The morning broke bright and clear in Canmore. I spent the morning doing a little work and writing about the Hockey game the night before. You might have heard about it. Finally I checked out and loaded up the car. It was chilly, but not top-up chilly. I tied everything down and as I was getting ready to leave when a motorcyclist who was parked next to me noticed the license plate.

“Californ-eye-eh” he said. “You’ve come a long way.”

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere, but he didn’t want to know about that. He and some friends had ridden in from Edmonton for the weekend. “It rained on us the whole way,” he said. “We got soaked.”

“I must have been lucky,” I said.

“Top down the whole way, eh?”

“Pretty much.” I had the top up the first day, from San Diego to Grover Beach. That was more than two months ago. There were other times the top was up, but not when I was traveling.

We chatted a little more. I asked if Edmonton was rooting for the Flames now, or if even the idea of Lord Stanley’s Cup coming to Canada was not enough to overcome the rivalry between the cities. “Oh, during the season, ya kno, no way. But when things get this advanced, we’re all Canadians. Although,” he added, “Half the team is Americans and the other half is Europeans. But you know how it is.” He laughed, I laughed. He recommended I take the old highway 1A down into Calgary, rather than the new highway 1. “More relaxed, ya kno?” I wished him a safe and dry ride home, and pulled out.

I filled up the tank and pointed the car east and down, through foothills covered with lush grass, following a shimmering river. Overhead the sun was becoming more the exception than the rule, and ahead was a solid wall of black. The end of the world. I was heading right toward it. The air abruptly became decidedly colder and somehow fresher. Livelier. I started looking for a place to pull over to put the top up. I was driving along a stretch of road with ditches immediately on either side. In my head I was tallying the value of the electronics lying exposed to the weather when I finally found a spot. I pulled off the long straight road as far as I could, unloaded, put the top up, and reloaded. I had gone less than a mile when it started to rain hard.

This will sound strange to anyone not from Southern California, but I had no idea how my tires were going to handle the rain. They have a lot of miles on them and will need replacing soon. It had been many months and thousands of miles since they – or I – had driven in significant rain. People joke about how many accidents there are when there is the slightest sprinkle in San Diego. I expect part of it is that after all those months, people have no idea their tires are bald and their wiper blades are shot. But I digress.

I got to Calgary and found a hotel for the night. I figured this would be a good place to see my work to completion, but there were simply no rooms at all in the city for the following days. None. There is a big petroleum conference in town this week. One hotel guy suggested I try Canmore.

No matter. I had a place for sunday night and an excellent Internet connection. I got a lot of work done. I had been invited to a chinese restaurant/lounge in Calgary by the woman next to me while I watched the hockey game, but I didn’t make it down to that part of town. This is what has become of me. I passed up a chance at a free beer. She had been pretty enthusiastic about my road trip as well, asking questions that in other circumstances I might have found leading, but she was just friendly. Her husband was friendly too.

In Calgary, then, ensconced in a nice but pricey room, I had a little time on my hands, so I went to find a bar nearby. I landed a block away at a place called earl’s. earl’s could have the slogan, “We’re pricey, but we’re trendy.” I nearly turned around and left when I saw the fancy decor, but the hostess caught me while I was trapped in indecision and therefore easily led. The hostess was also very attractive.

The entire staff was clearly chosen for their looks as well as their outgoing personalities. earl’s report card – price: D; ambience: D (unless you like that sort of thing); service: A. I had no urge whatsoever to become a regular there, nor I suspect, would the management be that excited about having me as a regular. I had some good food and pounded my head against The Monster Within for a while.

After that it was work and figuring out where I would sleep the following night. I knew it had to be a Hockey town.

Sweet!

Thanks!

Got a build done for the client and got onto the road about 2:30 – not as early as I would have liked. I came down into Colville and gave Bob a call to thank him and decided to grab a quick bite at McDonalds. It was not a quick bite. I waited in line, trapped by the cars behind me, for several minutes. When I reached the order box what I heard was “Sorry for the wait. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.” Finally it was my chance to order. “I’ll just want a Quarter Pounder with no cheese and a medium Coke,” I said. I watched on the panel (to ensure accuracy) as she rang up a quarter pounder with cheese, hold the cheese. I thought of trying to explain to her what she had done, but at that point it simply wasn’t worth forty cents to me. When I got to the first window, the 50ish woman took my money and apologized for the delay. Not all McDonald’s are the same. Some are worse.

