That's it. We've made it. The coast is ours.
Is the story as simple as that? Not really. After the long haul across Ontario, we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was exciting because after Ontario, we only had a handful of provinces left to go. And most of these provinces were easy, a straight line across each.
It was then that tragedy struck. Something clicked and something whirred. It grinded and it did not purr. The Jefe looked up with mournful eyes and said, "I'm sick." We were only in Kenora.
Now, I have spent many an hour sitting in the Jefe, but not enough hours listening to it to know when she is ill so I didn't think anything was wrong. I just wanted to get to Vancouver. However, Dave seemed to catch on pretty quick that something bad was happening in the transmission. But where on earth were we going to find a LandCruiser mechanic this far east of Alberta?
Minutes later, in a gas station, Dave was on the phone with "his guys", a parts provider somewhere in Alberta, who told us to limp into Winnipeg, where a LandCruiser guy was. He was the man to see. So with an expensive transmission rebuild kit being sent to Winnipeg after a telephone diagnosis, a city that we'd never been to in sight, Vancouver quickly settling itself further in the distance, David being jobless and stressed out, the dog just aching to get out of the truck, and a large raincloud on the horizon, all was not looking well for the intrepid explorers.
A few hours later, we pulled into what can only be described as a LandCruiser farm. It was where LandCruisers were grown, cultured, and harvested. There were different species of them strewn about, a patch of 60s series here, 50s series there, Jefe lookalike 70s series. Some were totally stripped of their parts, looking naked and vulnerable in the grass. One was hoisted up high in the sky inside the large barn-shop, looking like a hedgehog that has its tender underbelly exposed. Dave and I held our breath, hoping that perhaps our salvation lay here.
The Man who knew any LandCruiser like the back of his hand, Simon, was a Sarawak Chinese-Malaysian who had moved to Winnipeg many years ago and despite seeming to want to get out, didn't look like he was going anywhere for the rest of his life. He was a typical Malaysian (or perhaps any stereotypical person you encounter from the tropics)... a little slow, a little lazy, very friendly, hesitant to be efficient, and full of complaints. He was, as my father -a Sabah Chinese-Malaysian- would say, one of those Malaysians with a valuable and rare skill who would never be rich because they purposefully try to turn away customers.
And he DID try to turn our business away but after noting the fix that we were in, reluctantly agreed to work on the truck... but after the weekend (It was Mother's Day weekend, after all). We sighed a vague sigh of relief, hurrah, the truck would be fixed eventually but it meant that we had to spend nearly a week in Winnipeg, an expense we had not anticipated. However, Simon came to our rescue by contacting a fellow LandCruiser enthusiast who invited us into his home for four nights. He even provided bikes and cooked for us. We are indebted to Ben.
Winnipeg... is really quite pleasant... and really safe when you have a tough looking dog like Bowen with you. There are some beautiful parks, some gorgeous architecture, and some very nice neighbourhoods. There are a lot more trees than you'd think there would be, Louis Riel is everywhere, the Red River and the Assiniboine River are quite picturesque, and as Dave noted, the people are quite hip in a tough, grungy hipster kind of way. And the food is really not too bad. I spent a lot of time walking around with the dog, trying to tire him out as much as possible. Which, unless you own a quad, is close to impossible. I did seem to tire him out on the last day, when we walked for 6 hours straight in some relatively hot sun. He seemed keen to get home that day. +1 for Gabby!
Finally, after Day 5 in Winnipeg, we set off for Regina where we spent a very pleasant night with the Hansons, parents of our dear friend Jonathan (who is off working on a Masters in Germany). We moved onto Southeast Saskatchewan the following day, first taking a detour to see the Tylosaur exhibit in Swift Current (set up by my friends in the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, it is a traveling exhibit of a very large and scary looking swimming reptile, a mosasaur). There, we randomly bumped into an old professor of mine from McGill, Hans Larsson. Hans is a hotshot paleontologist who's always on the Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel. He's also a really fun guy and a great prof. He introduced me to Southern Saskatchewan back in 2006. It turns out that this years field trip, they will be excavating Grasslands National Park, something I've wanted to do since 2006. So jealous. I nearly jumped into the truck with them! haha
We moved on to Eastend after that. We spent the afternoon saying hi to various people in the town, which was so nice. I love Eastend. It is a very beautiful place and by now, very familiar and a place I'm extremely fond of. It is a small town of about 600 so it's not hard to settle into the routine of the town and get to know people there. And the museum is beautiful, I wish there was a place like it in Vancouver that I could work at.
The next day, we drove to Lake Louise, near the border of British Columbia. We stopped for ribs in Calgary which were phenomenal (recommended by one of Dave's friends in St. John's) and had braced ourself for the crazy drive through the Rockies.... which didn't actually happen. It's a very safe and flat drive through the Rockies, if you can believe it. It was starting to look like the hardest part of the drive was the drive between Nova Scotia and Quebec!
And so we found ourselves on May 15th... sick of the road, wanting to get home, stop living out of a suitcase, stretch our legs, ANYTHING, and we decided that we were going to do it all in one day. That was it, no more breaks, no more sleeping in hotels, we were going to Vancouver that day.
And we did. It was painful and beautiful, but we did it.
C'est tout.
Ciao.
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