A Shivery Trip to Calgary - Best Place to 'Go', Best Place for Snow, and Where to Put Stuff ...

The week before last, at work, just while I was saying I went on a road trip with Neil the week before and got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING done, so could absolutely positively not go anywhere this week, the phone rang - for me. It was Neil.

'Want to go to Calgary?'

'Yup.'

So there you, or should I say, I go. He picked me up after work, I called Nikkie and she picked up a few essentials for me, and Howard met us at the corner of 132 and 90 to deliver said essentials. He drove down in car as there were either (a) too many essentials to carry, or (b) the essentials were too heavy for him to carry a few metres down the road. Probably (b) as he threw in a giant bottle of peanut butter just in case we got stuck going through the mountains - not sure if it was for nourishment or traction.

So with Bosco at my feet and Stomping Tom Connors blaring from the speakers, we were on our way. I love Bosco. He makes me want to get another dog.

It was a night time drive, so no pictures of the snow or the icy roads or the ice falls - these would all wait until we were on the way home. Neil did have to get out in the -28 degrees to put chains on his truck sometime during the night. This is when he realized that pee doesn't melt the snow if it's -28 degrees. We decided it might not be a good idea to pee on a slope when it's that cold. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to go Peeing In The Snow here's a song by Buddy Whasisname and The Other Fellers. 

I gave up propping my eyelids open shortly after this, and Bosco and I had a nap in the bunk while Neil rattled his truck along the ice-rutted roads of Rogers Pass - I woke up about 2 hours outside of Calgary.

Then it was a 3 hour unload at a T&T Supermarket (yes, 3 hours. I think it was work for 15 minutes, then have a smoke break .... 3 hours? With a fork lift?), then a drop off for the empty container, then a short hop over the road to the Husky Truck Stop for a yummy huge 2pm breakfast and a visit from Patricia. And then we finished off the rest of the daylight with a nice long nap.

Neither one of us was hungry, so while Neil was refueling the truck, I just ran into the Husky for a junk food restock and a bathroom break, which basically included a washing of face, brushing of teeth, and a change of 'essentials'. I had grabbed a pair of 'essentials' from the bag Nikkie packed, and it wasn't until I was ready to step into them that I realized I had actually grabbed two pairs .. so just placed the extra pair on the TP dispenser. Where as far as I know, they still are. My apologies to the staff - at least they were clean.

Our 'morning' began with an 8pm pickup, which resulted in our leaving Calgary at 10 o'clock that night. Long distance trucking involves a lot of hurry up and wait, it seems. This is the scene leaving the warehouse - for everyone who lives in the lower mainland of BC, that white stuff is snow.

We drove under several Wild Animal Overpasses on Highway 1at Banff National Park. There are several of them in this stretch of road, but we didn't see any wildlife whatsoever. They may all have been passing overhead as we were passing underfoot. The picture below is stol .... borrowed from Yahoo! search, as it was dark when we were travelling and I didn't get a good shot. But this is what you get for $1,000,000 these days.
 
 The driving wasn't exactly pleasurable as we traveled up the foothills, as there were high winds and blowing snow sifting across the road, so about 2 am, Neil decided to pull into a rest stop where we bunked up for 4 hours. It's so easy to sleep when one is on the road - quiet and peaceful. If either one of us snores, the other doesn't (or is too polite) to mention it, and this far from home the familiar snorts and rumbles from my sleeping husband don't wake me up.

Early morning, and we hit the road again, driving through a real winter wonderland. The roads got a bit treacherous going through the mountains, especially at Rogers Pass and the Coquihalla, and there were a couple of scary parts (eg, you don't want to be hauling a 53' container going in one direction around the curviest part of an S curve when another trucker with a 53' container is coming from the other direction around the same curve ....believe me.)

Early morning, back in BC, passing through the Shuswap Lake area, beautiful scenery for sure.

I think I would rather be traveling by truck than by train, though.

A touch of a sunrise .... seen through a road sprayed window!

We passed through some pretty little towns, but of course I can't remember their names.

I will remember Sicamous, though - that's where we stopped at a Husky for bathroom and coffee. I really needed and wanted a coffee by then, let me tell ya ... however, once again, the best laid plans of mice and women ....

The guy ahead of me emptied the medium roast urn, as there was just a dribble of coffee left in it. He filled his cup with the dark roast ... so I figured it was dark roast for me also. Any caffeine is good in a pinch. However, when I went to fill my cup, all I got was half a cup of murkiness before that drained dry. Okay, half a cup would have to do .... but then I went to the creamer station ... and there was no creamer left either. So I just left the cup there and went to check out.

I told the gal behind the counter the coffee urns were empty, and she just laughed and said there were full urns at the back ... but didn't offer to replace the empty ones for us. Seems she's always got 'fresh' coffee on the go ... probably because she never replaces the first one. Then I told her there was no cream either, and she agreed with me there - but still didn't offer to get more. Would I ever grace them with my presence again? No. Unless of course I needed to pee. In fact, maybe I should have told her to just take her coffee urns to Hope (the meaning of that will become clearer near the end of this post.)

It's so interesting to see the change of growing things as we travel across the province.

Here we go again ... up up and more up on the Coquihalla Highway.

And the more up we go, the more down there is on the side of the highway. That short little 'guardrail' doesn't exactly fill one's mind with comfort.

In case you're wondering why the next picture is so much clearer than all the others, I took it while we were stopped at the Zopkios Rest Stop. This is the nicest washroom stop of all washroom stops in the middle of all the nowheres we've ever stopped. They have regular toilets that actually flush, and not these bottomless dark pits that could house all sorts of nasty creatures just inches away from one's vulnerable bum.

However, it was FREEZINGLY cold here. I managed to get to the washroom without falling on my butt, or doing the jointless dance like the gentleman in front of me who used all limbs to keep his balance on the icy parking lot, so that was good. The washroom was frigid, but at least I knew I'd get some nice warm water to wash my hands. Not. Oh well. At least I knew I'd get some nice warm air from the electric hand dryer on the wall. Not. Icy cold air? Really

Oh well, at least it was nice and warm in the truck, with the seat heater turned to broil.

Heading down mountain again, I found out that my Pepsi bottle had changed from a cylinder shape to a triangular prism shape. Oh the magic air pressure and altitude can perform!

 Eventually, we ran out of snow, basically driving from winter to fall once more. However, just outside of Hope, we drove along a stretch where there was still quite a bit of snow on one side of the road. We realized that was where the 'sun don't shine', and knew the next time we heard Howard say someone could stick it where the.. .etc ... that place was just outside of Hope. It's good to know these things. I wonder if there's any coffee urns here?

We also passed by some pretty amazing ice falls - however, most of them passed by so quickly I couldn't get a good photo. Neil actually slowed down a bit for this one.

And so another trip came to an end. I travelled with Neil back to Richmond, and he dropped off his truck and gave me a ride to Mitchell Island where I rode home with Howard after his hard day of work.

Now I definitely can't go on another trip this week - I really do have too much to do. Really.