Sunday, July 31st, 2022
Not a bad view to wake up to, eh?
At 8am it's already pushing 70 degrees and I know it's going to be another hot day in British Columbia. Pilot and I take care of business. I make coffee and watch a deer flit and twirl about the highway nervously and dash into the brush last minute to avoid being struck by a sprinter van. I think about the casualties of travel. The pointless deaths of so many animals. I myself partake in such mass murders when I hit the road. So many flies, butter, dragon, gone in an instant as I whiz down the highway in an attempt to better myself by fulfilling my dreams. I think, too, about how roadkill feeds scavengers and predators. Feeds ravens, crows, foxes, bears, vultures. Later in the day when I stop at a rest area I will also see that the dead insect bodies smeared across my sideview mirror provide nourishment for a hornet. It doesn't make me feel any better about humankind's impact on nature, but it does provide some reassurance that everything does get recycled one way or another. Earth takes care of shit, she does.
A lot of driving today. I forget how long six hours on the road really is. We make lots of stops to see and pee, but don't get any good hikes in.
This looks like a @daveks picture⬆️.
We take a little break at this dam park to cool down in the shade and stretch our legs. A pretty little place called Seton Lake Reservoir. You can rent a canoe and row out as far as the buoys, but beyond that the current is too strong and will suck you away to your death over the edge of the dam.
We don't go canoeing. We just walk around and look at stuff.
We leave Highway 99 behind and connect with the Yellowhead Highway 97 and drive and drive and drive. It's pretty boring, unless you like shit like beautiful fucking vistas and sexy curves on roads for miles and miles (or in this case kilometers and kilometers, since we're in Canada).
I'm probably drinking my weight in flavored soda water so I'm constantly stopping to drain the tank and grab more bubly and la croix out of the cooler so I can fill it back up again. At one of the rest areas I meet a raven.
He's hot.
I'm hot, too, and I really want to set up camp and cook dinner on my badass camp stove that has simmer settings, but there's all these gorgeous picturesque pastoral pretty plush hay fields with their cute little rolled up bales and I have to make a detour so I can stop and take at least a few pictures for the log.
These ones are super cozy.
My plan is to camp at Frazier Lake Campground but I circle around the little town a few times and don't find the road that takes me there. There's a free site some miles ahead but I'm not sure how much drive I have left in me, so I drive to the next rest area and bust out my cooking gear.
The rest area is called "Savory Rest Area" and it doesn't take me long to figure out why. Five minutes into the cooking the mosquitos discover me. Just a few, though. No big deal. I'm wearing repellent and I can swat them away.
My cooking setup is partially in my car for rest stop meals, so I have all the windows open for ventilation, and the hatch open so I can go back and forth to the cooler. Pilot hops into the bed in the back so he can stretch out and fantasize about dinner.
I'm having a great time. Food sizzling in the pan, I'm feeling accomplished and looking forward to enjoying a car-cooked meal.
Then the real mosquitos show up.
The swarm.
They surround me. They fill the car, following the irresistible and intoxicating scent of the carbon dioxide I've been exhaling into it the cabin all day. There are so many, but I can't do anything about it. I can't stop cooking. Even if I did, it wouldn't make a difference because there have to be at least fifty mosquitos inside the car at this point.
Pilot jumps out and looks at me like "WTF you think this is fun?!"
As soon as the food is done I scrape it into the bowl and shove it up onto the console of the car. I give my stove and pan about two minutes to cool the fuck down before I shove them into the car, shove the dog into the car, strap him in, and drive like a maniac down the highway with all the windows open and the air blasting.
This is why people stay in motels, I tell myself.
The technique doesn't get all the blood-sucking jerks out of the car, but it helps a little, and also wakes me up enough to make it all the way to Co-op lake, where the camping is free and there are actually spots available. I swerve to avoid frogs hopping along the dark road and pull into a site. I don't get out, I just spend the next five minutes scaring the shit out of my little dog by slapping and smashing the remaining mosquitos that have been trapped inside the car. I'm probably the only non-serial killer who has blood smeared on the ceiling of her subaru.
I eat my dinner, which, surprisingly, is still warm.
I don't get out of the car for the rest of the night.
Read Day 3.
Read Day 1.
I currently have long stretches without internet. I'll get back to comments and post more when I can. Follow me along my journey!
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