7-29-2015
Revelstoke, British Columbia

I know, I know.  I said yesterday that the Tacoma blog entry was going to be the last thing I wrote until I reached Calgary.  But, apparently fate sees things differently.  You see, today’s drive was anticipated to be substantial (a little over 8 hours), but nowhere in my wildest dreams did I anticipate it taking close to 12 hours.  It was just a series of fluke occurrences that led to a freakishly long drive.  First, I hit Seattle rush hour traffic this morning, which added about forty-five minutes to my drive.  Then, customs must have thought it was bizarre that some scrawny lawyer from California was planning to backpack for a week by himself in the Canadian wilderness, because they took forever to process my passport, and asked me a billion questions about my trip during the process.  After that, things were going well for a while, until I completely forgot to take my pre-planned shortcut on the BC-5 through Merritt, thus leading to an extra 100 kilometers or so on the TC-1 than I otherwise would have had to drive.  And finally, there was road work everywhere, reducing traffic to a single lane with a flagger.  By the time I reached Revelstoke, I thought it best to simply find a room for the night rather than push forward the extra 45 minutes to Glacier in the hopes of setting up camp.  (Glacier is the one place on my entire trip where I was unable to get a reservation. They simply don’t take reservations.  Instead, getting a campsite there is first-come-first-serve, so my odds of getting a campsite when I would have reached Glacier at 6:30 p.m.-ish probably wouldn’t have been the best.)

I think my decision was a wise one.  Aside from the difficulties on the drive, my time in British Columbia so far has been fantastic, and I needed a bit more time to take it all in before going into wilderness survival mode.  I’m just amazed by this place.  Back in the States, I’m used to seeing a pretty area, then driving 200 or 300 miles through desert or grassland or whatever, then seeing another pretty area.  Here, so far, the entire drive has been exhilerating, with the road hugging Mt. Shasta sized mountain after Mt. Shasta sized mountain and lush green landscapes coalescing with water, water everywhere.  I think my favorite place during the drive was Salmon Arm, which had a lake that made Lake Shasta look really cute.  Revelstoke, though, is a close second.  As you can see in this cover photo which I took from the edge of town, the town is surrounded by water and humongous, glaciated peaks.  Oh, and the weather is holding up so far.  The temperature here is completely comfortable in the 80’s.

Town itself is more-or-less Red Bluff sized, but with a lot more money courtesy of tourists and the ski industry.  I already walked around downtown and sampled the whiskey at the bars, just to make sure they weren’t selling some cheap imitation crap.  They weren’t.

Oh!  And the differences between American and Canadian culture.  Obviously, America and Canada are alike in a lot of ways, but there are definite differences.  First, and most obvious, you’ll find French intermingled with English on the signs and radio.  Then, there’s the difference in accents (yes, people pick up that I’m from the States right away, and yes, I cringe each time I hear the “ou” sound in “about” pronounced “oo” like “aboot”).  Politics too are different, and during my brief time today listening to Canadian public radio, I can tell that things are more tongue-in-cheek, with politicians not selling pipe dreams, but instead taking the back seat to a proactive and engaged citizenry that wants to solve problems and build their own cities and communities, politicians be damned.  But most importantly, people are just friendlier here.  They crack jokes in casual conversation, and then laugh.  They’ll ask you how you are, and you can tell that they aren’t just asking out of politeness, but are genuinely interested in your well-being.  Hell, I even had one guy compliment my Tiguan.  I don’t think anyone in the states has ever complimented the Tiguan.  :-p

People are just warmer here.  Maybe they have to be, to get through the cold winters.  Anyways, I like it.  I feel that Americans could learn a lot from their neighbors to the North.

Cheers,

Rob