PLAYING TOURIST BETWEEN HUNTS

So at the end of my last entry I had returned to Logan Lake, south of Kamloops, to the home of old friends Gwen and Glenn.  I had told them I would like to take them out to dinner in return for their hospitality, and they said that a local restaurant put on a Chinese buffet on the weekend.  And they added that the wife of the couple who owned the restaurant was a lovely person, but the husband was a rude, ignorant, nasty piece of work and would surely treat us with contempt if we ran into him.  Well!  With that cheery news to guide a decision, of course we went to partake of the Chinese buffet.  Family back home will understand my reference to the Mandarin chain of very upscale Chinese restaurants with fabulous buffets and hundreds of choices of good, hot, succulent dishes.  This place was NOT a Mandarin Restaurant, but the food was decent and the three of us had our fill.  My fortune cookie said something to the effect that I would do a good deed for an old friend, and indeed I had been giving Glenn some advice that might help him out.  When I went to pay the bill, there was Mister Grouch at the cash register, so I struck up a conversation with him, had a grand chinwag, and he shook my hand and introduced himself.  Just a real friendly type.  With me.  My hosts were flabbergasted, neither had ever seen the guy crack a smile.  Guess it takes somebody with the “Gift of Gab” to soften him up a bit.

If you take a look at a map, the shortest distance between Logan Lake and Calgary goes through Golden BC along pretty good highways.  BUT!!!  I wanted to meet a fellow firearms enthusiast who lives in Boswell, north of Creston, which would be about an eight hour trip and would be a detour of perhaps six hours.  I called up Douglas, confirmed he would be home, and headed the rig south again to Osoyoos .  I had somewhat put the memory of the Osoyoos mountainous road with a zillion switch-backs somewhere in the back of my mind.  But when I got to the bottom of this hill I remembered it only too well!  Fortunately I was going UP the slope, not down like the last time, and was also lucky that traffic was pretty light for my ascent.  Many gruelling turns later, my truck was very happy to reach the summit.  And so was its driver!  Of course now I was back on the Crowsnest Highway, which I had sworn never to drive again.  (Note to self:  use soft words when you swear something, in case you need to eat those words later....)

That afternoon I got as far as Greenwood BC, where I saw a clean-looking place called Greenwood Motel & RV Park, alongside the highway.  I inquired about a room, which I thought was too pricey for a pretty basic unit, but they had a level spot where I could park my rig and have a 15 amp hook-up (enough to run my space heater) and for twenty bucks I took it.  Then began the hour-long saga of hooking up to their wifi, with multiple failed attempts, but at last I had connectivity and caught up on some e-mails and such.  Supper was re-heated KFC, YUM YUM, and a glass or two of bingo, and I was pretty much beat when I put my head down for the night.

I was awakened by the sound of transport trucks using their engine brakes on the hill in front of the motel.  MOST towns out here have great big signs asking or telling truckers not to use their engine retarder brakes, and similar admonishments.  Compliance does not appear to be universal, and surely was not so for the good burghers of Greenwood. I brewed up a coffee onboard, then hit the highway once again, headed for Creston in light rain and also light traffic.

Now at Creston I had to turn north on a secondary road to get to Boswell.  I had not actually contemplated the fact that I would have fifty kilometres of twisty hilly sheer drop to your doom type driving again quite so soon.  It took me about an hour and a couple panic attacks to accomplish this, but soon enough I was at the country acreage of Douglas, aka c-bfmi on Gun Nutz.  We had not previously met, but had a grand discussion and visit, starting with his “shop.”  Well, that “shop” is about the size of an aircraft hangar with about thirty foot ceilings, four or six vehicle lifts, at least half a dozen VERY cool cars including a Ferrari and several Corvettes, a machine shop, a welding shop............well, you get the idea.  Douglas had been going to buy all of Bevan King’s equipment and inventory when Bevan died, with the idea that Douglas would start making custom rifle barrels as his friend and mentor Bevan had been doing for decades.  This did not work out, which is a sad thing for Canadian rifle enthusiasts.

Then Douglas inquired if I might like to see his gun room, foolish question!!!  Let it be said that I hope he has completed the clean-up job after I drooled on so many of his shootin’ irons.  He has an exceptional Winchester collection, which was interesting to me but is not a passion for yours truly as it is for quite a number of folks.  What was HIGHLY interesting to me was the number of custom rifles in interesting chamberings that lined the racks in that room.  I have been in quite a few gun rooms and this one was surely amongst the most spectacular!  And we traded tales about various cartridges and guns, which was an educational experience for me, even if it was not so much so for my host.

And would I stay for supper?  Well, YES PLEASE as long as I can park the rig here overnight!!  Done deal!  Pamela, spouse of Douglas, arrived back home from a trip to Creston and we were introduced.  She is a lovely person and we had a great conversation sitting out in their screened-in porch looking up the mountain behind their home.   Then Douglas mentioned that he had a trophy room if I would like to see it, even though many of his mounts were not yet up on the walls.  But of course!

Now I have seen quite a few trophy rooms and quite a few game trophies, including full body mounts.  The one that sticks most in my mind was a fellow from Pennsylvania, whose name I have forgotten but who was a hunting buddy of my old friend Pat.  We dropped in on this fellow, who had a full-sized Alaska Moose mounted and standing in his living room – the only place in his house it could fit!  I inquired about whether he had a wife and if so what did she think of this.  Apparently the wife had left when the moose came to stay...........  Anyways, Douglas showed me into his cavernous trophy room, where I observed the most stunning display of game trophies I have ever seen.  I had known he had hunted in Africa, but had no idea he has travelled the world in pursuit of game.  Each mount had a story, where it was shot, by what rifle, and so on.  This man has truly “been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.”  Very unfortunately I did not even think to ask if I could take pictures, and indeed my cameras have stayed in their cases since elk camp.  What the heck, I cannot apparently POST the pictures to the blog anyways...............