On the road at last, burger sitting heavy in belly and caffeine increasing my heart rate, I took Highway 20 east out of town. At the outskirts of town there was the faint smell of skunk, my totem animal if they’ll have me, and I decided that was a good omen. I had put on plenty of sunscreen while waiting in the drivethrough, so I was protected. I put Stiff Little Fingers in the CD player and blasted Suspect Device.

At mile 3490.2 (kilometer 5628.2) I was quizzed briefly by a nice Canadian Customs lady and I crossed into Canada. I have never been to Canada before, so I was pretty excited. The only real changes I noticed were the speed limits were in km/h, and one in four cars had Calgary Flames flags attached to them.

I followed a route recommended by Bob, largely on the strength of a bar he liked. Traffic was not bad and I made good time, arriving at Kokanee Cove Pub at suppertime. I looked over the menu and decided to splurge a bit – I had to have the barbecue prawns in secret butter sauce (I a sucker for secrets), but that didn’t seem like a meal so I had the steak and prawn combo. Of course, I also ordered a beer. The beers seemed a little on the pricey side until I realized that these were Canadian Dollars. Woo Hoo! That was like 20% off or more right there.

After dinner I made the short trip up to Cranbrook to find a place to sleep. I searched high and low for high-speed Internet but without success. The responses ranged from “We don’t have any access to the Internet of any kind,” to “We’re planning to put that in soon” to “We have two rooms with the Internet, but they’re both taken” and finally “We have one room left with high-speed. It’s a Jacuzzi suite and it’s $350.” That’s too much even in Canadian dollars. Finally I just gave up and went somewhere cheap near a bar.

I ended up just going to the hotel bar instead of the one I saw next door. My laptop battery was dead and the hotel lounge was deserted, so I knew I could find somewhere to plug in. It worked out well, too. They had a good pale ale on tap for a good price (unusual in hotel lounges). I had four of them over the next couple of hours and as you may be able to tell from the last episode, written while I was there, I got pretty loopy. That must have been a pretty potent ale. I went back to my room and tried to connect to AOL, but I couldn’t figure out which numbers were local.

I woke up in the wee hours still on top of the covers, shoes on, an arm over my eyes to keep the light out. I want to know what my waitress put in that beer.

Sweet!

Thanks!

I came sliding down off the tattered remains of Mount Mazama through a strange forest of tall, very thin trees in a race to see who could reach the sun first. The winners had not emerged yet. The trees had branches only at their crowns. It seemed like a forest of toothpicks. I assume that the forest had been cleared by fire or logging a couple of decades ago and the new saplings all got started at the same time. It looked like Darwin was about ready to assert his harsh rule there, if man didn’t do the thinning first.

I went the long way round the mountain, then headed east and north. I could have gone past Bend but my eyes were tired, and I wanted to be able to take my time finding a cheap place to sleep near an interesting-looking bar. Bend is a pretty large town, but I had gone almost all the way through it before I found a hotel and a bar close together. The bar: Cheerleader Sports Grill and Pub. The hotel: Motel West.

Things started well enough. I scraped the bottom of the car pulling into the hotel parking lot, but not badly. The woman who was in charge was very friendly. A talker. She let me look at a couple of identical rooms and pick the one I preferred. someone had been smoking in 130; I chose 126. “Where’s a good place to have a burger and a beer?” I asked her while my credit card was processing.

She pointed behind her, in the direction of Cheerleader’s. “This place right here has the best burgers.” She called back into the back room. “Honey, what’s the name of the huge burger we always get over there?”
“8 ounce,” came the gruff reply.
“Eight ounces,” she said back to me. “Well, they seem big to me, anyway.” If we were using the metric system I would have figured out more quickly that that’s a pretty damn big burger.

I had a plan, then. Before going to the bar I went across the street to Safeway to get more sunscreen. (Don’t ask.) As I walked past the bar I noticed that it looked pretty dead. On the way back the owners were out front, heading home. They close early on Sundays. I talked to them briefly, just to make sure they weren’t going to open again later, but did I think to ask if there was another place nearby? Of course not. I think the answer would have been ‘no’ in any case. finally it was back to Safeway for a six-pack and an evening in the room. (How’s this for psychology? I had no interest in a twelve-pack, but there was a sale on six-packs that made two of them much cheaper than the twelver. I almost bought two, just for that reason.)

