Latest Update: July 29, 2001 by Ben Marcus

10:54 PT SUNDAY JULY 29, 2001 TRUCK STOP IN FRASER RIVER

ODOMETER
TRIP METER

MONEY
Good bread and cookie near Pemberton
Gas in Lilooet
Gas in Cache Creek
Gas in Prince George

Typical morning. Woke up behind the Grand Trunk Inn in Vanderhoof, B.C. Battery was dead from listening the CBC for too long. The three hitch-hikers were nowhere to be found. Ike was out cruising. Broke my oatmeal container.

It was a nice morning, after a rotten night. Although I'm about 600 K's from Prince Rupert, the weather had a definite Pacific Storm feel to it. But this was the aftermath so the air was fresh and clear and the sky was blue. It felt good. Felt oceany.

The battery was dead so I pestered the nice young woman at the desk of the Grand Trunk Inn. (Are you reading this? You said you would. TheBeM@AOL.com) I finally found a guy to give me a jump, gathered up Ike and we were rolling: rolling right over my plastic container full of oatmeal that I was using as a food dish for Ike. Oh well.

No money at all, so now I'm in a truck stop in Fort Fraser, using their internet connection. Got an e-mail from Jay Moriarity's dad this morning, and also a response from John Callahan, who also is in Singapore. He can't go. But it looks like Jeff Flindt is. Time is going to get precious here soon. Wonder if the visa thing is going to work.

When Yegor gets back from wherever he is, maybe things will get moving. It would be too bad, after all my pushing, if this thing blew up because of lack of time.

Yesterday was a long drive from Whistler to Vanderhoof, back-tracking a lot of the driving I did to get from Lake Sheridan to Whistler. I went back out through Lilloet, and along the Fraser River. I had two hitch-hikers with me, a guy and a girl from Quebec. They ate some of the exceptional country white bread I bought outside of Pemberton, and listened to the French radio.

Before leaving Whistler I cashed in my 200 kroner note at the Currency Exchange, then got the hell out of Dodge because it looked like it was all going to blow up. There was some kind of economic conference going on in Whistler, and there were a dozen RCMP on every corner. They weren't mounted, but they were all wearing capes and cloaks because of the weather. I saw one kid getting arrested, and a protest walking down the street and just an awful lot of cops.

I got $15 worth of gas in Pemberton, which was naðve, because gas doesn't go far in Canada.

I picked up those hitchers somewhere along the way, and got gas again before Cache Creek. I filled up at a gas station owned by Indians, with a bunch of drunk Indians in a car honking their horns and telling me to "Move it!" W scraped together about $9.00 Canadian and that got us to Cache Creek, where I filled up at a Chevron.

The hitch-hikers got out at Cache Creek and made way to Kamloops. I headed up the highwat toward 100 Mile House. At some point I passed the turn-off that had gotten me to Whistler from Sheridan Lake. At some point I wondered, "Why is it miles, and not kilometers."

That whole drive up to 100 Mile House and beyond is a really nice part of British Columbia, not that there are many bad spots. Lots of nice lakes and a few rivers and a lot of places I wanted to fish. The rivers weren't high and fast like the Birkenhead, and were closer to Montana style.

At some point I picked up three hitch-hikers and they all got in and made themselves uncomfortable. The woman talked like the woman from Fargo, and they seemed a little down and out. But I'm one to talk. They have more money than I do. But it started raining and they were glad to get a ride and it's always nice to do things for people. They had a story about borrowing one truck to get another truck and then that one broke. I don't remember the details. We rolled through Quesnel and then Prince George and were considering getting a place to camp, but they had less money than I did, so we pushed on to Vanderhoff, where they had a motel room. I let Ike out and went to a nearby Chevron station to get some water, and one of the guys showed up with Ike, thinking I had left him behind or something. Never.

Had a decent night's sleep except that I left the CBC on and woke up to a buzzing sound that meant the battery had run out. Worry about it in the morning.

And that's what I did, bugging the young lady in the Grand Trunk Inn a few times, bugging her with my stories about Russia and then finally getting a jump.

Now I'm rolling west toward Prince Rupert on a nice summer/fall morning. I'll go through Smithers and probably end up back on the Kispiox by tonight. I have to kill some time until Wednesday, when that Russian/English dictionary should be in Dease Lake. There are worse places to kill time. I wonder what is running this time of year. Might be salmon.

I'm still getting ripped on Aggroville, by anonymous dipshits who wonder if I still surf. You know what, I don't.You know what, who cares? There are worse crimes.

Someone on www.surfermag.com said I'm the Greatest Surf Writer of all time. Thanks mom. No, it wouldn't be mom. Must be Warshaw. Thanks Matt.

We shall see.

Nephew David is considering meeting me in Fairbanks and staying on until Anchorage. Might be fun for him, especially if there are skateboard parks around.