On the Road Again 2012 #20

I have been to Jasper twice. Once on the train when we stopped for an hour or so and this time when I didn't spend anymore than two-three hours walking around. But in spite of my very short time in Jasper I do not particularly like Jasper. There is nothing wrong with it, it just holds no special attraction to me. Outside of the downtown core it is quite a beautiful town with pleasant streets and well maintained, if slightly modern looking houses. The downtown is busy, full of shops that can cater to the reasonably wealthy tourists passing through. The sidewalks even at 8:00 on a cool night, were in parts, surprisingly crowded. I don't know if there is that much to do in the evening after a long days drive or perhaps a physically challenging hike up the mountains except to walk around or perhaps I missed something . I am perhaps being too harsh on a town that I have only spent a handful of hours in. I certainly can't say that I know Jasper. But I don't think I will work on going back again anytime soon.

I was up early the next morning. I made the bed, cleaned the room and made sure the bathroom looked reasonable (I had had a shower the night before) and was tipped toeing out the door by 7:00. It was a lot of work living in stranger's house. If I had a choice, I am not too sure if I would do it again.

 I found the short cut to the highway and I was glad to be on the road again. The sky looked promising, the air was clear, there were no horse flies visible and I was heading into the Rockies. Life was certainly fine! In fact it was quite beautiful. I was feeling quite pleased with myself, I had no real physical pains and I was entering into the part of the trip where I was reasonable confident that I would get good rides fairly easily. I must confess that I did feel some relief and some pleasure that I had made it up to Yellowknife and back again. I was more relaxed now than I had been the two days previously.

I have many blessing in my life but standing on the road with my thumb out, all the while looking at the extraordinarily scenery has to be one of them.

I won't say that I was sorry that a large Toyota pickup truck with two huskies in the pack pulling a small house trailer stop and offered me a ride. But I was quite content to be at that spot for a bit longer. I was however surprised as a truck pulling a house trailer had never stopped for me before. It was partly a matter of timing, partly a matter of being in a good spot and mostly a matter of Steve (my new driver) just being a really good guy.

Steve who was 36, was off to a family camping trip with his two sisters in Fort St. John. He had bought the trailer specifically for this trip. He was normally more of a back packer/wilderness camping type of guy so this was going to be a new experience for him.

Steve was an environmental technician. He worked for a large international private consultation firm that assessed such things as the environmental impact of oil or natural gas exploration, mining or forestry operations. Steve was a very bright, well put together, thoughtful man. He had a plan in life and was well on his way to being financially secure. He also was an aware and caring person who I think at times struggled with the fact that while companies were obliged to get the environmental reports done, they only did the bare minimum required by law.

He owned his own home and rented out rooms to fellow workers so that the house was self-sustaining. He had a few toys including a quad that he used for work (for exercising the dogs) but he was a careful money manager. He was presently struggling with whether or not he should stay where he was or if he should start his own consulting company. There were pros and cons for both directions and we had the time to talk about them for a bit.It was interesting to me that he admitted that while he knew how to do all of the investigations, his weakness was in writing up the reports. He said that he was not a good writer. For a brief moment I thought about giving up my present life and going into a new business with him. But I quickly squished that plan as I knew far less about environmental writing than he did.

We also had the chance to talk about energy; what to do about the apparent endless demand for it and how in the future we will meet the needs. Just as I was about to wax poetic on the potential of wind and solar power, Steve very quickly stopped me and talked about natural gas. He told me that British Columbia has one of the world's greatest store of natural gas and that it is not being used. He pointed out that it was relatively non-polluting. While there were other strategies that could be effective, Steve argued somewhat compellingly that we needed to use what safe resources there are. He certainly gave me some food for thought. Natural gas has to be better and safer to ship than crude oil, it has to be friendlier on the environment than damming up rivers to produce hydro power, and it burns significantly cleaner than coal.  It makes one wonder why it is not being used more in BC.

As with all good rides, my time with Steve was over far too soon. We had between the two of us, hours more conversation. He let me out at Valemount (I think). It looked to be a great spot with a set of traffic lights just in front of me.  However trucks and big house trailers used the spot around me for parking to so they could nip into the A&W without the hassle of parking at the lot. My space was a bit more congested and chaotic than I liked so I walked over the hill to another spot that was far less busy.

My dreams of being on Vancouver Island, which when I had first been picked up by Steve had seemed realistic, slowly started to fade as every car passed me. It wasn't really that late and it was certainly possible to catch the last ferry but I should know better than to be impatient.

I got a rather short ride to a little intersection near Clearwater. I have very little memory of that driver. I am sure he was a nice guy. I think it was a small green station wagon and I think I vaguely remember a conversation about fly fishing.

There was a time when I could keep track of all of my drivers in my head and bring up a clear picture of them. My brain's particular filing cabinet restricted for drivers is getting a bit full and information retrieval is getting a bit more challenging. Oh well..... as long as I know where I am going, I am not going to worry to much about not remembering the past.