On the Road Again 2013 #8

Normally I don't use the real names of those who drive me. I almost never remember to ask for permission to use their names and so I feel as if I shouldn't.  I suspect that most of my drivers never read what I write and neither do any of their friends and so it perhaps would not matter what I say or if I use their name - but still it feels wrong. However in the case of those who drove me to the coast and later from Port Hardy to Duncan I think I will break my rule about using real names.

Rosie was from Britain and Ignacio was from Basque (northern Spain). They were travelling around the world visiting places that were interesting to them. I was never too sure why they came to Canada but certainly one of the reasons was to attend the World Rainbow Gathering. I also never asked how they had met, but they were definitely a couple. Which is to say there were brief moments of friction surrounded by long, long periods of being a great team.

Rosie was charming. She was interesting to talk to, she was funny, really smart, had a beautiful smile and a way that made it seem that she was completely focused on the speaker. She was also a conservative driver who showed flashes of what I suspect were illusions of having been a rally driver in another life. It is not that she drove too slowly but rather she was highly conscious that their car was old and not in the greatest of shape. I suspect that Rosie was naturally a nurturer and that tendency extended to her car.

Ignacio on the other hand was, perhaps in another life, a race car driver. He pushed the car harder than I might have and he was not nearly as worried about strange clunking noises coming from the transmission or various warning lights coming on when we exceeded 120 KM an hour. I felt very comfortable when either of them driving - it was fun to watch their different driving skills . Ignacio and I had a relationship based on arguing ( is any one who knows me surprised?). When we first met we had this whole shtick routine worked out before we really knew each other where he assumed that colonist such as myself were far inferior to those from Europe. Someone over hearing us assumed that we were really angry at each other. We were just goofing around. We had a number of such "arguments" later in out relationship. We also had some great discussions...... about music and about travelling and about people that we knew  or at least observed. Ignacio had an almost insatiable need for information and was always asking questions. He was a thinking and a forward looking planner. He loved to make plans but never seemed to care if those plans were changed. He also loved music and he never seemed more alive than when he was playing his guitar around a campfire.

They were a fun couple to travel with which was a good thing as we spent a lot of time in that car of theirs. the drive from Winlaw to the West Coast was long and tiring. For much of that time there were 2 of us in the back seat plus some other stuff. The seat was quite low and the leg room was limited. There were hours and hours ( or at least that is how it felt) of being numb in the rear end and stiff in the knees. It felt as if we made a lot of stops - to get some fresh water at a road side spring, to get gas and something to eat, to get coffee at Tim Hortons etc. Every stop seemed to take too long. We were not efficient or in-a-hurry  travellers. It spite of the fact that we wanted to make the last ferry to Salt Spring Island we just couldn't keep the momentum up.

 We took highway #3. It might not have been the best engineered road in the world, nor the smoothest but t was the most direct route and we got to see some interesting scenes along the way. In fact it was a great choice of road until we hit Kelowna at around 5:00 on a Friday night. It took us well over an hour to get get through that city. Really tiring.

We finally got to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal. We had had the hope that there was a direct ferry to Salt Spring Island at 9:00. We were wrong. It left at 8:30. We had missed it by 20 minutes or so. Our best options was to take the ferry to Victoria, spend the night at the terminal and then catch the first ferry to Salt Spring the next morning.

It was the second time this summer that I have slept at a ferry terminal. While this time I had the tacit approval of the terminal, the lights in the parking lot were so bright that it was hard to sleep.

We got on the ferry the next morning and we were in Salt Spring in time for breakfast. Another trip that was successful in terms of getting there and back again but still it felt unfulfilling in terms of actually have accomplished very much.