First rain: 6:40am
Mileage: 1106km
Arrival: 3:15pm (mountain time)
The second day of driving dawned perfectly. We were actually an hour down the road when the sun started peaking through the clouds. I was awake several times during the night, ready to roll in the middle of the night as has been my habit when doing the drive solo. Sal asked me at about 3am our "is it time?", I replied "whenever you're ready" but she was asleep seconds later. This was repeated somewhere around 4am. At 5 we were up and packing. A quick trip to Timmy's for coffee and we were on the way.
It was a partly cloudy morning and we went through spots of light rain with the sun poking through the clouds over Sal's shoulder. I missed that slow transition from the total darkness of night through the first hint of dark blue as the sun slowly starts to spread it's light. But the sunrise provided the kind of light show that I love on the prairies. Dark purple-black clouds to the south horizon and patches of clear sky to the north. The sun poured through openings in the cloud cover, spilling light on fields that turned bright green while the sky behind remained dark and threatening. Light rain and the rising sun resulted in a couple of rainbows. Traffic was very light. In the 350km to Regina I passed 5 transports and was passed by only 2 pickups.
We decided to make a pit stop at Timmy's in Regina. We both had a hand in the adventure that resulted. Sal had taken the ignition key off of the key ring on day 1 as the dangling collection is annoying. I repeated the move day 2 and thought nothing more of it until we exited Timmy's and had the sudden realisation that the ignition key does not open the doors on a 2007 Subaru, either the separate door key or the fob are required. Sal came up with a coat hanger from a neighbouring hotel, the young manager at Timmy's had none but offered me a bungie cord. Timmy's continues to hire good people, he's obviously never tried to break into a car. I managed to pry open the window enough to slide the hanger in with a bracket from the straps on the bike rack. Tinted windows meant I had to have direction from Sal on the other side. I managed to grab the steering wheel and little else. Where are we going to find a locksmith at 8am on a Sunday I thought, along with a barrage of choice words that stayed right there in my head, mostly.
A young guy passed and said "bummer", but then offered the help that saved the day. He had just finished working for a towing company that could get the door open in minutes. We checked our location on Sal's phone and called. I was sure we would lose at least a few hours and $100. Fifteen minutes and $42 later we were back on the road. Whew. Needless to say our collection of keys dangled annoyingly for the next 7 hours.
The rest of the drive went smoothly. Traffic picked up marginally. The miles went by. We ate lunch on the move and made up the time lost playing with coat hangers. Texts with Mel kept the boys up to date with the ETA of the cookies.
As we made our was in to Alberta we began to notice prairie dogs. On our first trip out they were everywhere, most noticeable standing on the side of the road on their hind legs looking proudly out over the vastness of their domain. Recent years have seen very very few but a huge increase in hawks. There were hawks on every telephone pole and half the fence posts. Okay that's an exaggeration, but here were more hawks than prairie dogs as far as we could see. This year very few hawks, lots of prairie dogs but mostly of the roadkill variety. I would venture 1 live for every 15-20 dead.
A long drive will do funny things to your thinking, a second day with 10 plus hours in a tin box going 120kmph makes odd things hysterical. Bob the prairie dog carefully scans the sky, watchful for the winged death, the red tailed hawk. Bob has lost many friends and family to the talons of the hawks and he's not going out that way. Looks good, no hawks here, Bob takes a step and.......splat. Fun Fact. The top 3 predators of the black tailed prairie dog in Alberta are:
1. Goodyear
2. Continental
3. Michelin
Well maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious halfway between Medicine Hat and Mike's house.
We arrived 45 minutes earlier than expected. For a few minutes, silence. Then as I made my way from the car I heard Cullen yell "Nanny and Papa are here" followed by Campbell "the cookies are here". We had all kinds of devious plays to make on how the cookies were forgotten, but finally seeing the 2 little faces made deception impossible.
Jess and AJ came for supper and we spent a quiet evening, well as quiet as it get around here.
 |
| Mission accomplished |
No comments:
Post a Comment