We had an excellent BBQ Steak supper with baked potatoes and other goodies, a couple glasses of vino and then it was bedtime for Bonzo.  I needed some beauty sleep before tackling the road back to Creston the next day!  I enjoyed a coffee and a long chinwag with my hosts the next morning, then loaded up the rig and headed back towards Calgary.  Happy indeed was I when I turned off the secondary road and back onto Highway 3 at Creston.  Now I had caught the forecast in Greenwood a couple nights before, and it called for ONE HUNDRED millimetres of rain in some parts of BC, including parts where I was travelling.  YAY!  More rain!  More hydro-planing with the rig on scary roads, just what I enjoy so much!!!  Not. 

I had planned to stop in Cranbrook to meet Bruce aka “HunterHenderson.”  When Glenn and I had stopped by at Alpine Toyota during the elk hunt, Bruce (who is the owner) sent us back with camouflage ball caps for the guys.  Four guys, eight caps, being four each of Small/Medium and Large/Extra Large, and fellows could each pick one that fit.  If you are slick at arithmetic (recognize that quote?), that left four ball caps with no owner, so I wanted to return them to Bruce.  I was pleased to find him there at the dealership again, returned the caps, had a lovely gab session, and left with even more booty from Bruce.  THANKS BUDDY!!!!!  I did inquire about motels in Fernie and discovered that there were a goodly number but that should I overshoot Fernie, the next motel was in Sparwood and was NOT recommended!!!  OK, I get the message thanks guys!

I drove in and out of rain as far as Fernie, BC, where I determined that I would go no further this day, and found a clean-looking motel, Powder Mountain Resort I think it was, and checked in for the night.  I was going to go for a walk to a nearby restaurant when the monsoon hit.  I could see the rain cascading off the gutters of my camper in quite the display of mobile aquatics and decided that I would neither walk to a restaurant nor would I avail myself of the provisions onboard in the camper only perhaps forty yards away from the motel door.  No sir, it was time for order-in pizza and I am pleased to report that “Not Just Pizza” in Fernie delivers exceptional pizza, hot and quick, and I very much enjoyed a feast of this.  (Not quite salami and processed cheese slice sandwiches, but adequate given the circumstances......)

And oh yes, a long, luxurious, hot bath!!!  And reliable Internet to boot, but there was no particularly good place to set up my laptop with its keyboard and mouse, etc etc, and there was no chair in the room, just a bench.  Well I set the bench at the foot of the bed, perched the computer and bits up against the TV, and there whaled away for a couple hours.  It strikes me as likely that it was in that motel room that I wrote my last blog entry.

It was later than my preferred hour for slumber when I finally hit the bed, cleverly leaving a trap at the foot of the bed in the form of the bench, my computer, and all that stuff.  And some time later that night when my body decided to rouse me for a leak, my noggin decided I was in my camper, and off the end of the bed I went, just like I do in the camper.  Imagine my surprise at suddenly becoming somewhat awake and in a scuffle with furniture that should NOT have been in my camper, and where the hell did that TELEVISION come from?????  They should have night lights in motel rooms in case a person wakes up to take a leak and thinks they are somewhere else.  It would probably solve some interesting clean-ups for the custodial staff.  Reminds me of the time my buddy Phil was going to take a leak in a closet until the lady of the house found him there and took him down the hall to the bathroom instead.............

So when I finally awoke for good in the morning I found that I had pulled a muscle in my groin.  No, not THAT one, this hurt.  A lot.  And it was my right leg, which is the one I use to operate the gas and brake pedals in my truck.  I was a hurtin’ unit when I limped out of Powder Mountain towards a nearby McDonald’s.  On a positive note, the rain had stopped so the drive should be uneventful.

HAH!!!!  The “three hour” trip from Fernie to Calgary took most of the day.  Part of that was due to what appeared to be a complete gas plant, on dozens of flatbeds, snaking their way along the highway and presenting a fairly formidable obstacle to traffic in both directions.  They had a cherry picker out front, and when they were to cross under an overhead wire, the crew of the cherry picker would undo the wire, the convoy would pass, and the crew would re-attach the wire.  There were two-storey HOUSES on some of the flat-beds, with oil tanks hanging off the sides.  It was quite the sight.  And quite the delay.

But eventually I got to Calgary and returned to the home of Gabrielle and Clarence, my SIL and her hubby.  I have kind of lost the bubble on when that was, but they were here to greet me and we had another lovely visit right up until they had to leave to fly to Nanaimo to house-sit for one of Clarence’s sisters.  I drove their car back from the airport to the house here, stopping at Mecca aka Bass Pro Shops Calgary, which is an immense and delightful store which needed more time than I could devote, but it ain’t movin’!  There I met my old buddy Herb, who will be my “accompanying hunter” on my next hunt, and we got the requisite licences, tags, permits, and other bureaucrathings so as to be legal on our hunt.

It seems to me I had another day here in Calgary before I headed north to St Paul Alberta for a wedding... but I have typed enough to make this an entry in the blog.  This time I have no photos to attach, so everybody gets to look at the same absence of pictures this time, including myself.

Doug