The issue of converting the van with a name to the metric system was solved by pushing a couple of buttons on the steering column and Walla, MPH went to KPH. The being on the fold of the atlas page with no map, was solved by finding the paper map of British Columbia in the vans navigation library.
I was
pretty happy rolling through Abbotsford, and Chilliwack, and finally finding
highway 3, and heading east in peace from the larger city traffic. I soon
realized that even though I had been going under, underpasses marked for 15m,
and watching large trucks clear them, I had no idea what 12 feet equaled in
meters, and I wanted to find
out before I encountered low clearances.
Finally, I found a quiet pull off by a waterfall, got out my pencil and paper and prepared to cipher out the conversion. After brewing some coffee and adding, subtracting , multiplying, and dividing, erasing, smudging the page, I came up with 3.7. I thought that was a ridiculous number so I googled the conversion, and sure enough 3.7 meters equals 12 feet. As I was putting my supplies away, I glanced at the warning sticker pasted on the dash “that says the van in 12 feet tall. It also says its 3.7 meters.”
The lowest
underpass I encountered was 7.5 meters, and the only thing that was 3 meters
was a gas station canopy that must have been hit because it had the height
printed all around it. It actually looked taller but I went across the street
for fuel anyway.
Approaching Hope, I was remembering how on my first trip up the Alcan in the mid 1970’s that the pavement ended here, and the road wasn’t paved again except for a few miles on either side of Prince George, and Whitehorse. The real pavement didn’t start until the border at Beaver Creek.
If I just turned left, I could be home in 4 or five days, and camp out every night if I wanted to. But then I remembered storage is paid for next month and if I drove, I wouldn’t be able to get my pal a box of water, that are newly printed with a greeting.
I was thinking that this road was new territory for me but at the Hope Slide I remembered stopping here years ago on motorbikes.
We were
west bound, so going east is sort of like new territory, and we were heading to
Victoria, and riding with some folks that lived there. As I remember the folks
that lived on the island were keen on making the ferry. As such I vagally
remember some major biker maneuvers and traffic law violations getting through Vancouver
B.C. No worries, we got to the terminal in time to pay for the ride and got in line. Bikes get on first on this ferry so
on board we went, enjoying the ride seeing Orcas and enjoying the sea on the
way over.
Now the thing about
getting on the ferry first is you have to get off the ferry first. Our friends,
and leader were going north, and we were going south. We said our farewells and
I will never forget riding to Victoria in the dark, looking in my mirror seeing
the lights of my compadre’s bikes, and then the wall of lights from cars that obviously
had a different interpretation of the 45
kpm speed limit, and I had no idea what 45 kph was , as this was back in the day. The speedometer
didn’t even have kilometers on the
inside dial. There was no GPS. The bikes
radio had AM, FM, Weather, and a cassette tape that would right in the middle
of a good song would go HMMMMMAHHHHS.
As long as I am on the
subject of cassette tapes, I will admit to littering one fine summer day on the
Klondike highway listening to a song I really enjoyed and all of a sudden, the
music went, HMMMMMAHHHHS. I delicately ejected the cassette, and without
removing my gloves I pulled the mile of wrinkled tape out of the tape deck and
flung it to the side of the road.
The vans audio is all
digital. Way more sophisticated than a cassette tape. The vans audio is so advanced
that it connects to my phone as it should but then plays music if I want music
or not. I suspect someday I will go HMMMMMAHHHHS,
and then ?
Trans mountain
expansion project
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