When I got back to the room, I turned on the TV. Those who know me can vouch that while TV makes most people moderately stupid, television makes me a slack-jawed idiot. In bars I can tune out the TV, since the sound is rarely on, but last night in my room the box sucked my brain out through my ears and digested it with flashing lights and suggested sex. Thus, there is no episode called ‘Bend’.

Today’s drive was a little different. I had a destination and a deadline. The goal was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be, so I needn’t have worried, but I did. I headed north on my good friend Highway 97 into some big sky country (with apologies to Montana). There were parts that could have been the high desert in northern New Mexico except the scrub trees were a different sort, but there were also wide valleys green and lush. The sharp lines between desert and lush spoke of irrigation.

I damn near ran out of gas. I passed through one town, not happy with the price, and with an easy 75 miles in the tank. Town after town I passed, and if they had gas stations, they didn’t put them on the main road. I was really starting to sweat. The needle had swept past ‘E’ like there was a hole in the tank. I checked the miles since last fill-up. 375. I wished I hadn’t looked. “I’m screwed,” I said to myself. Mile after mile went by. I approached a settlement with a small building with GAS spelled out in big white letters on its roof. Judging by the age of the weed-engulfed pumps, there had been no gas there since 1960. I knocked my speed down a little more.

I was sweating when I came into Grass Valley, pop 165. It was a pretty little town, no part prettier than the gas station. I pulled in but didn’t see anyone. Across from the gas station was a towing service. I had made it; I wouldn’t need to be rescued. I pulled up next to the pump and listened to the silence. There was a sign that said ‘open’, but there was no sign of any people. There was no credit card slot on the pump; in fact, in Oregon it is illegal to pump your own gas. I got out of the car, stretched, and looked around. No one. I went to the building and tried the door. Locked. Fuck.

I got back into the car and drove the short distance to the other end of town. I passed a diner that was packed with memorial day celebrants, and then I was out of town. I was not going to depend on the next town having gas. I decided to go back to the 24-hour tow place. They had been open, and I knew they would have cans of gas. I was willing to pay a premium. As I was parking in front of the tow place I looked over and saw someone pumping diesel at the gas station I had given up on. I swung around and pulled up to the pumps again. A guy came sauntering over from the distant diesel pump and said, “How’s it goin’?”

He was a really cool guy. We talked about selling houses and seeing the world. (He’s a landlord.) His face was weather-beaten, his shirt said Harley-Davidson and that was not for show. While my tank was filling, two girls pulled up in a canary-yellow Xterra. The driver wanted higher-grade fuel (he only had regular there). I started to explain how if their car was tuned to run on regular then any higher grade was a complete waste of money, but he just said, “This is good gas. I put it in my bike.” Beyond question was the idea that he would put anything less than the best in his bike.

11.1 gallons. Eleven point one. I had plenty of gas left. I’ve put in 11.5 before, and more. 399.9 miles. You have to give that to the back roads. When you move more slowly you go farther. As I got ready to leave, he looked me over one more time. “I’m jealous,” he said. “If you had a cold beer between your knees right now, I’d be throwing rocks at you.”

“I’m in enough trouble already,” I said and drove away.

I was driving for a destination today, but as I got closer to my goal I realized that there was a flaw in my plan. Tomorrow is the first work day since that hectic spate of builds I heaped upon them Saturday. There will be questions. There will be another build. I won’t be delivering that build over a modem. Quick change of plans (“plan”, in this case, is used in the loosest possible way) and I pull up short in Spokane, delivering a cruel tease to one of my best friends, and I’m checking into Quality Inn.

As I’m checking in, I ask, “What’s a good place around here for a burger and a beer?”

The check-in woman points across the street. “There’s Dribblers over there. It’s a nice bar, but I don’t know about their burgers.” “Burgers are secondary,” I assure her.

It’s an eery replay of the night before. I walk up through the empty parking lot to the door of the bar. There is a sign. “Open ’till 2a.m. every night” it proclaims in bold ink-jet letters. There is another sign, handwritten with black El-Marko. Three words, three lines. CLOSED! CLOSED! CLOSED!

Crap.

I drifted up the street and that’s where you find me now, at a place called The Onion. It has a kind of glitzy-chainy feel, but the help is right friendly. Eavesdropping on their conversations has led me to believe that they actually enjoy working here. I like being in places like that.

Sweet!

Thanks!