Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Keeping up with this may be a challenge! I am stopped in a small beautiful place called Brocket, Alberta. I cannot imagine that more than 500 people live here. The view is of wide open prairie, with mountains off to the southwest, capped with snow. The locals are nice, no surprise there. The one dude working the counter has lived here his whole life. I'd say he was probably 21 or so.
For the first real day of work, today was a doozy. We'll start at the beginning. Up at 0430 my time to get rolling. Typical day for the most part. The sooner you start, the sooner you can park and know that you can find a place to park in. My mission today was to drive an empty trailer across the border and swap it for a full one heading to Calgary. So I drove west, up through Crowsnest Pass, into B.C. Beautiful scenery when the sun came out. Plenty of craggy mountains, snow capped peaks, tamarack trees changing color, still and mirror surfaced lakes enchanting the beauty in a dark wet way.. Seeing as my truck has been governed at 60 mph (100kph for our Canadian friends!) I certainly get plenty of time to take in the sights.
Being compelled to drive at such speeds, I often found myself invariably being followed by someone or other. (I will say that I passed 1 car today.. they were going 85kph in a 100 zone). So for the longest time, I was being followed by a lowboy flatbed truck. By way of explanation, a lowboy is a flatbed that hooks to the truck over the drive tires, goes back a bit, then drops down and back. The rear tires are usually much smaller than the front (but not always). I guess I would say it looks kinda like a straightened out and elongated “Z”. So this guy was following me for a number of miles along AB 3 and BC 3. After sometime along this 2 lane road, a passing lane opened up and he zoomed right by me. I was glad to have him on his merry way. Not a big fan of people riding my ass really.
Meanwhile, during this initial trip, I quickly found out that my heater was rather anemic. I could run the heat at half fan, but any more than that and the air would blow cold. I put up with this for a while, figuring it would be useful to get back into the States and a repair shop with. A memory gradually surfaced.... people will often shut a particular valve in the summer time to reduce heat going into the climate control unit. My guess was that it was closed. (turns out I was right and corrected the issue.) After thinking about it for some time, I decided that I would pull over and remedy this situation. Finding one of the many, many turnouts along the way, I pulled off the highway, of all places, behind the lowboy driver who had passed me earlier. I got out, stretched a bit, and unlatched the hood. Quite the production to turn a knob, but hey, better than freezing. I then proceeded to inspect the engine where I thought the valve would be. For one reason or another, I missed it on this attempt. A brilliant idea flashed into my mind, “I can go ask that lowboy driver! I bet he'd know.” Turning away from my truck, I begin walking to his. Then I stop. I see him under his trailer, just behind his drive wheels, doing what I had no clue. I figure he was doing some repair or something. With a wave from his roll of TP, it occurred to me that he was indeed taking care of business, but not what I thought. Taken aback, I proclaimed, “Never-mind” and decided to go back to my truck.
After a few moments, and me taking a whiz, he pulled away. I did not see him again, or catch any further glimpses of him. I feel that I may have been too embarrassed to look. In the dim predawn light, I could discern a trail of liquid, and I saw his rear tire roll over a dark spot on the pavement. I attempted to let my mind explain it away as just a dark oil blotch on the pavement. That was until a Raven flew down to that very spot and picked at it. Oh how I wish I was making this up. The Raven flew off shortly thereafter, but I fear that this memory will stay with me for some time.
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