Another Trip Up North - Icicles, Deep Fried Bacon, and Rogue Toilets

Work isn't always bad - for example, on Tuesday, as I was pricing even more Christmas stock, my left lower pelvic area started to buzz - it was my cell phone vibrating in my jeans pocket! And who would be calling me?

It was Neil, offering me a ride 'up North.' I said Yes! 

So after work, he picked me up and away we went in his brand new 2014 truck, which has no name yet ...

 ... with his brand new travelling companion - Bosco - who, even though he may never win a beauty contest...

  ... has won my heart. Such a good dog - and, because of certain lucky events in Neil's life, came to him as a gift. A brand new dog like this, an English Bulldog, costs almost as much as my first car did, believe it or not. Of course, that was back in 1974. It was a yellow Chevy Vega.  Nice, eh? However, I digress ...

We had a whole through-the-night trip, and it was so good to see black skies and shining stars. I was so happy to see the mighty Orion back in the northern skies too - my favourite constellation of all. Maybe that's because it's one of the easiest to recognize. Or maybe not.

I had to give up for a few hours north of Hope, though, but I did make sure we got through Yale before I conked out. Yale gives me the creeps - I keep thinking I should have brought wooden stakes and silver bullets on these trips. I'm sure it's a lovely little town, though. Positive. Probably.

We got into Prince George around 4:30 am, dropped off a bunch of groceries, and headed on up to Vanderhoof for another store drop-off. That brought us up to about 8 o'clock in the morning, and since the store actually opened at 8, it was a handy potty stop for me. I still don't feel comfortable enough to squat behind a tree in the middle of nowhere - especially with Orion watching.

Vanderfhoof was a bit colder than Surrey - icicles in November?  Really?

After unloading, we seemed to run out of driving time, so had another few hours to wait - 8, in fact - before we could get on the road again. So we decided to go searching for a nice breakfast.

However, as we walked up the street, all we could find were fast food places, which really didn't tempt us, so we dropped into a shop to ask for local advice. The nice man suggested the North Country Inn, and gave us directions to this log cabin restaurant.

The inside was very rustic and welcoming - although there were a lot of dead animals and dead animal heads hanging around, not my favourite decor. However, I did see a real cowboy, and even got him on the pic below. And I don't mean the wooden one, but the guy with the cowboy hat and red bandanna eating breakfast at the next table. He was wearing jeans, had a huge silver belt buckle, and even sauntered. I was hoping to see him leave and hop on a horsey, but unfortunately he hopped in a truck instead.

And the breakfast absolutely ROCKED. Best bacon in the world - Neil informed me it was deep fried. I would never have ordered deep fried bacon - before that morning. This was just a basic bacon and egg breakie with toast and hash browns ... but this was The Best of the Best. If you're in Vanderhoof - go here, and order this.

 

After breakfast, we walked back to the truck - took a few pictures on the way -

The snow on the bushes outside the restaurant was seasonally appropriate to the baskets of artificial poinsettias and holly on the inside window sills ..

 We passed a beautiful old church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, but didn't see a cornerstone to date it. And searching on the web didn't help either.

 And then we headed back to the parking lot with Bosco and our bunks waiting ...

We ... I ... was lucky, as there was also a Tim Hortons in this strip mall, and I had to really use the washroom, and I really couldn't just go in without buying something. Hence the box of six donuts. We only ate one each though, so that was okay. And aren't the winter boxes cute? Even if winter isn't?

 And then? Back to the truck and a nice warm cuddly Bosco. 

 Since we still had quite a few hours to wait before we could load up at a lumber mill for our trip back home, we slept - it's not hard to sleep in the middle of the day if you've been up most of the night, that's for sure. And then, it was pitch dark when Neil had to find the mill, where they really overloaded his truck. A trip to the scale, a trip back to the mill, where they unloaded a big huge chunk of lumber, then another trip to the scale - green light! We were on our way home! A stop in Prince George for fuel (both for the truck and for us) and a waste disposal (both for the garbage in the truck and for us), and we were good to go.


Talking about washrooms, take a warning from me
If you're in Prince George and you're needing to pee
The Husky has washrooms with two bathroom stalls
The first is the one to avoid - if you can at all.

It has an automatic flush that's gone awf'lly awry
As soon as I sat down the water did fly
With Niagara Falls force it provided a mist
That soaked stem to stern and left me quite pissed

Four flushes it gave me before I was through
But that wasn't all that was wrong with this loo
When I turned on the tap for to wash up my hands
The water hit the sink and splashed up something grand

Getting everything soaked that was missed by the gush
Of the icy cold water in the automatic flush.