CHRISTMAS DRIVING

We must love travelling, or something. In 10 days over the Christmas holidays, we covered over 4,500 kilometres in three (technically four) provinces, including one with the Rocky Mountains, and drove for 55 hours. Oh, and we consumed lots of turkey and chocolate and coffee. We even managed to fit in some family visiting. 

When we got married, we decided to alternate which family we spent Christmas with, since at that time we lived in Alberta – halfway between both our families. So 2007 was the de Waal year and once we found out that Eric got some days off work over Christmas, we started debating how to get to Chilliwack. Flying from Winnipeg was out of the question, as two return tickets cost … OK, we don’t remember anymore what they cost, but it was over $1,500. Then we thought about flying from Calgary or Edmonton. We had friends in both northern Alberta and southern Alberta, so maybe we could stay with friends one night and catch a flight the next day. However, the cheapest airfare we could find was over $700 for two return tickets between Edmonton and Abbotsford. Our gas for the whole trip wouldn’t cost much more than that! 

So we prepared to buckle in for a long, long drive. 

Rachel says: 
Although I’m not a huge fan of flying (and I would refuse to get on a plane if someone demanded I give up my lip moisturizer or my omnipresent water bottle for some stupid rules that don’t actually stop terrorists, but do take away people’s rights), I have winter driving anxiety. 

I guess I have had too many traumatic winter driving experiences, despite suffering no visible injuries beyond bruises and stiffness. I can’t shake off the feeling of being confined in a vehicle as it slides sideways or fishtails, the momentum of the thing dragging you wildly over the road, the pressure and pull of it rolling over, the grabbing of the tires when they hit the snow in the ditch. And I associate these feelings with snow and ice and winter. 

Perhaps I have somewhat of an extreme problem, and I’m sure many people/doctors would not hesitate to prescribe medication. But I try to avoid medicating when at all possible and so deal with my problem for the most part by avoiding winter driving. Obviously, I would not be able to avoid it this Christmas. I dealt with it by reminding myself how easy the previous winter drives to B.C. had been. 


Leg one – into Saskatchewan 

Eric’s staff Christmas dinner was the evening of Thursday, December 20, in Moosomin, so we decided to continue west that evening rather than driving 30 minutes back east to the farm and then leaving the next morning. We made it as far as Regina, arriving around midnight, and after some waffling, decided to sleep in our truck. We had seen one motel that advertised $40 rooms, but immediately after pulling into its entrance, Eric wheeled the truck around and headed for the Husky parking lot. Guess he didn’t like the RVs outside (although that will one day be us) and the ugly paint job. 

We have slept in our vehicle before, but never in -20 C. We lay in our seats, sleeping in 10-minute bouts before waking up and needing to run the truck and the heater. Although it seemed we did this for hours, only 70 or so minutes had passed when Rachel said, “Didn’t we bring our sleeping bags along for this?” We dug our super warm down-filled sleeping bags out of the back and crawled into their cuddly warmth, pulling them tight around our faces. We slept soundly, waking up after 9 a.m. to windows coated in frost from our breathing. 

After a hearty Husky breakfast, we picked up our rental car. Since our truck was having issues with fuel consumption, and since we were on the verge of transferring our insurance to Alberta, we decided to put the wear and tear on the rental. Good thing, too, because we got a ton of rocks in the windshield. And the front-wheel drive was definitely less scary on the ice and snow. We ended up parking our pickup back at the Husky – and trusted it would be there unscathed when we returned in 10 days. 


Leg two – southern Alberta 

We had an easy drive from Regina to Lethbridge, where Eric’s brother’s family now lives. This was where the eating started. Did we mention that Eric’s brother has trained as chef? We enjoyed prime rib, peppers stuffed with veggies and feta cheese, roasted potatoes, cheesecake … mmmmm, the list could go on. 

Of course Eric’s nephews were glued to him during our entire stay – at least the two that could walk and talk. They were even enthralled when he read to them out of his wooden boat magazine. 


Leg three – through the mountains 

Sunday, December 23, started out clear and sunny and windy, but by the time we reached Calgary the sun was gone and once we got into the mountains, the visibility began to decrease. We stopped in Lake Louise for gas and the attendant mentioned an accident had occurred further along the highway, but that the roads were open. We didn’t drive long before seeing an overturned semi on the side of the road. (Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as last week’s accident.) 

