Thursday, October 7, 2010

by the shining big-sea-water



After another good day's drive, PEACHY weather, really like summer...and despite having to move the clock ahead another hour, to Eastern Daylight...arrived before the sun went down. Since Tuesday I have traveled through Mountain Daylight, Central Standard (Rectilinear Province is funny that way), Central Daylight, Eastern Daylight...
Started out this morning with quite a good hotel-lobby breakfast (one of the options was waffles, no, real ones, batter in a dispenser and a big fancy waffle iron)...fruit and yogurt and coffee...briskly eastward with a mid-morning break for gas and a sandwich and a refill on the coffee; ate part of my sandwich in one stop and the rest late in the day by a very satisfactory kind of waterfall.
I also took heed of symptoms and stopped for a power-nap in the parking lot of a staggeringly ersatz "trading post", first making a tactful small purchase over the kind protests of the proprietor: "You don't have to buy anything! Honest! You can have a nap for free! Hey! We don't mind!"
And stopped at the excellent roadside sheep-farm and purveyor of all things woolly...always a feature of these cross-Canada drives.
Long theological Facebook chats with various friends.
Pleasant salad supper at a very old-fashioned diner just behind my motel.
It's philosophically interesting, travelling in this direction at this season, to be driving "into the dark" at the end of each day's stage. It's always been my fate, apparently, to live to the west of my work place -- sun in my eyes at both ends of the day, rising in the morning and setting in the evening. So in the evenings I've always been chasing the sun, chasing the light...but now I'm driving eastward, and the dark comes to meet me and my long shadow. A faint sensation of the end game, in all this.
It's a situation that makes the chain motel a very desirable destination. One thing you can say about the "Super Eight" -- it ain't shy. Unlike "Aunt Grannie's Lavender Hideaway Bide-a-wee B and B," it doesn't hide back among the big trees and the caragana hedges. No-sir-ee. Great big illuminated sign in primary colours, 25 feet high, "Come unto me all ye that are weary." And after dark in an unfamiliar town...that's a blessing too.

5 comments:

Terri said...

I don't know why you have travelled east, but your trip sounds delightful. Having made, oh, 11 cross-country trips (USA) in the last year, 6 of them driving (5 flying), I can soooo relate to this. I hope you enjoy your time!

Crimson Rambler said...

Terri -- you were fondly thought of this morning among the eaters of pancakes... I am headed for my brother's home near Ottawa for Thanksgiving (you know we get it over with early in these parts!!!)...and I didn't get my Marathon Driving Holiday this summer (usually to the mountains), and I haven't seen family for a bit, and there are too many people along the way that I fly over or drive past...and I'M RETIRED after all... hence the trip. Now there is some difference between the US Interstate system and most of the Trans-Canada Highway...but I am indeed having a ball.

Sue said...

Hey, I've had those waffles!!! They're awesome! We sometimes have our Presbytery meetings there and always stay at the S-8.

SO glad you could fit in a classic and wonderful breakfast before continuing your travels. It was indeed lovely to see you again and catch up.

Hope you enjoyed the persians later on. The artificial but strangely alluring pink icing is the key to a fine persian.

Sue said...

Yes Terri - your ears must have been buzzing. I was talking about all of the wonderful work you did to make BE 2.0 so successful. You are a gift, my friend.

Diane M. Roth said...

love to hear about your travel musings...

wish you'd come this direction sometime...

anyway, that's what I'm thinkin' tonight..