A question -- can Extreme Telecommuters wake up at 10:48 AM after going to bed
at 11:30 PM and still call themselves 'Extreme?' We may have to strip ourselves
of our own title for a few days, just to absolve the shame we both feel.
Despite our despicably lazy ways (and the best efforts of Kevin Costner's
production crew on location in Ione, WA.), we still managed to make it to Canada,
and then some. The Customs agents reluctantly conceded that our mouldering
lunch meat posed no public health hazard and halfheartedly passed us into the
sheltering arms of Mother Canada. None too soon, as we were both still a little
shaken by the local who stumbled drunkenly out of one of Ione's four taverns (they have what
appears to be about one bar for every ten citizens) at noon and demanded that
we open our door for a conversation. "Can you put the top up on that their thing?" he
wanted to know. After assuring him that, indeed, we could raise Otto's roof
to permit standing, he sounded his approval with an enthused,
"#$@&'ing-A cool, man!," and was off. Slightly surreal, but sort of entertaining, too.
We started the day in our campsite at Flodelle Creek by getting the day's web page
ready for publication. Kristanne did up some new graphics, adding new locations to
the map, and just generally providing the glue for the whole thing. You can
see her there at the left, hard at work. Notice that cord running out of the
laptop into Otto? That's a little 12 volt adapter for the laptop, so you can
run it off cigarette lighter style electricity. Otto has three different 12 volt
outlets, so we can always be doing something with 12 volt -- whether it's running
the cell phone, charging the laptop's batteries, or just listening to our portable CD
player. We're still looking for the 12 volt curling iron for Kristanne (I don't
have any hair, or I'd use it too), so let us know if you see one.
Our plan coming into Canada had been to head up on the main highway to Banff,
taking the quickest, most direct route. Fortunately, as it turned out, that
route was closed due to slides, so we found ourself redirected onto narrowing and harrowing
two-laners snaking through some of the prettiest country either of us had
ever seen. Noble and serene, fjord-like lakes wended their way through the emerald valleys
of the Selkirk mountains. The roads traced each contour of the landscape faithfully,
providing for a somewhat invigorating driving experience. By the time we got to Nelson, B.C., Kristanne's eyes
had the hardened steel of the battle-hardened Indy-car driver, and my knuckles had
the ghostly pallor of either the deathly ill or the truly frightened :-).
Nelson was just a gorgeous town situated on a beautiful lake that reminded us both more than a little of the Alps, surrounded as it was by mountains and clouds. The folks in Nelson were equally as wonderful as their environment. In no time, we were directed to the Nelson Box Office and Copy Centre, where we were able to rent a workstation on the Internet for a modest price. We also got expert advice on where to stay and what to see in Banff thanks to Jay, a nice gent who runs an ISP in Nelson.
That's Jacob Tilgner there at the left in that picture, expertly helping me get our
files FTP'ed up to our web server in California. We were so excited to find
internet access that I'm sure we didn't make much sense when we tried to explain
just what the heck we wanted to do. Jacob listened to our rantings and in no
time had us up and running. He even helped us get our email from the Office
Odyssey site! A big thanks to Jacob and the folks at the Nelson Box Office and
Copy Centre.
With the web site up, we were both pretty exhilarated and ready to head on up to Banff. As we left town, Jay's parting words were "well, you won't get to Banff tonight!" Actually, technically his parting "words" were an amused laugh at the sight of us driving by his office for the second or third time trying to find our way out of town. Well, he was right, but it wasn't for lack of trying on our part. We drove until about midnight, even getting to use a ferry to cross Revelstoke Lake, before we "camped" in the parking lot of a Prestige Inn in Golden, B.C. Although somewhere on the south side of scenic, the price was indeed right. Thanks again to all in Nelson for the advice!
Total Miles for 6\3 = 357
Total expense for 6\3 = About $44.00 (our conversions to Canadian aren't very solid yet)