Road Trip Adventures

There is nothing quite like travelling for business when you simply must be somewhere at a particular time - and running into 'adventures'.....

While I love being somewhere other than here to teach or learn or sell, sometimes the getting there is more than I can handle.

Planes are delayed - or don't leave at all - causing all sorts of havoc when I generally need 3 or 4 different planes to get me to where I'm going.

I've arrived late - extremely late - like at 2 am with a 7 am wake up call to teach at 9 am - and this on top of a 2 hour time zone difference.  I've arrived without luggage, meaning I had to give the guild program in my travelling clothes and no samples to illustrate the presentation.  I've even arrived at a completely different airport from the one I was scheduled to arrive at.  Without luggage.  Again.

When driving, Doug did one season where, after arriving in Vancouver every single road out of the Lower Mainland was either flooded or washed out and he didn't know until the morning of his departure if he could make it to Calgary.  He did - dodging washed out bridges and potholes.

One cruel February every single pass through the Canadian Rockies was closed due to avalanches and it was only on the morning of our departure that Hwy 16 was opened.    We nearly expired of hypothermia as the temperature dropped to something like -50F in the mountains and the heater in our poor little van simply could not cope.

I've gotten sick from inadvertent exposure to allergens and had to pull myself together to present a coherent lesson or man my booth at a craft fair with a nasty cough/cold when all I really wanted to do was crawl under a table and pull the tablecloth down over me.

And so it has happened with this trip.  While my booth was not right next door to booths with scented products, it was close enough that I began to have problems with my allergies - which eventually turned into a nasty cough and cold.  Since I wasn't alone on this trip I asked Doug if he would drive me home and do Calgary by himself.  Bless his heart, he agreed.

Instead of heading east to Calgary this morning, we turned north and headed home.  Doug drove through rain, sleet, a spatter of snow and blowing backwash from big trucks as well as some good driving and things were going well until...about 20 minutes north of Quesnel where we encountered a long line up of traffic, mostly large trucks.

Doug walked to the big truck behind us to find out if the driver had a cb radio and knew what was going on.  Apparently a vehicle had had a run in (literally) with a moose and the road would be closed for a couple of hours.  We discussed turning back to Quesnel, although there didn't seem to be much point as there isn't really a viable alternative to Hwy 97 - or at least one we were willing to attempt in the dark - with a tight deadline looming.

Fortunately the road was opened sooner than anticipated and we were home only a couple of hours later than planned.

But he will be leaving tomorrow morning heading for Calgary all by himself.  I am feeling very bad for ducking out on him - and once more not being at Art Market in person - but the thought of waiting on potential customers feeling like Typhoid Mary just didn't seem very attractive.  I think he'll do better without me hacking and coughing in the booth....