Crossing Canada - Part VIII

Saturday, October 18th

Nobody's sleeping - we're yacking through most of the night.

9:00 a.m. Up discussing politics since 8:00.

Gun control, mostly. Me telling off a bearded chap – full of beans, I told him; he knew it – I think he was just pulling my chain.

There's a time change.

Edmonton sunrise - yeah - at about 8:00- funny to think of it but T. O. is still on E. D. T.

The sunrise on frames 12 & 13 - it's coming up behind the hertz sign.

(It turned out well)

EDMONTON SUNRISE

Bought a phone card. Sold a pack of cigarettes.

There was a cute little keychain in the store where I got the phone card and the cigs. It was 10 bucks – I didn’t get it. But on the way back? Ha ha! The storekeeper held it up and reminded me – he talked me into buying it.

Glad I did – Jeff just loves it. It has a wee button on the top – you press it and it chugs away like a train.

Judy from Minacki gave me a nice bag. It was brand new – she hadn’t even used it. I can only imagine she bought it on her travels and decided she had enough bags. It made a perfect gift for my daughter when I got to Van.

Again – Judy, if you’re out there, drop me a line.

12:01 pm - mountains are coming up - should start seeing them soon.

I guess you wonder why I thought that was such a big deal. Well, like I think I said before, I’ve seen the Adirondacks and the other ones down in the eastern states but I had never seen the Rockies.

I was very anxious as we were nearing them.

This is what I came for - a distance which promises the first glimpse of the mountains like watching the stubs of tree branches to see the buds burst in spring.

This is what I came for - forests of pine with birch, like scratch drawings we did with crayons in grade school art

This what I came for - the gentle roll of hills that are not mountains - tall furry pines, black birds bigger than crows back home

This is what I came for - mountains appearing in the distance, their snows melting into the darkness

I cannot help but wonder at those who sleep as we near Hinton Valley. I guess they have seen the mountains before.

. . . . .

There are shapes in the cloudwork against the mountains.

I was sitting with Dan, from Detroit - he started dozing off - I woke him.

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