June 11, 12 and 13

Well our internet connection is less than stellar so be patient with my blogs.

June 10 - had a bit of a sleep in. Those two martini nights slide into too early mornings that are accompanied with a slight headache and an extremely dry mouth….. So a late start. 9:00 became 10:00, 10:00 became 11:00 and suddenly it was noon, we hadn’t eaten and we had to get on the road. I was responsible for breakfast (again, noon and we hadn’t eaten so I can safely say I failed pretty hard) I was making a breakfast bake and the bloody thing would not cook. It is a croissant bake with ham, and onions and it was going to be delicious, eventually. I did learn that my convection oven in the motorhome cooks quite slow. And I also learned that I am pretty slow when I have a hangover. I actually did already know that but this episode served as a reminder. We only had to drive 300 kilometres but, I swear to God, it was the longest 300 kilometres in the history of life. I think we actually drove backwards for awhile! Beautiful highway, long stretches with hardly any traffic. A motorhome road trip dream. But no an animal to be seen. Not even a deer. We finally stopped at a rest stop and ate that bloody breakfast bake. Arrived at Charlie Lake at 5:30. So, 5 hours to go 300 kilometres. Charlie Lake proved to be a bit of a parking challenge. By the time we finally got unhitched and parked and levelled (or Darren and Jen, who had to park level and then do it all over again because they couldn’t get their slides out) it was well after 6:00. Had a delicious supper of burgers, potato salad, veggie tray. Obviously I was not in charge of supper! Ryan, Alice, Jen and I took an adventure trail to the lake. 3.2 kilometres round trip and so pretty. We had to mentally prepare ourselves for the 620 kilometres trek we had to take the next day…..

June 11 - okay, troops rally. Early morning, no fucking around. We did a quick walk and headed North. For 12 kilometres…… until Ryan and I had to pull over so I could drive and he could pee. So I became pilot and he was co-pilot/DJ/bartender/support person. But I swear to God all he did was look for the noises in the motorhome and complain about the speed I was driving. But what a great highway, really incredible. I was going downhill and would top out at 70 miles a hour. And in my little Dodge Dakota, 70 miles an hour there would be panels flying off. In the motorhome at 70 miles an hour there is a fear that cannot describe. My butt checks are clenched so tight that it might need to be surgically rectified. You know when you panic and you start to get tunnel vision right before you pass out….well, that was me. I was white knuckling. I was so fucking happy when we pulled over for lunch. I high-fived Ryan and switched seat’s faster that a Kim Kardashian marriage. 

I have to take a moment and share our travelling party…

1. Ryan. My loving husband. God love him, I have tried every nerve in that body. He is lovely. And he talks a lot. And he hates noises in the motorhome. And there is ALOT of noises in the motorhome. He is my rock, my North Star, my guy who makes sure I get home at night (not sure what the official title is). He is great. 
2. Jen.  My loving Jen. Jen is always up for an adventure (okay, except for this one time but I’ll talk about that later.) Jennifer and I have been friends for 1,000 years. If there is ever a film made of MacBeth and they are looking for the witches to say, “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble” it will be Jen, Trena, Becky and me. We did review the recipe and we need a baboon and a fenny snake.
3. Fuzz. Jennifer’s first husband. I love him on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, after a full moon, on a leap year. He and I are going to fight to the death one day. But I will give him a kidney if he asked nice….on a Tuesday…..after a full moon….on a leap year….
4. Howie. The man, the myth, the legend. Howie - aka Slim - aka George - aka Tommy Lee Jones - aka Baloo The Bear. He is warmth, happiness and joy. When he pulls up a chair to talk to you it is going to be the best conversation of the night. Truly an amazing human. We have had so many parties and he is still ready to do it again. I love him. 
5. Shorty. The power behind the man. She is a magical. Shorty is 4’ 8” (honestly, I have no idea how tall she is) but every inch of her is love, kindness and compassion. So she is pretty much the polar opposite of me. I try to learn from her, I try hard, but it isn’t taking. Shorty tries every day of her life to make me a better person and, Jesus, it is a full time job. I love her. 
6. Alice. Alice? Who the fuck is Alice? Alice is our spirit animal. Where did this ethereal creature come from?  Jen and I love her. She is 19 but has the soul of a 57 year old Brooklyn housewife. She fits into our Joyce and Gladys alter-egos. She makes us spit out our drinks and laugh. Last night Jen and I talked about contacting her mom to see if we could adopt her. This little fucker is so funny that I have to listen to every word she says. Honestly, she is an old soul. Also, she is Australian- this does play onto further conversations. 

