Day 74: Off to Canadia...
I wake up when the sun starts shining in around 7. I kinda like this whole waking up early thing. Sadly, I doubt it will last when I get home. Oh well. I shower and head downstairs to breakfast. It is nothing extraordinary but it is complimentary. As I am finishing, I overhear a lady checking out. She is driving up to Anchorage today. I decide to talk to her. "Whatta know, me too!"
We talk for a bit and mention driving together. Sadly, she wants to head out now and I am not headed out till a bit later. Oh well. She gives me her number and says to call her if I see her truck at a hotel or along the way or something. I head back to my room and finish packing.
It is only 10when I check out and it takes an hour and a half to get to the Great Falls airport. I need to kill some time. I find the fire station and go looking for a patch. They have one! Apparently around here, they sell them and don't make a habit of giving them away. I tell them what it is for and they just give it to me. Yay! I decide to drive to Great Falls and find their fire station before heading to the airport. That should put me in around the right time!
I get on the highway and am immediately passed by a brown Audi SUV with bikes strapped to the top. Hmmm, I have seen them before. They were one of the people who kept passing me and then I would pass back yesterday... Such a small world. Anyway, I make it to Great Falls without further ado and pull off the highway in search of a fire station.
I find one and they happily give me a patch. I head back through town toward the airport. It is a small place and the traffic lights are timed annoyingly. As in I spend a lot of time sitting at red lights with no on the cross road. I decide I am not a huge fan of the place. I guess traffic lights are a bad reason to decide not to like somewhere.
I make it to the airport and park by the door labeled "Baggage claim" I had not been there more than 2 minutes when I get a text from my dad saying he had landed. Excellent timing! I text him back where I am and to look for the gross black Tacoma. A few minutes later he comes out. "Whoah, you're tan!" And then I get a hug. Yes, I am, I spent 3 weeks in Arizona! And got a sweet goggle tan too.
He wants to get right on the road so we hit the highway. We talk about my trip and my truck and the roads and how it is not snowy yet. We get to the border. Unlike the other times I have driven toward the Canadian border, there was no warning at all. All the sudden, I was at a gate. No signs or anything. We get through with no problems. They barley even ask me any questions. Glance at the passports, ask where we are headed, and how long we are staying in Canada. "I am going home to Anchorage and plan to be in Canada the least amount of time possible." Ok, welcome to Canada!
We drive down the nice 4 lane highway. There is little to no snow and the roads are dry. Sweet! Unfortunately, it is really quite windy. I get blown around a bit. Oh well, at least the rest of the weather is cooperating! Not much to complain about really. We stop to get gas. My dad offers to pay. Thank you! I am not expecting anything but will not turn down the offer by any means! His card is declined at the pump. He goes inside to ask what is up. Apparently the pumps at this gas station do not take foreign cards. Haha, our cards are foreign.The card works inside. We fill up and head on the way.
We hit Calgury at rush hour. Daniel tries to reroute me around the traffic by taking me through downtown. I see no traffic so I ignore him. I end up stuck in traffic for all of about 5 minutes before it disperses. Not too bad at all.
We continue the drive toward Edmonton. Still clear roads and little to no snow anywhere. Awesomeness! We take the bypass and completely miss the city all together. This is good and bad since we had decided to stop for dinner in town. There is not much on the bypass. We finally hit a tiny town and find a Subway to grab some dinner. By the time we have gotten food and gas, it is just past 8 and is dark.
Still another bit to go to reach Whitecourt, the place suggested to stay in. Luckily, the roads are still good even past Edmonton. 4 lanes most of the way, dry, and not too bumpy. The headlight glare is worse than usual which is really annoying. My dad does not particularly like driving so I keep driving. I offer to let him drive every time we stop and get the same answer. "I will be happy to but I don't particularly want to." Eh, I like driving so I just keep going.
Twoish hours later we pull into Whitecourt. It is a lot bigger than I was expecting. I expected a tok-size town. This place is about 10 times that size. Not that that is hard. We stop at a motel that is advertising cheap rates. I run inside. I am hoping I might get lucky and get a cute girl discount or something. "Have any rooms?" They just gave the last room away to the guy that walked in right before me. Damn! I try the next hotel down the road. Similar story. Chris had warned me that this place is extremely popular for contractors to stay and getting a room might be hard. It might not have been too bad if we had gotten in earlier. Unfortunately, it is pushing 11.
