The Kindness of Strangers and other adventures...

It’s strange how sometimes the most inconvenient of circumstances sometimes bring the most interesting experiences.

I drove out to Whistler. I took the ferry in the morning and made it to Whistler by mid afternoon. My intention was to hang out with my friend Mark, then head to Kamloops up highway 99. A trip that would take about 3 hours… maybe slightly less, then from there, head North towards Jasper on Highway 16.

Mother Nature had a different route in store for me. While eating dinner at Mark’s place, I caught a glimpse of the first bit of news I’d seen all summer. A huge forest fire in Lillooet. Curious, I looked it up on the map. Apparently, my intended route was heading straight into a massive forest fire. Not good. With the help of Mark’s friends, we called the highway line to see if the highway was closed. As of that evening the highway remained open.

My trip was still a go.
I set my alarm for 7 and was on the road by 8am. Heading towards a massive Forest fire… After an hour of driving I hit Pemberton, just down the road from Lillooet. A big sign announced the highway closure. I head into the nearest gas station to ask for directions.
The conversation went something like this:

Me- I saw the sign, the highways closed, is there anyway to get to Kamloops?
Lady - You’re going to have to go back to Vancouver and go around
Me - so there’s no other way?
Lady - there’s a big forest fire, it’s all over the news
Me- so no back roads then?
Lady - It’s a BIG fire
Me - So the only way to Kamloops is to go back to Vancouver
Lady - It’s a FOREST fire, the ROAD is on FIRE!
Me - So I have to go back to Vancouver then?
Lady - Yes
Me - No other way…
Lady- NO!

Another lady comes into the store

Other Lady - is there any other way to Kamloops?
First Lady - The only way is to go back to Vancouver
Other Lady - what about this side road?
First Lady (obviously getting annoyed, probably because of me…) - It’s a BIG FIRE, it’s all over the news, all the roads are closed, they’ve evacuated the town and surrounding area. There is NO other WAY, you’re going to have to go back to VANCOUVER!
Other Lady - Okay…. (though probably a little shocked about the outburst)

At this point I leave, realizing I probably have to back track 3 hours to Vancouver and from there it’s going to take me another 4 hours to get to Kamloops.

So I head back and wake Mark up again as I pass through.

Head back through Vancouver and get lost… things are so much more complicated now that I’m using a map and not a GPS to navigate. Outside of Chilliwack there’s a giant traffic jam. While traffic was stopped I get out, and grab my crochet. I haven’t made a lot of progress on the sweater I’m working on so it was nice to get a couple of rows in while traffic was stopped.
I continue to drive through smoke and haze, apparently because it’s so dry in BC there are a bunch of forest fires burning and the sky is filled with smoke because of them. You could actually smell the burning in the air.

Because I hate backtracking, I took the Trans Canada highway from Hope to Kamloops. It’s a little slower, but it’s very scenic. I was surprised at just how different the terrain was from highway 5 which I took on the way out. Highway 1 takes you through a much rockier, but much drier, more baron landscape. It was very bizarre with all the baron rock, and burnt/dead pine and some brushy area. In contrast, highway 5 takes you through much grassier, pasture lands and pine stands.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I drive through Kamloops, and continue north towards Jasper. It’s already late, so I grab a quick dinner at a roadside diner and keep going. As it’s getting dark, I find a campground on the Thompson river. But all the campsites are taken. I drive around the site twice, and realize this might be a night I have to sleep beside the highway…. But a group of girls wave at me, and tell me I can hang out with them and that they love dogs.

So I stayed with them. They even offered me dinner, but I’d already eaten. They were super nice, in their twenties, on the last day of their road trip to Vancouver Island. They were heading back to Edmonton in the morning. We chatted, I made them tea, and went to bed. If there hadn’t been a fire ban in effect, it would have been a nice night for a campfire.

So the next morning we all had breakfast and I left them as they were putting the last things away. I actually met up with them again just outside of Jasper. They were in line behind me at the front gate. I waved from the car.

It’s so much colder here in Jasper than it was in Victoria. It’s so cold I can see my breath, whereas the weather on Vancouver Island was unbearably hot.

So that’s where I am now. I’m going to spend tomorrow hiking, maybe go for a dip in the hot springs, walk on a glacier and head back to Banff in a day or two. From there, the bad lands in Drumheller, and then back through the prairies.

Leaving the Island

Naked people are a breed of their own.

You have to give naked people credit. To walk around in the buff, in broad daylight, without a care in the world takes guts. From my experience, those who choose to go naked, aren’t always the people you would prefer to go naked. Old people in particular, seem incredibly comfortable with their bodies. I say good for them, for having the guts to do something I wish I could do, but wouldn’t. Heck, I’m too embarrassed to go around wearing a hat that says “Addicted to Jesus” even though it’s hilarious. Hilarious in two ways; first, because I’m a skeptical atheist (skeptical because I don't necessarily believe in god, but I'm skeptical of the fact that I don't know...) and second because it reiterates the point on the back of the hat by writing “addicted”.

So, back to my journey.

After the whole Strathcona incident, I spent some time with Carol-anne, Babysat Julian and decided to head out again. This time up to Port Renfrew.