• But back to our drive (Also, there should not be a bullet point here but I can remove it) Between Charlie Lake and Muncho. We saw at least 12 black bears. There was more bears than deer. Every corner we went around there was another bear. Ryan and I were in the lead and I was radio-ing back to tell them, “Bear on the left”, “Bear on the right”. Jen radio-ed back to say, “I thought you said right!?” I said, “RIGHT AND LEFT!!!” And the drive is so spectacular that I cannot share how great it is. I have travelled through the US, Scotland, Italy and many parts of Canada, but this is the best. And hardly any traffic. But all that traffic is American. ‘Merica is heavily represented. Name a state and we have seen it. Howie is pulling a truck behind the motorhome and they came around one corner and the back wheel of the truck had nothing under it. Nothing, the closest piece of terrafirma was 800 feet down. We travelled the 620 kms in half the time that we drove the 300 kms that we drove the day before. We rolled into Muncho Lake, levelled and headed for supper. I highly recommend this place. But after supper….we went to bed. We were in bed 10:00. Our supper reservations were at 8:30. We were so middle-aged this night. 

June 12 - woke up, had a coffee and headed to Liard Hot Springs. I need to share the trigonometry that we did to get 7 of us into the truck. We loaded, unloaded, loaded, unloaded, recalculated and loaded for the final time. Jesus fuck, we were tight in the back of that truck. Shorter, Alice, Jen, Fuzz and me. We said, “You put your left leg in, you take your left leg in”. We had to drive 50 kilometres like clowns in a clown car ( side note: I wanted to say - Mexicans, Indians or Hutterites but all the above was decided to be culturally offensive so all I have left is clowns!) but we made it. We made it with mimosas. We arrived at Liard and the lady asked if there was 4 in the truck and we, foolishly corrected her and said, 7. She said, “Holy”. Holy my numb ass!! I am not sure I will feel my right leg again. We left the vehicle like a bunch of geriatrics trying to revive blood flow to our extremities. Walked to the springs…(‘Mericans didn’t move and we had to balance the rail to not fall in - and you know I said “fuck” and “c” word 12 times. I need to side note here - lots of great ‘Mericans but holy fuck! Entitled and arrogant from 40 fucking yards!) But arrived at the magical hot springs. Wow! That’s all I have. Wow! Anyway, we went for breakfast/lunch and the headed home. Now, we had to again squeeze our bodies into the back seat. But the ride home was so fast - buoyed by the fact we saw 85 wood bison grazing on the side of the road. Got back, shook life back into our bodies and started a game of marbles. (Side note -  we play road poker. Every stop everyone draws a card and the best poker hand at the end of the day wins the pot - usually $20 per person. So we start drawing cards and after the 6th card draw Alice asked, “is 4 sixes good?” I spit my drink out and said, “Jesus Fuck!” She won $70). So we played marbles for 3 hours with no winner (except Ryan and Jen who were losing their asses!) so we paused the game for a delicious steak supper and then headed to the lake to enjoy the 7 hour sunset. So we took gummies, and our legs stopped working. But to be fair, our legs were not entirely operational after our handicap trip to the hot springs. So we sat at the lake and slowly but surely everyone dropped out, read between the lines - in 15 minutes the boys had gone to bed. Pretty soon it was Jen, Alice and me - sitting at the lake in 4 degree temperature wrapped in every blanket, scarf and jacket that everyone going to bed discarded. We were only missing a shopping cart to be truly homeless. But mother-fucker Alice is funny. The worst part of blogging is that I cannot share how funny she is. We asked her what she thought of our husbands. For the life of me I cannot remember what she said about Fuzz but she said about Ryan, “He doesn’t make it more awkward but he doesn’t make it better”. Fuck sakes we cried. We have started making her martinis. She loves them. We thought. She said, “I will drink that acid to get to that olive at the end” so know we know. She is fighting every ounce of that martini to get the 5 olives that we have buried at the bottom of that Cracker Jack box. But god love that child, every night she asks for another one. She even asked how to make them. She also did gummies with us. And playing marbles with her she has begun to swear like a sailor. So. We have taught her to drink martinis, do drugs and swear like me, so success on 3 levels. So this is my moment when Jen failed me. She went to bed! We had another 4 hours in us but Jen shut it down. Back to sitting at the lake - at 1:30 Alice and I drug our chairs up (the blanket we were covered in was drenched in red wine and chip dip) and it was still so light. It is crazy that we are so far North on our planet that it is always daylight, and Alice and I chatted about it, while we slopped wine on the blanket and spilled chip dip. 

June 13 - I woke up and my first thought was, “Jesus fuck. It’s only been 4 nights”. 4 nights. Guys, this is a journey. Honestly, i need to fast forward for this day. We finished the fucking marble game. Spoiler alert - that fucking Australian won!! We were cold and Jen said, “ I’m wearing leggings”. I said, “I’m fucking wear shorts” and Alice - straight face said, “I’m fucking Australian, I’m fucking freezing”. She won. We had a great day.  Relaxing, filling out paperwork to complete our Alice adoption. Watched Vegas win the Cup. Now we are planning our adventure tomorrow. Stay tuned.

So I was all done but then… we jumped in the lake, in our underwear. We had to go get Alice out of bed to do it with us.