I am really tired and just want to sleep. I try a few more places with the same result. Sleep in the truck? We are prepared for that. I don't care at this point. We try one last place, the Holiday Inn, which is kind of tucked away off the highway. Maybe they missed it since it isn't on the main road. My dad offers to go in. Ok! I don't think it matters how cute I am if there are no rooms.... He comes out a few minutes later, with no cards or keys. Damn.
He gets in the truck. "They are holding a room for us at the Lakeview Suites" Oh, sweet! Papa for the win! Apparently he had showed them his Holiday Inn priority card and they had called around until they found a place with a cancellation.We show up. The room is more than we had really wanted to pay for but my Dad gets it. He had concluded I must be tired and that sleeping in a real bed would be worth it. Awesomeness!!!
He checks in while I park. The parking lot is packed. I find a car parked in what is not a spot and decide to drive over the snowy curb and park next to it. I do so... and start slipping. I hear a clunk and the rear end slides as I try to get over all the snow. Shit. I hope that is not my truck hitting the car next to me. I get out and check. It's not. Apparently it is just my truck slipping on the snow. Jeeze, T Rex never clunked around as much as this thing did. The lift makes it make all sorts of weird clunks when I drive over things. It is deffinately getting a tire downsize whenever I have to get new tires. That will fix the clunking. Oh well, I don't mind. I am just not used to it.
I am finally happy with my parking and pull out the bags. I go inside and check to make sure I won't get towed. As long as I am not in the way, it is fine. Well, I am over the curb and people shouldn't be driving there anyway so I figure it is ok.
We head to the room, nothing amazing but it is a nice looking hotel room. I throw down my bag, pull out my pajamas and contact case, change and get in bed. I say goodnight and spend the next hour or so not sleeping. Ugh! I am so tired but still wound up. I eventually fall asleep.
Day 75: More Canadia
I again wake up as the sun shines in the room. I get in the shower and clean myself. Yay! I love being clean. I come out of the bathroom and my dad is up and ready for his turn. I lay on my bed until he is done. I then dry my hair and we head to checkout. We get some complimentary breakfast and head out.
I start up the truck. It is cold. I need to get a block heater and autostart and all that cool stuff. I let it run for a bit and wake up Daniel while we wait. I put in our day's destination. Daniel thinks we can do it about 2 hours faster than Google maps had when I checked a few days ago. I like Daniel's thinking.
We head off. The road is still a nice 4 lane highway. There is some snow on the ground but the road is dry. We end up having a long discussion about Coldwater, the lake house my Dad's family bought forever ago in Michigan. I had asked when he thought he would make it back there. We then got into all of the improvements we wanted to make to it. The place was built in the 50s and has had little maintenance done over the years. At this point, the roof is leaking and it just needs some work overall. I think my brother Stephen and I could tackle that issue between my engineering skills and his carpentry skills. I realize that I never actually knew how my family ended up buying a lake house on a lake that is too small to even be on a normal map... so I ask and find out! Good stuff.
About half way to Fort Nelson (the day's destination) we end up on two lane highways. Still in pretty good shape and dry in most places. I switch in and out of 4wd for the rest of the day. A little annoying but at least there is usually a pretty clear point at which I need to switch.
I come up behind a truck. It must be carrying gravel because it is spewing rocks all over the place and none of the other vehicles I have encountered have been this bad. Aragh! Stop throwing rocks on my beautiful paint job!!! I can't get around him for a while because of all the traffic on the other side. After miles of this, I finally find a nice clear straight section to make the pass.
A little later, I decide it is time for lunch. I have no desire to stop for such a trivial meal. I mean, I usually just ignore lunch all together on days of intense travel. (because that always goes really well for me when I am unhappily hungry around 3 or 4...) I am prepared this time! I bought bread in Montana and have peanut butter. I tell my Dad where I have it stashed. He brings the while bag of food I brought to the front seat and goes through it. He finds the Wheat Thins I brought and gets pretty excited. Apparently they are one of his favorite foods. I had no idea. Anyway, a short time later he hands me a sandwich. "Have an Alcan peanut butter sandwich." He says.
