Saturday, November 19th, 2011
Only moments ago, I was ready to rant and rave. Some things will push a man to the brink. Tension mounted as the time slipped away, ever faster as the deadline approached. I was already composing a very nasty letter in my mind's eye, seething with anger, rage, and frustration. Then something in me stood up to take notice. Peace washed over me, like a dam had burst. Then the world shifted. What was a great obstacle became a challenge. By merely noticing how I was feeling, I was able to completely alter my internal reality, and what a difference that made.
Today started in Calgary, and has ended in Hope. Cute metaphor eh? I'll work my way backwards through today's major events, starting with what just happened. O.k. I can't tell it backwards, so I'll start in a place called Kamloops. Seriously.
Topping off the fuel, I felt gratified that I finally had earned a shower after registering my frequent fueler card. All the big truck stops have one. Standing outside the building, facing the sandy cliffs across the river, I was asking myself, “Stay or go?” I had a few hours left to run, so I thought a shower could wait for one more day if I decided to go. Climbing back into my rig, i consulted my road atlas. My intended route was a blue line. Sweet! I've come to understand that blue lines mean “hammer down” (or making good time). I released the brakes and I was rolling right through Kamloops, wondering if I should stop at the other truck stop or just keep on *ahem* truckin'. Before getting to the truck stop on the other side of town, I started to climb a hill. Happens all the time. I get to the top of the long hill (a 15 minute climb I kid you not) with my 20 metric tonnes (22 regular tons and change) of bailed, corrugated cardboard destined for recycling and there's the weigh station. Now, I'm a tad concerned about getting weighed after my last encounter with the chicken coops (cool trucker slang for weigh station), especially so this time, since I put on more fuel than I intended. Being an American, I have an American job. The people in the USA use the imperial system. So I get my fuel routes in number of gallons. Normally, I've been able to fill my tanks in Canada which is a hard conversion to mess up; this time I was authorized for 80 gallons, only 60 of which I really wanted. Any more than that, and I risked being overweight on my steering axles. So there's the weigh station. It is open. My experience is that all the chicken coops in British Columbia are open all of the time. Well, all of the time I don't want any part of it. I decelerated. Dropping gears slowly, to give the impression that I took their laws seriously. I reach the scale, look inside and nobody's home. The steer axles clear the scale, and my drives are on the platform. The lights telling me what to do have not changed, so I keep going. I pull just past the scale house and see that there is a truck in the inspection station. I saw it before, but now I notice two officers walking away from the truck and towards the scale house. My trailer tandems are almost weighed. Just as they reach the door, my trailer tandems clear the platform and all the weight display reads “00000”. I pulled forward slowly, so as not to give the impression that I was making a break for it. Checking my mirrors, I looked back and there were no flashing lights.
Free from that ordeal, and very grateful for it, I proceed along my road. From the first truck stop, I'd say that I've gained about 900 feet in altitude. I figure that since before I was driving along a river (which tend to be nice and flattish) that I've reached the top and it was all down hill from there. Boy was I wrong. I climbed a 20km long hill. 20 KM!! I figured the elevation was about 2500 meters or so, but I'm no altimeter. The roads were crusted with hard packed snow. Stuff the snowplows just bounce off of. Then, surprise! Another hill! Climbing again, I eventually reached the down hill, another 20km jaunt along snowy and icy surfaces, but down this time, so gravity is working against you in a more dangerous way. I scanned the terrain, and was pleased to see that the road opened up into a broad valley. There were even farms there, which for some reason shocked me. I figure I can make some good time from here on out. The roads are a bit cleaner, and the land is finally flat.
So I start climbing another mountain. It was at this point that I started to get frustrated. It was like the road engineers went to a zoo, gave the monkeys crayons, and had them purpose a route for a 4 lane free way through the hills. Not only that, who ever thinks that a 12.5 mile long hill is a good idea? Let alone two of them. Oh yes, there was another of them after the climb out of that valley. This time though, the sun had set, and the road was even less cared for. With such unforeseen delays, I was beginning to think that I would run out of my 11 hours drive time before I arrived at my planned destination. I began composing a letter that began “Dear Canada, Fuck you, and your roads.”
But now I'm here in Hope. Still unwashed, but at least happy and relaxed. I could tell you about the descent into British Columbia and the trip form the border to Kamloops, but that part bored me really. That's not true. More accurate, it paled in comparison to what just came before. Edit: I cut out the next few bits to further refine what I want to say. They will appear in a following post.
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