The Rest of the Story...

In a previous blog, Esther reported on the car breaking down Sunday night. Here's what happened on Saturday.

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While we were at McQueen Lake, we decided to visit Isobel Lake, which in retrospective, was not a good idea. We should have known something was up when, halfway there, standing right in the middle of the road in front us, was the Bull of the Bush. Big horns, big hooves, big face, big trouble. I said, "Esther! We're in a red car!"

She calmly replied, "Actually, they're colourblind. It's movement they respond to."

"Then don't move!" I whispered dramatically.

Eventually, he snorted derisively and sauntered off to join his significant udder.

~

Figuring that was our close call of the day, we kept going.

At Isobel, all we found was a boat launch and some rough campsites. So we kept driving around the lake. Then the dirt road we were on split in two. One was wide and flat; the other narrow, rocky, and steep. Guess which one I took?

It was like being a teenager in Williams Lake again.

Esther said, "Are we allowed to be on this road? Is it even a road?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "We've taken this car over worse roads."

But then it got steeper, and rockier, and ruttier. When we started climbing straight up, I said, "I think I'm gonna find a spot to turn around." But it got even narrower, rockier, and ruttier. There was nowhere to turn around, and there was no way I was gonna back down.

As the engine began to steam and smoke, we finally reached a flat spot at the top and, after breathing a sigh of relief, we tried to turn around.

But when I put it in reverse, it stuttered and died. When I put it back in drive, it would go. If only we could get pointed down the hill, we could drive back. Esther bravely volunteered to push while I put it in neutral and steered. For my part, I stood in the door, steered with one hand, and pushed on the frame with the other. We finally maneuvered it around and got it pointing downhill. That's when it decided to go on its own.

When I tried to jump in, the door frame hit me in the rear end and bounced me onto my left knee. I bounced a couple of times, and was dragged down the rocky hill for a few feet.

Esther was on the other side, between the car and a gully full of trees. When she realized the car was angling toward the edge, she tried to push it back onto the trail. This whole time, I never let go of the steering wheel, and was trying to keep the car on the trail. With a herculean effort, I pulled myself to my feet, and karate-kicked towards the brake. I caught it just in time. One wheel was over the edge, and we still could not reverse.

As the thunder rolled, and I bled into my shoe, we made our way back down the hill and back to the boat launch. We needed a guy with a truck to pull us out. One guy with a flashy red truck who was yelling at his kids was a 'no.' The other guy with the big black truck and a couple of dogs looked promising.

"Sir," I said to him, "I'm about to make your day."

He looked at me suspiciously as I continued. "I'm about to make you a hero, and an answer to prayer, and I'm gonna give you the best stinking story to take back to town about the IDIOT you helped."

Without giving us a hard time, he agreed to help. However, when I pointed out which road I had taken, he said, "I don't even take my TRUCK up there!" But he did this time, to help us out.

When we finally got to the top and he saw my car, he said, "Oh. Yeah. THAT'S an offroading vehicle."

While he was getting his tools, his wife told me, "You picked the right guy. He's the 'boy scout' of mechanics and an ex-tow truck driver." Sure enough, he had the big fat rope and all the tools you'd ever need to pull someone out of anywhere. Minutes later, we were heading back to our camp at McQueen Lake.

McQueen Lake - The Cabins

This was Mark's cabin: The Grey Jay Hideaway

And this was mine: The Moose Mansion

These are just some others we thought had cool names:

Deer Domain

Coyote Den

And this is the oldest one. I thought it looked cool.

McQueen Lake - Buildings in Main Area

First sight of camp

Closeup of the gazebo

Inside the gazebo
Dining hall



Where's there's smoke... they're cooking
Next post: the cabins

No More Sonja

Okay, so we had fun camping, and we'll post more on that later, but I have to tell you all about what happened last night (the day we got back from McQueen Lake).

~

We'd been having a little trouble with the car on the trip. It overheated once and stalled, but after it cooled down, it seemed okay. We put some water in the radiator before we left camp on Sunday morning, 'cause there's a leak and radiator fluid keeps draining slowly away.

When we got back to Kamloops, my dad wanted to take us out for supper, so we went to ABC. After dinner, we filled the radiator again, and my dad knows quite a lot about car mechanics, so he looked at the engine and told us it looked like an easy fix. We could get some plumbers putty or something like that and just spread it on.

We had taken our leave and were driving Jackie home when the car stalled. And wouldn't start again. We pushed it off the road, and a police car pulled in behind us with his lights on. Amazing police presence in Kamloops. I mean, he was there in seconds.

Unfortunately, it turns out Mark's insurance had expired a couple of months back, and his driver's license expired almost a year ago (September 3, 2008). Needless to say, we weren't driving away. The officer called a tow truck and I called my roommate, Janice. The tow truck took Mark and his car to my place. Janice drove Jackie and I home. Then she drove Mark home.

~

Mark's car ('Sonja') is now parked in my front yard indefinitely. We have no money for insurance and repairs at the moment. Fortunately, Mark lives close enough to his work that he can walk there and I have a bus pass.

McQueen Lake

We're going camping this weekend - to McQueen Lake. We've never been there, but it looks beautiful. Check out the pic below and the link to their website.

http://www.mcqueenlake.com/

So, we probably won't be online until Sunday - probably evening. But we'll have pictures! :) And maybe bites, burns, and rashes.

~

I booked off time for the wedding today: the last week of August and the first week of September. I'm going to have to change my name at work soon. o_O

Senor Navidad: Mark's New Spanish Coach

Hi, my name is Navidad, Feliz Navidad.

Mark gave me this adorable little guy a few weeks ago. He's a refugee from the Third World country that was Mark's place before he moved. Now Feliz lives in my beautiful room where he has many more opportunities for employment and a better quality of life.

If you notice at the end of his song, he falls down. He may have had too much tequilanog...

Fun Again

Yay! I'm so happy! :) My phone and the computer made up, and they're talking again. So I can upload pictures from my camera phone onto this blog now. That makes everything so much easier. Of course, they'll probably have another falling out sometime, and decide they're not talking again, but for now, they like each other.

:)

We are going on a missions trip to Mexico in January, and need to learn a little Spanish. This is Mark doing his homework:

Really. It's a DS game called My Spanish Coach that teaches you how to speak basic Spanish.

Here's a screenshot:

Since I learned French in high school, a lot of the words are familiar. Mark hasn't let me play the game yet, though. I think he wants to get some high scores before I get on there and beat him. ;)

No Fun At All

Okay, we were wrong. This is not fun. In fact, it's incredibly difficult. Can someone tell me why, when I insert a new picture into a draft, it goes at the beginning of the post, and not where my cursor is? Argh! I guess I have to put all of my pictures in first, then type in my text. That means I have to plan out the whole blog post before I start. That's not how I like to work!

And now my camera phone and computer have decided they don't want to communicate anymore, so I don't know how I'm going to get pictures uploaded. Anybody know where I can get a digital camera cheap? Or maybe someone could buy us one for a wedding present? *hint hint*

This is us. Mark Jones and Esther Spurrill. We're getting married in 85 days. We've never done a blog before, but it looked like fun, so here it is.