What makes an Alcan peanut butter sandwich different from a normal peanut butter sandwich you may ask. Well, first, it must be made in a moving vehicle which is traveling on the Alcan. If you are extremely talented or want to die, the driver can make it. Otherwise, any passenger may make it. Second, no jelly. If anything is going to make a mess and drip all over, it would be jelly. For the sake of trying to keep my new truck clean, and because I don't really like jelly (too sweet), no jelly. Third, it must be made with a sharp pocket knife that might severely cut you if you happen to hit a bump while crafting the sandwich. I forgot to steal harmless plastic knives from the breakfast buffet this morning and all I had was my pocket knives. Granted, there were 3 to choose from. All rather sharp though. We used the cleanest one. (I washed it with soap and water the last time we stopped for gas) And that is how you make an Alcan peanut butter sandwich.
I pull off to get some gas. It is a random station in the middle of nowhere and has no card reader. I go inside to pay and go to the bathroom while my dad pumps the gas. Most of the Canadian pumps we have stopped at don't have the automatic shut off so you have to hold the pump the whole time. I pay and head out to the truck while he goes inside. I decide to clean off my headlights, which are filthy like the rest of my truck, while I wait. All the slush is really making a mess. My truck isn't even black anymore.. more a nice grey brown.
While I am doing this, a guy pulls up to the pump next to me. He gets out. "No disrespect, but you know you could clean your truck not at the pump." He says to me. Uh, what? I apologize and he makes an exasperated sound like I am one of the most horrible people he has ever met. Uh, ok buddy. I don't know what your problem is. I finish cleaning my truck and then pull off to the side. No one comes to take my place at the pump. Asshole.
Ya know, I am a pretty considerate person and generally pretty aware of how whatever I am doing is affecting other people, negative or positive. And I try to minimize any negative affect. There are 4 pumps at this station. When I got there, the place was empty. When I walked out to wait for my dad, there were still vacant pumps. I saw no reason to move. Had there been a line, I would have moved promptly. And at least I was using the cleaning facilities, unlike the people two pumps over who were playing with their puppy with their car parked at the pump, after finishing getting gas. Really, people need to chill out. I really don't see why that guy had to say anything to me and then be incredibly rude after I apologized. Ok, rant over.
My dad comes out and gets back in the truck. We drive the rest of the 250 miles to Fort Nelson uneventfully. I do a lottt of driving on long straight stretches of road today. Very boring and hard to stay focused. The snow on the side of the road is starting to pick up. This provides good contrast for spotting wildlife that might want to jump into my truck. Hopefully I will see any danger long before it is a problem.
I pull into town and start looking for somewhere to stay. I had done some research prior to coming. I stopped at the cheapest places first. "Uh, how much for a night? $89? Ok, thanks", and walk out. Chris had recommended a place that has a nice complimentary breakfast for around $120. The slightly cheaper places were a little sketchy and had no free breakfast. I will probably come out close to the same after finding food in the morning anyway.
As I negotiate the parking lots and make tight turns, I hear weird sounds from the truck. Upon inspection, I see a lot of ice buildup in the wheel well. My tires just barely fit when I turn without the ice.With the ice buildup, they are rubbing. Well that explains why I have no front mud flaps.... they would rub when I turn. ah the joys of oversize tires. Well, they do look super cool anddd I can drive over really big things. Totally worth it!! :) My truck is amazing. I can deal with a little noise.
I go to the Ramada which Chris had suggested. I get out of my truck and look at it. Eww, completely disgusting. Anyway, the guy at the front is friendly and mentions their complimentary breakfast, most of which is home cooked. Sweet! My dad had mentioned getting a real dinner tonight so I ask the office guy for recommendations. We get a recommendation and the key and head to the room. We open it up and everything looks good! Again, nothing amazing but it is clean and taken care of.
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| I am working really hard to paint it brown! |
We head back to the hotel. I am pretty exhausted. I consider not blogging. If I wait any longer though, I might start to forget stuff, despite me writing notes about what I want to talk about. Half the time these notes are written while driving and are rather illegible. My dad decides to just go to sleep. I will do that soon. Only two more days! My back and neck and ass are sore and achy. I have sat in my truck for so long that even when I get out for the night, I still hurt. Booo!!! 12+ hours in a car is too much! Well, I think it was only 10 today... Anyway, I have no idea how truckers do it!
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| Truck and sunset outside the hotel! |
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