This is why it took an hour and a half to get to Surrey from Steveston on Tuesday afternoon, a solid wall of city traffic that turned a freeway into a parking lot. This isn't the usual road I travel after a day's work, though - this is the road I traveled when Neil picked me up early in the Big Red Truck (which he has Christened The Mistress, but I have trouble referring of the truck as that) and was giving me a ride home to pick up some Stuff before I went on a road trip. Yippee!
First stop was a warehouse facility in South Surrey to pick up a load of grub, then off we went, his traditional 3 singing us away. I'm sure I saw a tree 'horse' close to where we left - I saw four trunks that were spaced just right for a horse statue, and the fronds of the trees met in the centre, and seemed to be cropped to look like a horse. No, no picture, as we were trucking along and it was gone in a flash. I believe Neil thinks it another figment of my imagination, like the huge flower tree I saw in Chilliwack a few weeks ago and haven't seen since.
Second stop was the Husky Travel Centre in Chilliwack. I was very eager to get a cherry yogurt parfait here, but alas .... none left. Seems like I'm only supposed to have one my entire life.
There's always lots of trucks here getting their bellies filled.
It was a rainy evening, and dusk set in quickly, easing into a night time ride. This made Pictures Through The Window impossible, so we just rolled along, first stop
Merritt. This time Neil was hauling a freezing load of frozen stuff, and he just about froze when he had to go in the trailer to get his sticky drop-off tags. Then, it was back on the road to
Kamloops, two drop-offs (brrr) and then to our last drop off spot in
Vernon, just before midnight. By this time the hunger was getting pretty severe, so when Neil pulled into the unloading zone, I flicked across the road to a Domino's Pizza place that was displaying a lit Open sign in the window.
Three, (yes, 3) veggie slices later, for me, and an undetermined amount of slices of Hawaiian for Neil, and we were off once more, this time to our resting ground for the night ... or the day ... whenever. Ah. Snooze.
Neil found a pull-off spot on the banks of
Okanagan Lake, where his suggestion of waiting for a potential sunrise over the water lost out to my suggestion of sleep. Besides, I was pretty sure the sun had risen by then.
The waters were so still and calm - what a beautiful spot. We searched carefully for
Ogopogo, but the only life was a diving bird on the water, and the mournful sound of loons in the distance.
On the other side of the road was a rock cliff, which had probably seen and felt quite a lot of dynamite in the past. It's amazing how much of the scenery here is backed up by solid rock walls.
Morning - well, afternoon, actually - greeted us with more rain, clouds, and a bit of wave on the water. No Ogopogo sightings for sure. Actually, the only thing on my mind was a washroom, as I hadn't had the pleasure of one since the Chilliwack stop about 17 hours prior. Coffee came a close second. Since Neil couldn't legally drive for another hour, he decided to watch a movie (yes, he has a TV and DVD Player, and after warning him not to play anything involving rain, fountains, or waterfalls, we settled down to watch
Madea's Family Reunion, which was actually pretty funny.
The front window of the truck offered this view - love this tree, which I thought of as a Partial Weeping Willow. The dirt road? Well, that brought back memories of another road trip -
- when we left Richmond to drive to Thompson, Manitoba for Bradley and Nadine's wedding, and ended up on an unpaved swampy logging road for 20 miles, 20 miles of swish-and-fish-tailing through deep mud-filled tire tunnels with huge logging trucks topped off with thousands of logs barrelling towards us at hundreds of miles an hour. Needless to say, prayers were said. And Google Maps were cursed upon.
However - back on the road, this time to
Kelowna to pick up a load of Wood Pellets. The weather could have been nicer.
Seems Kelowna is built on and around a hill, and some of the houses are way up high on the ridge. Not a good Breehy kind of place.
We went over a non-exciting bridge - one that goes low on the water at first, then rises slightly to avoid the waves on a windy day, I guess. There really was a sail boat on the water. Just one, and I missed it. Oh well.
And here we on another muddy road, heading to the pellet plant (?). I don't know how Neil manipulates that long trailer around these tight corners, and backs up in such little spaces. And I was sure we'd get mired down here and I've had to get out and push.
And we're on the road again, this time West Bound and Down, pulling a very heavy load back home. We were taking a different route home, this highway going way up high in the mountains ( a real
highway, I guess) and there was a lot of 30 kmp going on. And as you can see, it was pouring rain.
I couldn't believe the number of Bicycle Route signs we passed. I don't know who would ever want to bike this route. I also couldn't believe not seeing bike remains littering the side of the road, because I would have gladly sacrificed Breehy anywhere along this road.
See? High enough fer ya? We reached an elevation of over 1700 metres, and yes, of course, before that happened, we ran into falling snow.
Wet, sticky, cold snow that clarted on the window. I know it was wet, sticky, and cold as Neil opened his window, cleaned some off his side-view, and threw it at me. If he wasn't driving on the edge of a cliff (the edge being on my side, with a 1700 metre drop), I would have paid him back the same way.
We finally reached some downhill, and the snow cleared up, but left us with some incredible skies,
colourful semi-arid flora ...
and a patch of blue sky towards home.
Pretty birch trees ...
And only 282 kms to Vancouver.
More rain?
Ah, of course, the clouds are just sucking it up ...
.... 269 ....
The outskirts of Hope.
And now we're getting ready for a sunset ....
... a plus when you're heading west ...
So, home again about 9:30 in the evening. Instead of even attempting to tell a sleeping husband about our trip, I made a batch of muffins and made Egg Salad Sandwiches for his lunch the next day. That took care of the guilt for leaving him all alone in this empty house .... ha.