To expect a nice, straight highway would have been foolhardy. I’m getting used to these coastal, mountain highways with their crazy turns, sudden drops and one lane bridges. This highway was no different, except in some spots, the highway has half disappeared due to landslides and instead of fixing it, they’ve simply made it into one lane… that’s cool, I guess…

Things I saw on the trip:
- Botanical Beach with it’s tidal pools, crazy twisty trees and apparent cougar sightings
- the sunset at China Beach
- Sooke potholes for a second time. I liked it so much I went back. With it’s crystal clear pools, high cliffs, waterfalls and rapids, who wouldn’t go back. Ben and I swam there all day, swimming from one pool to another. We would swim up the river and on the way back I’d hold onto his tail and he’d swim with the current and pull me along. We stayed for the whole day and were exhausted, but a pleasant kind of exhaustion.
- a naked old man at Sooke potholes who tried to talk to me, but I swam away… quickly. Not that I don’t admire his courage/perviness… It just kind of scares me.

From there, I spent a few last days with Carol-Anne.

Tubing down the Cowichan River has got to be one of my favourite memories from the trip so far (I mean, the naked guy was memorable… but I would have preferred a younger, less wrinkly naked guy…). We left the baby with Christian (thanks Christian) and drove to Cowichan, rented our tubes and sat on a slow moving river for three hours. In the middle of Vancouver Island’s heat wave, nothing could have been more refreshing than having your bum in the water as you sat back and relaxed.

Because it was so sunny and so hot, we bought a couple of hats from the dollar store. There were a few nice ones, but the ones we chose said “Addicted to Jesus”. We wore these for the rest of the day. At times I couldn’t figure out why I was getting funny looks, especially at the liquor store…then I remembered the hat. Since I was only wearing my bikini top (and shorts), I probably looked like a bible thumping hussy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It was after all a very hot day.

I had fun on Vancouver Island, but I miss the sound of loons echoing over an Ontario Lake, I miss white pines and smooth rocky shores, I miss cold sheets on a hot night, warm showers and flush toilets, but most of all I miss my friends and family. I travelled out west in search of something. A place, a time, an answer, but all roads led back to home. It’s been a long crazy journey and it’s not over yet, but I’m heading home, slowly.

Tips for sleeping for free...

Tips for sleeping in your car and not paying for camping…

Tip number 1 - avoid organized, popular campgrounds.

After four nights of successfully NOT paying for camping, I got careless and got caught.

I went to Strathcona Provincial park. A fairly popular park (I assume, seeing as I’d heard of it before I came to BC). I was torn between just staying in the campground or if I should just stay in the day use area. So I went to check out the campsites and as I pulled in the warden yelled at me that I was driving too fast (I was going like 20 km an hour, apparently twice as fast as I should be). I said okay, sorry and he continued to explain to me that the speed limit was 10, and went on and on about why I had to drive slow. I mean the guy was talking to me like I was an idiot and a degenerate, not at all politely. I mean it wasn’t like I was going 80, I was going pretty damn slow…. Anyway I was a little annoyed with that, and I continued to drive around looking at the sites. When another guy screamed at me to go faster… that didn’t make sense, maybe he was telling me to go slower, but in anycase, I was going about 15.… But I mean seriously! Stop fucking yelling at me! I have never been yelled at so much since I came to Vancouver Island. I consider myself a nice, polite person, and as a result, seem to get treated likewise, but not here. I have a theory that they hate me because my license plate says I’m from Ontario. At least I hope that’s it, because otherwise I’m pretty unimpressed by how rude people are, I hope this isn’t the usual BC attitude and that they simply have something against Ontarians. (this theory started when the lady at the visitor’s centre at Pacific Rim made a crack about how people from Ontario want all the animals contained so we can see them, and that all of Canada hates Ontario… which was a joke, but not funny. I had gone in because I wanted to find out where a good spot to see some oyster catchers, (a type of bird).

Back to the story:

So that pretty much sealed it for me. No way I was going to stay in the stupid campground with all the jerks. Nope, I’m going to hang out at the picnic area and boat launch. It was on this mountain lake with a small natural beach area I could swim in. I made my dinner, made some tea, went for a swim and read my book for a bit, nobody around. When it started to get dark, I watched the rest of the movie I started the day before. When it was over I figured it was safe to go to sleep, that’s when the rangers pull up. And they have flashlights.

If you are going to do the stealth, sleeping-in-your-car thing, having a dog that barks at anything is not a good idea. Without him I could have pulled the covers over my head and pretended I wasn’t there. With him barking, it was kind of obvious I was. So they told me I couldn’t camp there.

Now, it’s not that I have a thing against paying for camping. It’s just that I feel that what I’m doing hardly qualifies as camping. I don’t set up a tent, I’m not staying long, I‘m not erecting elaborate tarp shelters; essentially I’m parking, overnight. I just happen to be in the car.
Defeated, and not able to argue my case (for the record, I didn’t even try, I just played dumb and said that I didn’t know I couldn’t camp there, even though the sign clearly stated it was for day-use only). I moved onto the campground. I found a quiet spot away from others and climbed into bed. Just as I was getting comfortable, the ever-persistent warden showed up again, this time looking for my camping fee.

He was very polite about it, saying it was safer here and more comfortable. Neither of which I entirely believed. I was pretty happy in the parking lot overlooking the lake and the mountains, and here in the campground I have no view of anything. Benny boy was doing a pretty good job letting the warden know we did not appreciate the constant interruptions. I let him growl because he was mirroring my annoyance at the situation, however, let the record show I was not annoyed at the wardens, they were just doing their job, and well. But seriously $15 dollars to sleep in my car! I feel cheated!

So here are my tips for sleeping in your car:

- Don’t bring a dog, unless that dog is a quiet, bark at nothing type who will hide out under blankets with you if needed.
- vans without windows work better than a many-windowed SUV
- avoid parks with wardens and campgrounds in them, or find campgrounds that allow self-registration and arrive late, leave early.