I guess the title sums up my recent 11-day road trip.

I approach life, including a road trip, as an adventure.  This allows for getting lost, meeting strangers, eating outside my comfort zone with food types and timing, experiencing mishaps, unfriendly weather, car problems, and the unknown!

Now I’m ready for anything.

I like to have a reason for a road trip, but sometimes the reason is very weak or ‘just because’ covers that aspect.

Cat care is covered by my granddaughter, along with other related duties, including plant watering and garbage bin removal.

I had a technical mishap a week before my trip. I keep my extensive lists in an app for various purposes, from groceries to music festivals, and they have disappeared, except for the first 20 items in each list. I have developed these lists over the course of many years. Every time I was on a road trip, for example, and realized I’d forgotten something, I would add it to the list on the spot.

Sure enough, on our first night in a motel room, I realized I had forgotten microwavable cups and plates. After adding it to my new list in a different app, I used the glasses to heat up my coffee.

I was driving a new-to-me vehicle with an expected fuel efficiency that had changed from a known 6L/100km to an unknown estimate of 9L/100km. The gas tank capacity increased from 40L to 60L, so in theory, everything remained the same in terms of the distance we could travel on a tank of gas. But, how accurate was the fuel gauge?

We were travelling through northern British Columbia, where there were warning signs of no fuel for 200 km! We filled up with gas more frequently than usual.

A must-do was a vanilla milkshake from Whitespot. Job done.

We stayed in Smithers, BC. We visited friends, family, and attended the local ’Midsummer Music Festival.’ Thanks to the rain radar on my iPad, we avoided some of the festival but still enjoyed a dry, warm, and entertaining time. There were over 40 acts from across Western Canada. There was not a weak act on any stage. A wonderful, relaxing time.

Then it was off to Hudson’s Hope, an hour’s drive north of the city of Prince George.

I used to drive 12 hours regularly, but that has decreased as I’ve aged and become wiser. We completed this part in one overnight session.

Hudson’s Hope has a population of about 1,000. The hotel we stayed in was fully booked, but luckily, we had prebooked for our two nights. Our one full day started with a 30-km drive to the W.A.C. Bennett Dam.

I’ve been to dams before, but I still learned things I didn’t know. This dam is the first of three hydroelectric dams on the river. Power generated here supplies the mines and mills, as well as local towns, including Hudson’s Hope. Major powerlines carry electricity all the way south to New Mexico! (In a weaker moment, I wondered where that big ‘off’ switch was, given the leader of the country to the south stated quite emphatically there was nothing he needed that Canada had.)

Then it was off to the local museum to deliver two beautiful sketches that my wife has had in her possession for many years. She was finally getting them to a person who would appreciate them. She was the local museum curator. She was not a blood relative, but my wife managed to locate her. We learned that she had these same sketches but had lost them in a fire some years ago. Tears welled up when she unwrapped the prints. Job done!

After we arrived back at our Hudson’s Hope motel for the last night, our lights went out in part of the room. I went to the front desk to inform them, thinking perhaps a breaker had gone. Then the lights went out everywhere except for the hallway emergency lighting.

Oh, well, we headed to the only restaurant on the other side of town. No power. BC Hydro was installing a new power pole, and the electricity would be off, as planned, for the entire town. We found out this would last for another hour. Three hours later, we learned that, coincidentally, a tree had fallen on some wires, causing an indefinite power outage.

I keep telling myself that this is all part of the adventure.

We decided to explore the residential streets. This is where we serendipitously discovered the life-size lawn ornament of the deer in the featured picture for this Blog. I clipped a frame from the 51-second video I made.  As I drove by, I realized it was staring at me, no matter where I was.  I did a U-turn and filmed walking by as well as approaching the creature. Eyes and snout never failed to track my presence. I don’t know how the creator made this lawn ornament, but this made this adventure’s top of the list.

After parking back at the hotel, I noticed a blinking red light on the dashboard. The manual was no help in explaining what it meant. Everything electric wouldn’t work, including opening the doors with the keyless system. Fortunately, I remembered the car salesman had shown me the ‘hidden’ key built into the FOB.

Lucky for us, we were stranded in a town with no car dealerships, 100km from the next larger community, and the town had no power – he said sarcastically.

Somehow, perhaps I had held my tongue just right; everything returned to normal, except for the blinking red light whenever I locked the door.

We made it home without any further adventures, and I arrived at the car dealer the next day to find everything was normal.

Please give this a bit of a think. What attitude do you choose when things go wrong? Do you go to the darkest possible outcome?

I am curious about your thoughts. Please comment below or send me an email with your bit of a think.

Photo by Glenn Walmsley

If you enjoyed The Blog, please share it with others. Thanks.

And my thanks to St. Albert’s 50+ Activity Centre for making this Blog possible.

Volunteer Blogger

glenn.walmsley@icloud.com