Last Day On The Road...

Today we drove through extremes of scenery - from arid desert-like hills with salt bushes and great chasms - to the alpine, twisting roads of the Fraser Canyon. We passed gold mining rivers and dusty towns that had come and gone with the gold rush. We passed tourist attractions and run down roadside stops - including one totally over-the-top Elvis themed cafe run by a very unhappy man... Somehow we missed Hope, where we intended to stop for a while and drove on to Chilliwack. Neither of us were ready to end our holiday and enter the so-called civilized world... We stopped and Marilyn soothed her angst with a fabulous camera. I bought a part for my GPS and a teeshirt. Eventually we could delay it no longer and drove the last few miles. Our week had been great and after we polished up the motorhome and left it in my friend's field, we bought some of the delicious Blackberry Wine - the one that goes so well with white chocolate fudge - to tide us over until the next trip.

Thursday

I woke up late and took a coffee and chair over to the lakeside. The mosquitos swarmed me but I tried to ignore them and drink in the serenity all around me. Suddenly, above the trickling and lapping sound of the lake, I could hear slow, deep rolls of distant thunder.
We were in a valley with steep, rolling mountains covered in blackened pine-beetled trees as far as the eye could see.

Earlier we had seen a bear, calmly eating grass and I imagined the forests around me teaming with wildlife that I couldn’t see. It took us an hour to wash ourselves and last nights dishes and to get our rig ready for the road. Just as we were about to leave there was a violent crack of thunder and huge drops of rain started to fall. As we drove away, everything had turned grey, little rivulets formed and the sound of thunder and rain on the metal roof of the motorhome sank both Marilyn and I into a kind of reverie.

Saturday

Waking up this morning was a slow process and it didn’t happen until 10:30am. After peeking through the curtains, I realized we were only 10 feet away from the edge of a ravine! And sure enough, there was the waterfall we heard the night before. Somehow, the scary monsters and angry rapids of the night before had turned into tranquil, moss-covered trees and gentle running waters. Having a disability presents numerous challenges – part of me wanted to climb rocks and explore our surroundings - the other part of me realized that myelopathy makes it difficult for me even to walk.

However, I pushed limits and pre-conceived ideas firmly out of my mind and climbed the darn rocks. What a great start to the day.

When we finally filled up with the elusive propane and bought a few groceries, we were serenaded by a live, three piece band playing “When the Saints come marching in” – fabulous! The day was full of small adventures. We started our pilgrimage of local libraries at the Yale Public Library, which turned out to be a great little place attached to the elementary school - and only open 3 days a week (we lucked out in that one of the days was today).

Julie conquered her fear of heights by dangling hundreds of feet above the boiling waters of Hells Gate just outside of Boston Bar, BC. And I laid down on a suspension bridge made of strong, steel mesh with the rushing waters just below me. I have been testing my limits today walking up and down slopes and standing for long periods of time at a museum about salmon spawning in the Fraser River.















The terrain beyond Hope is spectacular. We began our journey surrounded by alpine mountains and the awe-inspiring Fraser canyon. Slowly the hills became less jagged and steep (the RV – or Julie – was relieved) and there were valleys, some of them quite desert like. I discovered that Julie is obsessed with trains – we stopped, watched and filmed 4 huge trains, each with more than 100 carriages – all within the space of an hour. We drove to an odd little town called 100-Mile-House, where we spent the night on a lakefront next to a racetrack.

Video of Marilyn on the bridge.

Click here to see Julie watching the trains.

Roadtrip! Prince George Library's conference, 'Beyond Hope'

Day 1 – Thursday June 4, 2009

Julie and I decide to take leave of our senses – and Victoria – and drive to Prince George in a 1982 RV (we are not sure if the brakes work and there seems to be a hole in the water tank). Is this decision in any way a result of Julie’s brain injury? No! Not one bit. We both have learned that in order to make life truly worth living it’s really necessary to push boundaries and take chances. This sounds like one of those times?

The ferry trip was almost too easy. Our first stop was just over the U.S. border at a beautiful retreat in Point Roberts, owned by Karen Stanwood and offering luxurious hospitality just one hour south of Vancouver. Midnight found us sitting on lawnchairs, in waist-high grass with a glass of chardonnay, gazing at the full moon.


Julie and I have embarked on a strange and wonderful adventure. We are travelling to Prince George in an RV to present at the Beyond Hope library conference. Our session is called “ReBuilding Health from the Ground Up” based on the best example of ‘grass roots’ health information we know – our website www.ReBuildingYou.

Let me backtrack and tell you a little about myself. I am the new creative director of ReBuildingYou.com and a passionate librarian and advocate. And as you probably know, Julie is a counsellor and founder of ReBuildingYou and we are traveling up to Prince George to present our brand new model of consumer health information – a system that will focus on the lived experiences of clients.