The infamous stretch of Highway 1 to Golden turned out to be fine and we got to drive over the engineering feat of a bridge, although it was impossible to tell you were almost 300 feet (90 metres) in the air. Only after we left Golden and headed toward Roger’s Pass did the highway conditions drastically worsen. In about a three-kilometre stretch we passed six vehicles off the road, one of them on its roof. Of course, Rachel was close to panicking, but luckily we ended up behind a sander for some time, easing her nerves. 

She could give you a detailed description of every 20 kilometre stretch of highway we passed until we reached Chilliwack and emphasize how deadly the Coquihalla was and how she almost passed out from fright and how our necks were tense and our bums sore when we finally arrived … but we’ll sum up by saying Eric was an excellent driver – cautious and observant and defensive. And it took us 2.5 hours longer than expected to reach his parents’ house. 

Eric says: 
I must add a few paragraphs here about our rental car. When we originally reserved the car on the Internet we requested an “economy” car. The online form informed us that we would be getting a Chevrolet Aveo. This slightly concerned us, as we are not very trustworthy of North American-made vehicles. I had owned 11 domestic cars by the time I was 21 and all were a disaster, except one, a K car station wagon that I sold in order to buy the sportier K car coupe. Soon after I blew the motor. 

Anyway, we were quite happy when we got to the car rental place to be informed that we were going to be driving a Suzuki Swift, and swift it was. What was interesting about the Swift is that its seat wasn’t terribly uncomfortable for the first hour, but if you exceeded the one hour driving time the seat allowed, you made yourself vulnerable to an experience that can only be compared with being beaten with a bundle of asphalt shingles. I was soon suffering from full-fledged back spasms. We would stop at service stations along the way and I would emerge from the Swift as a convict getting a day pass from prison – free for the moment, but knowing full well that he must return all to soon. 


A respite from the driving - almost

We spent four days in the Lower Mainland and had a great time eating, talking, showing off our bus pictures, eating, playing Xbox 360 live (Eric), watching Star Trek (Rachel), eating, and, oh yeah, we did some more driving there too. 

On the 25th we went into Burnaby to see Eric’s grandpa at the George Derby Centre; the sad part is he probably has no clue we were there. But he still managed to give us all Christmas gifts … or maybe that was one of his elves. 

Then on the 26th, we went all the way into Vancouver for a special visit to Stanley Park. We are not fans of spending lots of money on random useless material goods just because society tells us we should. So we searched for a different way to show Eric’s parents how much we loved them. In browsing through the Ticketmaster website, we found an event called Stanley Park Bright Nights offering a package deal that included supper at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Gastown. Our night out was more fun than we had anticipated, and featured a resounding finale at the Gastown parkade. 

Eric says: 
The Bright Nights package was supposed to include tickets to the Stanley Park light show, meals at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and a free parking voucher. When we got the tickets in the mail, however, the parking voucher wasn’t there. I assured Rachel that everything would be fine, if they didn’t send it, we didn’t need it. We would show the attendant our receipt and we would be on our way.

Just to be sure, I checked with some officials when we got to Stanley Park and they gave me a parking voucher, although it wasn’t printed on the usual stiff blue Ticketmaster paper. After the light show, we drove to Gastown and parked in the noted location, enjoyed our meal, returned to our vehicle and proceeded to the tollbooth. I confidently handed our voucher to the attendant only to have it shoved back in my face with the remark, “I can’t take that!” I asked why not and she, not being even remotely polite, told me in a raised voice that she had been warned about photocopied vouchers and ours looked photocopied to her. 

At this point, I should introduce you to my dad. He has worked in the federal prison system for the last 15 years and has put up with more than his fair share of abuse from impolite people. This, combined with the fact that he has never been wrong, has formed a man you do not want to get into an argument with. This man was sitting quite close beside me in the passenger seat of our Suzuki Swift. 

