Thirty-one

The number of days I have worked without a day off. One month, and not a short month like February.

After 31 days of work without a day off you wake up tired and feel like going back to sleep after breakfast. Noises seem louder and more startling, and sounds you wouldn’t normally notice are like nails on a chalk board. Telephone conversations are hard to follow and quickly become aggravating. Food doesn’t taste good anymore, especially when you eat at the same restaurant every night because the only other restaurant open for business in town apparently induces vomiting.

Tomorrow afternoon that dusty road leads me at last to Fort St. John and a flight home.

Thirty-two.

24 Hours in Calgary

An impromptu meeting in Calgary pulled me out of Hudson’s Hope for a day; or 3 if you count travel. I drove from Hudson’s Hope, B.C. to Grande Prairie, Alberta; caught a flight from Grande Prairie to Edmonton; and connected to Calgary. The trip took 8 hours from hotel to hotel, but the soap actually lathers in Calgary so I finally had a decent shower.

Back to Hudson's Hope in the morning.

Back in Town

A large crew is moving into camp and will need our beds, so it looks like we’ll be moving back to civilization. I am going to miss the camp kitchen, but the rest of the crew is looking forward to some new scenery and maybe a beer. And it will be nice to sleep in a room that isn’t situated next to a diesel powered generator.

Civilization for us will be Hudson’s Hope, “The Land of Dinosaurs and Dams”; population 1100 or thereabouts; two gas stations, three restaurants, two hotels, a hardware store, curling rink, and hockey arena; half way between Fort St. John and Chetwynd.

I'm looking forward to finding out exactly what Hudson was hoping for.

Alberta Gumbo

Standing at the top of a 20’ aluminum ladder is not the place you want to be when you hear a clap of thunder overhead. I was on terra firma by the time the hail started, followed promptly by rain and then heavy rain. I hid in the van until the worst of it passed, but that thunder clap signalled the end of our heat wave and the arrival of a cooler front.

It doesn’t take much rain to soften the ground here. In no time your boots are covered with a sticky mud affectionately known as Alberta Gumbo. It fills your wheel wells like road slush and the dirt roads get so slick the truckers put on chains. A little taste of winter in the middle of summer.