"HWY 47" Day One on the Oregon Trail

Well well readers.
It appears a tradition has been started amongst Anita and I.

THE ANNUAL OREGON EXCURSION!

And this year we brought along Sherona for the ride cause little miss had never been to Oregon and it was about time she encountered the middle bit of the American West coast.

Now we've all got our own ideas of how road trips should go.

Personally I like to get up at a reasonable hour when the human brain is functioning and trustworthy to drive. Around 7 or 8 am. Stop for breakfast. put on some tunes and drive.
But not these two goofs I was travelling with. OH NO!

According to them we gotta be ACROSS the border by 7am. (the border is about 30mins from my house)
Why?
I don't know. Maybe they thought the border on a monday morning would be a hella crazy to do to get across! I don't know!
But there I was up at 5:30 in the morning.
Shambling through the house like a zombie to get ready for my comrades arrival.
They arrived about 6:30. By that time my mother was even up for work.

But eventually the arrived and they were quite lively to be up so early and driving in such foggy darkness.
We stopped at Tim Hortons on the way to the border to take a cup of Canada with us.
We also learned pulling up to that Tim's that Anita may have a drive through problem.
As in can not pull through properly and ends up like 3 ft away from the pick up window.
I tell yeah it makes it very difficult for everyone to do their jobs when they're half way out the take out window trying to give three foolish girls their morning coffee.

So after that little set back with the drive through, we continued onto the border. Arriving at approx. 7:40 (That's 40 mins late for all of you keeping a time line of events here)

The wait time at the border was maybe 5 minutes.
1 line.
But wouldn't you know it there were some damn stupid people trying to zoom ahead and budge in.
Yeah I'm talking to you you grumpy old farts in the red car. At least the youth before you figured it out and reversed back to the end (which was only like 4 cars back)
But these buggers. Sat.
Waiting for people to let them in.
And we weren't like mid line.
We were last speed bump before the yellow sticks start to divy up the lanes.
We were basically there!!
So everyone, car by car was just like lols no.
As we pulled up next beside them the husband was hand motioning like give and take and how merge works but Anita just shook her head and we all glared at him and then promptly ignored them.
They eventually gave up and reversed their pigheaded selves to the back of the line which was now probably another 10 minutes they'd have to wait for being stupid!

We entered America.

Originally I was going to name this Blog post A Very Taylor Swift Road Trip because we were listening to the 1989 album and we very well could have listened to it the whooooole trip.
But then we took a turn onto "HWY 47"

Now I use quotations around this because anyone trying to pass this logging road off as a highway is out of their fucking minds and needs to get out of their house and take a dally on down the mountain to civilization.

This was a logging road! On the side of a mountain!!
On both sides of the road were steep cliffs.
The corners (which was all this road was made up of)
Were all 90 degrees angled corners and Anita was taking them at 90km/hr (60m/hr for you americans out there)
It honestly felt like I was in a game of Mario Kart going around those sharp turns and holding down the skid button.
Poor Sherona was in the back seat and she apparently gets car sickness. We didn't know this until this little off roading jaunt.
And when other cars started to come towards us! GOOD GOD!
We could have died America!
Straighten yourselves out!
And your roads.
And just so you know which road you should be fixing. If you've never actually heard of Hwy 47 and that was just a sign some hillbilly put up at the foot of the mountain. This road takes you to Mist Mountain!!
In Oregon.
Find it.
Fix it!



















As we cleared the peak of Mist Mountain Sherona said "I like Canadian Mountains better"
Anita Responded "Why there's farther to fall!"
But I think she meant the Canadians ability to tunnel through mountains.

Eventually we reached Cannon Beach and all was well and peaceful.
Yarn was purchased and I drove the dark winding road into Tillamook only encountering one possibly very drunk driver in a truck. But I passed them and so if they died, we'll never know.
We made it safe and sound to our Newport hotel and conked right out in preparation for day two.

Da Ridge!

Well well well!
Look who's home in Maple Ridge.
Why yes it's me! Your most glorious and beloved leader.
Though I have only been in the actual city of Maple Ridge for a little over 6 hours my time back on the mainland has proven to be treacherous indeed. Only 2 days til the world ends you know.
Anyways.
So I got on the ferry yesterday morning expecting to see people I knew as the 2nd years had their final history exam on Monday but there were none. I was completely alone. So I enjoyed my time attempting to get a head start on my fiction assignment for writing next semester....but that didn't work I think I'm stuck on play mode....basically came out as a long monologue.
But I think I would very much like to write a story about the merpeople who live in the waters around the Gulf Islands...I think it would be smashing but then I am a little odd.
So I made it almost the whole ferry ride before I looked over and noticed these boys...these boys that seemed very familiar....but I thought nooooo why would I know these people they look like sciency types I wouldn't know them...
And then as we were about to dock I realized who they were. They were the boys from my night of drinking with Walt in his rez....and they looked over...and they obviously knew who I was...so I pretended not to see them.Quite embarrassing but they're first years so I think I will overcome it.
Oh lord and then I went clubbing for my friend Jude's birthday. I've decided that I quite dislike Vancouver clubs they're no fun, often ridiculously small, over priced and full of people I don't want to be around.
So a bunch of us went home early which was fine with me. And it would have been a fantastic night if Ernesta had just let us get chinese food! But she didn't! Because apparently it was a very classy place and we all looked like hookers! So rude!
And then the worst possible thing that could have happened happened late in the night/early morning....it started to snow....
Now Vancouver almost never gets snow. We're not used to it, don't know how to handle it. And it wasn't even forecasted but low and behold when I woke up this morning, first as per usual, and was bombarded by facebook pictures of snow covered cars and houses I rushed to the door! And there was about 15 cm of snow if not more which is TOO MUCH!
I think part of the reason I stay on the west coast is to avoid snow. And you can be certain that P.Bob, who was driving us all home is not an experienced snow driver.
She drives a very large blue ford taurus....not meant for snow...with all seasoned tires....which have probably never seen snow.
Naturally....we got stuck and the 4 passengers had to get out and push! Good lord we got wet! Poor Ernesta fell twice and it was definitely one of those moments I thought the car might roll backwards and flatten her. I would have been do upset without her in my life I'm glad this didn't happened.
We somehow managed to get onto the main road, mostly because this beige van waited patiently for us to get unstuck and held up traffic to let us in.
We passed many stuck busses and stalled trucks who were putting on chains. We had to go up this awful hill and this guy with his nice expensive car was laying down newspaper to try and get traction...needless to say it didn't work and the papers went flying.
Goodness me were we ever wet and a half. And we spent all day wet as we went for Ihop (You can never go wrong with restaurant coffee) and then went to see the HOBBIT!
I finally understand all these girls fangirling over the dwarves. They were quite attractive I must say.
And though my feet stayed wet for nearly 8 hours I have no regrets.
Welcome back to da ridge me!
ttfn