Monday, July 9, 2018
Is a blog a brag? This one is, about a car, driving, and relationships.
"The Mighty Echo," Doug in Edmonton calls it. Our 2003 Toyota was loaded to Prince George,
lighter to Grande Prairie, and loaded more heavily from there to Edmonton and from Edmonton back home to Williams Lake. It returned from the 2500 kilometre trip with more than 397 000 kilometres on the odometer. It got between 16 and 19 kilometres per litre of gas. It did not fail us, once again; but I won't ask such a long trip of it again.
Two Edmonton days featured driving challenged by deadlines and traffic. On Thursday, July 5, I navigated rush-hour traffic from our hotel near Whitemud Drive and Calgary Trail across the new Walterdale Bridge to my friend Tom's downtown hotel. We then went back through that traffic to the house of his aunt, 97, near 79 Street and 97Avenue, north of Bonnie Doon mall. We got there at 5:10 and I left at 5:25, via 79 Street south, 90 Avenue east, and 75 Street south to Whitemud Drive, then west to the hotel to fetch Carla and Chelsea in time to meet Doug and Lavonne at the Southgate Italian Centre for pizza at 6 on the dot. Lavonne and Doug generously paid for pizza and we paid for dessert.
The second driving day, Friday, July 6 had longer distances, tighter deadlines, and the intervention of an angelic helper. Starting at 10 AM, Carla and I drove from the hotel, out the Whitemud to 170 Street, up to 137 Avenue, and east to Old Navy at 132 Street, then to Giant Tiger on 127 Street and 132 Avenue.
We then drove back south on 127 Street, west on 118 Avenue, down 149 Street back to Whitemud, back to the hotel, picked up Chelsea, and got to the Mill Woods Town Centre mall at 28 Avenue and 58 Street for them and the nearby seniors' centre for me and Doug to play pool, with Maryanne. She got there a few minutes after our 2 PM meeting time, also navigating construction hither and yon.
Maryanne's angelic intervention helped me meet Tom at the downtown MacEwan University campus briefly from 4:05-4:20, again through rush hour traffic. She had to prepare our fabulous Friday night dinner at her friends' house where she was staying, near 106 Street and 34 Avenue. I drove to tell Tom at 4 PM that she could not meet him, we having no other way to tell him. Maryanne helpfully agreed to fetch Carla and Chelsea at the nearby mall and drop them off at the hotel on her way to the house.
I drove out of darkest Mill Woods on 28 Avenue west to 91 Street, a venerable, arrow-straight road of few lights, like 127 Street across the river. I went left at the t-intersection at 63 Avenue, to 99 Street, north on it to Scona Road, across the Low Level Bridge, and to Tom at the university on 104 Avenue and 107 Street in about 35 minutes. After our brief chat before his city bus to visit his Stony Plain cousin who would drive him back to Edmonton for his 11:30 PM bus to Grande Prairie, I drove west toward 109 Street, wondering how slow it would be at 4:30 on a Friday.
109 Street was pretty slow from 104 to 97 Avenue, the High Level Bridge was faster, 104 Street south was slow from 85 to 80 Avenue, and it was faster after that, so I reached our hotel a bit after 5. Before our 6 PM supper date at the house where Maryanne stayed, I even had time for a quick float in the hotel pool, a relief on that 30+ degree day.
Supper was wonderful, as was the company of Harold and Joan. For the first time ever, I played guitars with Harold. He had brought his newer 12-string and 1966 6-string guitars, the latter for me to play. We left around midnight, 38 years to the hour after Mom died in the Mewburn Pavilion of the University of Alberta Hospital. I'd not thought about it until Maryanne told me the next day, an easier driving day before the July 8 930-km drive from Edmonton to Williams Lake.
On Saturday, July 7, Carla wanted to go to the Strathcona Farmers' Market, a very hard place to drive to in the thick traffic that surrounds it; but I'm glad Carla got there. We then returned to the hotel for Chelsea, and went downtown via Whitemud, 113 Street, and the Groat Bridge. "I won't go near the place," Harold later said of the market. We saw his and Joan's Jasper Avenue and 123 Street condo, which has views across Jasper Avenue and the North Saskatchewan River. I stayed there with Harold and Joan, Maryanne came soon, and Harold picked up Carla and Chelsea from the Taro Card reading that Joan generously paid for, before we left them and went back across the river to Royal Pizza for a last Edmonton meal with Maryanne.
Yesterday, we drove back to Williams Lake. Today, Maryanne drove her hosts' crew cab to Penticton, where they are in their place on Skaha Lake. In three days, she'll fly from Penticton to Calgary and from Calgary to London, England. Today, Carla drove to Anaham, with two large plastic bags of clothes Maryanne gave me while we sorted and reduced the volume of her stuff in her Strathcona storage locker. She grew too small for many clothes now bound for Carla's kin and friends in Anaham.
I know some thoughtful, generous, and organized people.
