David Warren Lloyd -- editorial column
  David Warren Lloyd's webfolio  
  • editorial column
• SEE Magazine
• MA thesis
• IASPM paper
• resume & publications
 • contact
• home 		Like it is

15 August, 2007
Summer vacation 2007

This summer, my wife and I went to a cousin's wedding in interior British Columbia. Interior BC is a strange and mysterious place. There a few locations where then sun sets later then about 5pm, in my experience. Also, one can seldom see the weather coming. Or see where one is going, for that matter, if one's destination is more than a kilometre or two away.

These qualities may be delightful for mountain folk, but they're very disconcerting for prairie lovin' grasshoppers such as my wife and me. To us, spending a lot of time in interior BC is as delightful as spending a few hours in a stalled, crowded elevator in which everyone's trying to sell you something they made themselves.

Don't get me wrong. I love local, grassroots business. But the mountains are another story. Still, in the car, I was ooh-ing and ah-ing over the views. My was intently reading the new Harry Potter book.

Finally, I insisted she look at a funny-shaped mountain. She looked up briefly and said "Mountains shmountains". A woman after my own heart. I figure there must a be niche of people reluctantly driving through that region, counting the minutes till they're back on flat land or at the sea. Thus, I'm thinking of trying to sell t-shirts sporting my wife's phrase at mountain tourist shops and gas stops.

On the last day of our trip, we called my mother. I'll just say that that phone call added a new three-night leg to our vacation. In Saskatchewan.

It's easy to make fun of Saskatchewan, even if, like me, you and most of your family come from there. However, it possesses some splendour, which I'll discuss shortly.

We were to spend three nights in two rooms in a motel in the town of Outlook. Our days would be spent visiting many relatives who came for the same purpose.

Initially, we were excited because the motel office had many movie posters in its windows. (Hey, we were in Outlook.) Inside, we perused their selection and found four movies we wanted to see! We rang the bell on the desk, then a teenager came to the desk and told us there weren't DVD players in the rooms. Mm hm. I guess that's how they operate in Saskatchewan.

That night, after a late visit from some cousins, my wife and I decided that there were altogether too many bugs in the room. I mean, one ant in the bed is annoying. But two? Intolerable.

Unfortunately, the office was closed. So we stayed up extremely late watching cable TV, became slightly delirious, took a photo of ourselves making exhausted and grossed-out faces, then sat in the back seat of the car where we fell asleep leaning against each other for three hours. (The photo is on my website, babelloyd.com.)

She woke me in the morning because people were coming out of their rooms. Let them see us sleeping in our car, I thought. It had Alberta plates, so we had an excuse for behaving eccentrically. Anyway, we got our money back, and a cousin invited us to sleep at his place.

Now for the splendour. In Outlook, I walked across the Skytrail. As the website says, the Skytrail is Canada's longest pedestrian bridge, 914 metres long and over 46 metres above the South Saskatchewan river. Right there in the middle of the bald prairies, rises this awesome footbridge! That wasn't the only good thing about the trip; it's always nice to see family.

Anyway, I tell ya, this part of the world continues to surprise me.

[top]


 




Content and design of this web site ©2004 David Warren Lloyd