There were a lot of mixed emotions when we pulled out of Regina on the morning of
August 30th. We were heading off to beautiful British Columbia and we were excited, nervous,
happy and sad all at the same time. You see, we were moving our youngest
daughter, Emily, to her new home in Kelowna
and while we were happy she was going to further her education and enhance her
Marketing Analyst career we were sad that it was going to be two provinces
away. Sometimes, though, you’ve got to take the good with the bad.
I had been
out to the Left Coast
only once a long, long time ago, when I was nine-years-old, and Deb had never
been further into the Rockies than the Frank
Slide site so we were pretty excited about the site-seeing and somewhat nervous
about the mountain driving.
Not so long
ago Emily had driven to the coast and she is a competent and confident driver
and was totally comfortable driving through the mountains. I, on the other
hand, didn’t really know what to expect and I was just hopeful that I didn’t
become part of the scenery while looking at it. So we headed out with me in one
vehicle and Emily and Deb in Em’s car. Luckily, arrangements had been made for
the largest amount of her belongings to arrive in Kelowna a day or two after we
did so we didn’t have to pull a trailer or U-haul, or anything, so that was a
blessing.
We got off
to an interesting start as we had picked Calgary
as our first overnight stop and we booked a room online at “Calgary ’s newest and hippest” hotel-Aloft. It
was easily accessible off of Highway #1, affordable and looked pretty cool. It
was a little disconcerting, though, when we pulled into the parking lot on
Saturday night and it looked like we’d arrived at a “Ladies of the Evening”
convention or a “Stripper’s Are Us” outlet. It was only a pre-University
private pool party going on and it didn’t affect our stay too much. Debbie and
Emily strongly suggested that I stick to “Nature’s Natural Wonders” for
sightseeing on the rest of the trip, though. An argument could be made about
the definition of “natural” but let’s not go there, shall we?
The whole
trip covered over 3200 kilometers of travel and the worst driving conditions we
experienced were between Calgary
and Canmore. Apparently, Labour Day Long Weekend Sunday could possibly be one
of the worst times to pick to drive that piece of the Trans Canada Highway . It was
side-by-side, bumper-to-bumper 130kms/hour for as far as the eye could see on
the highway. The good news is that it made driving the rest of the 3000-odd
kilometers a lot less nerve-racking.
When they
say “Beautiful” British Columbia
they really mean it. We haven’t said “wow” that many times in a week for a
long, long time. We were also blessed with great weather and the only non-sunny
day happened to be the day that Bobby “Bouche” Byrnell arranged a helicopter
ride for us over Shuswap
Lake
The Okanogan Valley
We
travelled #1 highway out and #3 highway back in an attempt to make the most out
of the limited time we had allowed ourselves. We packed a lot of activity into
those seven days and we have already begun planning a return trip with more
time penciled in to explore a lot of sites that we didn’t make time for this go
around.
As we
watched the mountain beauty shrink in the rearview mirror there were no mixed
emotions this time. There was only one…sadness. We were leaving the majestic,
awesome beauty that is B.C and, more importantly, our daughter in her new
surroundings in Kelowna .
She’s in great hands, though, with her life-long best friend, Bethany Hilderman,
living there, too, and her old Moose
Jaw roommate sharing the living arrangements again but,
still, we came home without her and that wasn’t an easy thing to do. Then
again, on the other hand, it gives us the best reason to make a return trip.
“The
mountains are calling and I must go.”-John Muir-Scottish naturalist and
preservationist (1838-1914).
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