to self: never open a bottle of fizzy water while zooming along the highway - it causes you to say bad words in front of your son.
So off with the jeans, which were actually wet from front to back, and into a more comfortable pair of jammie pants.

The Barkerville sign below is misleading - we are not even close to it. But I would love to go there someday, so that means I will.

Now, I have to be completely honest. I have no idea if these were pics on the way to PG, or on the way  back, towards Cache Creek, where we stopped tracing our up to PG route and headed south to back home. So if you know this highway really well, and unlike me, know if you're coming or going, forgive me and keep your mouth shut. Thank you.





Whichever way the pictures are going, we ended up in Prince George after midnight - so I guess these are going back pictures, as it would have been dark on our way there. Crap. I don't feel like going back and rewriting the last bit, so we'll just use this as an example of Creative Non-Fiction and go from there.

And another day ends on the road - this is Granny Duck, over and out!

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