The moment Dad heard the parking attendant’s brusque tone, his cheeks flared and he thrust his body over the steering wheel to lock eyes with her and unleashed a hailstorm of bellowing. I was suddenly the meat in the middle of a shouting sandwich, trying to tell both of them to shut up so I could have a rational conversation with the attendant. I do have to admit that I contemplated squeaking the car around the gate and making an escape but I didn’t want to damage the car any more. Eventually Dad sat back in his seat, muttering something I didn’t catch. 

I somehow managed to tell the attendant that she would simply have to accept my voucher and/or my receipt for the Bright Lights package and that I refused to pay the $4 parking fee. Finally, she threw a piece of paper and pen at me and told me to write down my name and phone number. (I gave her Dad’s phone number, figuring they would have a nice conversation should she decide to phone.) However as I wrote, she continued shouting and swearing at me (and Dad was starting to get into it again) so I rolled up my window. This seemed to only make her angrier. I filled out the form and handed it back to the attendant, who ripped the information and her pen from my hand before finally lifting the gate allowing us to leave. Who seriously goes through the trouble of photocopying a parking voucher to save $4? 

The next day, I drove yet again into the city, this time to Surrey to visit my uncle the metal expert to get advice about the exterior finish of my bus. My dad came along, but managed to stay out of any more shouting matches. 


Leg four – back through the mountains 

We left Chilliwack on December 28 and the roads were in better shape this time around. But, thanks to stopping in Merrit for a bathroom break, we were directed away from the Coquihalla due to an accident and had to take the old highway to Kamloops. This added some time onto our trip, but at least it was a scenic diversion. The rest of the drive was uneventful, until the east side of Golden, when we saw several vehicles in the ditch, but we were so close to highway freedom that Rachel was able to hang on to her sanity. 

Coming out of the foothills of Alberta was like entering another world. The roads were bare and dry, the ground was brown and dry, and the sky was clear. We made it to Olds, where friends of ours from St. Paul were visiting their family and we were welcomed into the house as though it were their own. Since we left St. Paul exactly one year ago, on December 25, 2006, it was great to catch up and exchange funny stories about renos gone wrong with Aaron and Kelsie. 


Leg five – to northeastern Alberta

We drove up to Edmonton and then took the familiar route to St. Paul. We stopped in Saddle Lake much too briefly to visit a special friend and have our spirits refreshed, then continued on to our old stomping grounds. Waves of memories rolled over us as we drove down main street. We passed the Extra Foods where we bought our groceries, the video store where we rented movies, the theatre, the Journal (unfortunately it was the weekend and we couldn’t drop by for a visit), the junior high where Eric taught six students how to build a cedar-strip canoe, the shoe store that our friends own, the Co-op where Eric bought all his materials … it was all very weird. We definitely do not regret moving and taking the life path that we did, but St. Paul was a place where we did a lot of growing and learning. 

This time we were there for barely 24 hours and did not get to see half the people we wanted too. Our friends Harold and Leanne graciously put us up for the night and somehow Eric got sucked into this work project of installing a holder for their new flat screen TV. OK, so he was actually the one who wanted to pull out his screwdriver and other tools and assemble the whole thing. He couldn’t pass up an opportunity to do some carpentry even on his holiday. 


Leg six – back into Saskatchewan

After a home cooked supper on Sunday, December 30, with our friends Clark and Chey, we headed for Saskatoon. The rental was due back in Regina by 2 p.m., and we just didn’t feel like getting up early and driving the seven or so hours from St. Paul in one day. Once we got to Saskatoon, though, we couldn’t find a decently priced hotel. Eric refused to sleep in the car – it was too uncomfortable – but it was obvious the Alberta Advantage had hit Saskatoon.

A somewhat scummy looking motel advertising cheap rates had rooms for no less than $80! Eric finally asked one clerk what the deal was (at a hotel offering us a room for $120) and he said that hotel rates throughout the city had shot up in the past six months, he didn’t know exactly why. We finally settled on the Comfort Inn for their special rate that night of $80, and we had an excellent stay. You just never know what you’re going to get from hotel to hotel, but this place was great! 


Leg seven – home in two parts 

We got back to Regina where our truck was waiting for us, safe and sound. Whew! After transferring our baggage over, refueling and dropping the rental car off, we headed back to the farm. Another Christmas was over and gone, with only memories left to remind us of the fun and happiness.

What would the new year hold?