The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

Tomorrow at 730 AM I have to be at the Calgary International Airport to get ready for my flight, which leaves at 1030. That will be the end of my Pre-Departure, and the start of a new section of my life, let alone my blog. I want to say something sweeping about how tomorrow my life will change drastically, but really it changed drastically when I started uprooting my apartment and stuff, this is just another step on the road.

Speaking of roads, here are some fun Driving Anecdotes!

Jen managed herself pretty well on the ride. She's upset, and I am not surprised, but she's tough and holding together well. I have my extreme excitement and trepidation to keep me from being too weepy, but I choke up a lot too, particularly when I said goodbye to my mom and sister. The drive out to Calgary was miserable in a lot of ways, particularly regarding traffic. We got stuck behind a semi-truck which apparently had some kind of vendetta against us. He was driving at about 60 kph in a 90 zone, but as soon as he reached any kind of passing lane he'd accellerate to 120-130 kph, and try to block us from passing him. The, when the lane ended, he'd slam on the brakes and drop back down to 50-60. Eventually Jen passed him at something like 140 kph, and I gave him the finger as he well deserved. Later, on a long two-lane segment, he started racing up to us and tried to cut us off, forcing us to drive behind him for the rest of the way until the next two lane! We went neck-and-neck for a while, then with cunning driving and better maneuvrability cut in front of him and took up the passing lane, while a particulalry slow van occupied the slow lane. We got rid of him and he never passed us again. There were other bad drivers, but he was the only outright malicious one. Another noteable fellow was the guy from Manitoba I call "Goatman". We were driving out of Golden, through a windy mountain section with about two feet of shoulder on the right before a steep cliff to a river far below, and a double-solid on the left with traffic going by. Goatman saw a herd of mountain goats... "HOLY SHIT," he thought. "MOUNTAIN GOATS IN THE MOUNTAINS!" and slammed on his brakes, nearly causing us to rear-end him. He just stopped, ignoring us honking at him, and didn't seem to notice when we finally managed to slip past him illegally. He was too busy looking at the goats. Jen and I were discussing how much we wanted to graffiti the back of his car to say "I <3 Goats".

Jen and I went out to the same cabin on the lake this weekend, for some time to ourselves. It was extremely nice and romantic. We spent most of Saturday swimming, then lying on the beach and talking. For lunch we got in the car and drove to a bannock stand, which was awesome: it wasn't so much a stand as some old guy's garage. The bannock was in a warmer wrapped in tinfoil, and it was pretty much self-serve, and totally delicious. After the bannock we played some cards in the shade, then read stories to each other, then jumped in the lake again. As it got towards evening we made a cute little campfire¹ and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows until we just about exploded. I roasted the perfect marshmallow twice [Jen dropped the first one. Not her fault, it was too perfect for this life].

The next day, I chopped up a fresh pineapple, and we ate that before going for another swim. On the drive home, which took about 40 minutes, we could literally feel it getting hotter... the temperature rose by 15 degrees over the course of the drive, or almost a degree every two minutes. By the time we got to Kamloops, which hit a high of 43 degrees that day, we were almost in tears from the sheer cruelty of it. Right now the Canadian Armed Forces are using Kamloops to do training missions because the weather is so much like Afghanistan. PLEASE TAKE ME AWAY FROM THIS PLACE!!! In the winter it is brown and ugly (and cold but that's fine by me) and in the summer it is brown and ugly and so hot that I want to shoot myself in the head to end it. I hope I never have to live in Kamloops again!!

The Jen, Robin, her boyfriend Jon, and I went out to a cabin on Shuswap Lake for the weekend. I put some photos up in the gallery. It was very fun, we went swimming a lot, drank a fair bit of beer (and cider), and stayed up late playing charades and other silly games that frequently involve pantomiming pelvic thrusts and other things. Robin's rendition of "sex in the city" was disturbing to say the least.

It's only a little while now until I leave for Japan, but I am dreading it a lot less. Jen is thinking of taking a year of school starting next summer to come out on a student work visa... that makes it seem a lot less far away all of a sudden. The excitement is once again starting to outweigh the loneliness, and I think I am going to have a great time. It's hard to believe that in a few days I will be on another continent. It's hard to get my shit together, trying to keep in mind that I really won't get another chance to file my taxes et cetera... I have been managing to circumvent my own disorganisation but it's an uphill battle. Only a few things left to take care of.

Jen and I spontaneously decided to go swimming in Shuswap Lake yesterday, so we piled in the truck and drove out to Blind Bay, where I grew up. I took us to one of the few remaining swimming holes that hasn't been handily marked out with neon signs for tourists, and was therefore not full. My old favourite swimming place is now cordoned off with swimming buoys, annoying since it started out as a public boat launch, and is now there's not even a remote chance of going there for peaceful swimming or even of finding a parking spot nearby. The day they stuff it full of gross silty sand to keep the rocks from injuring the delicate tourists is the day my childhood dies.

We had a great time. The lake was warm as one might expect this time of year, and we were well cooled. It was worth the trip, times a million! After swimming, instead of heading home we drove the rest of the way to Salmon Arm and went for Chinese smorgasbord at Yan's restaurant, which has gone over the course of my life from being a kill-cats-in-the-back diner with grubby floors and decent grub, to (since they moved up the hill) being a somewhat upscale place with very good food and a surprisingly clean kitchen. I can't say I mind the switch. We got in early and enjoyed a really fresh smorg, and got out just as the massive 10+ crowds started filing in with snotty children and drooling eldery mothers in tow. Not that I object to drooling elderly mothers nor snotty children, they have their place, I just prefer if they are not eating right beside me (or failing to eat as the case may be).

Tomorrow I'm heading home. It's been great to visit Dad and Zdenka, and if I could I'd stay longer. Dad's going to be renovating the house and I was hoping I'd get to help, but I just can't stick around. Today I've been working pretty hard... I did more roofing on the shed in the morning, and then worked for Zdenka. I'm on a bit of a break right now because when she brings material home in an hour or two, I'm going to have to work pretty late. I'm all packed up, more efficiently and compactly than when I came, so I'll deal with it.

Hmm, I just found out that the table I used to format this section screws up in preview mode. I could FIX it, but instead I will just enter more text so that the table doesn't appear in the preview.

Jen and I are planning to go camping at Adam's Lake next weekend, the first weekend of July. I'm excited! We're going to turn the truck canopy into a hardtop tent (done it before, works like a charm), and our planned meals are nothing short of gourmet - we're really going to take advantage of the campfire to do some tinfoil roasted veggies. Suggested veg include potatoes (durr), sweet potatoes (mmm), bell peppers (double mm), onions (I think as a garnish for the hot dogs), and of COURSE corn on the cob, provided we can get some good stuff (trip to Slammin' Arm perhaps). On the non-veggie front, bien sur que we're going to take hot dogs and the fixin's, plus perhaps some kraft dinner in case we don't have a fire and need to cook something on the portable stove.