Before we went to bed last night, I made sure to set the alarm on the cell phone for 3:45AM and turn it on. It went off, we got dressed and waited in our stateroom for the announcement telling us we were just 30 minutes from Prince Rupert. But the announcement didn’t come and no one knocked on our door to make sure we were awake as we’d been told they would do. Something had gone wrong with the system but was it theirs or mine. After about 45 minutes, I realized what happened. My phone contacted a local Canadian tower and discovered it was on Pacific Time, 1 hour later than the Alaskan Time the ship runs on. So the alarm went of at 3:45 AM Pacific Time. Technology isn’t perfect and neither am I. What I should have done was to just wait for the announcement or the knock on the door which came about an hour after we were ready. The call came to go to the car deck and it took a few minutes for everyone to get their stuff hauled down over the stairs. The guy in front of us must have been in a hurry. He started his vehicle up and started rolling off the ship before he was told to and people started yelling in all directions. He almost took a mirror off of another vehicle on his passenger side. Then it was our turn. The same very capable young man took control and Carl eased our truck slowly forward and up the ramp, adjusting inch by inch as the deck hand directed. We had a chance to thank him and shake his hand as we were given the all clear sign to continue up the ramp on our own. A dock worker directed us into the Canadian Customs line and it was just a few minutes before Carl and the Customs Officer were doing the 20 question dance, “Have we any weapons?, How much alcohol did we have with us?, Any fruit, vegetables, $10,000 in currency or instruments?” ( Yeah, right!!! ). He took our passports, consulted with the computer screen and then asked us to pull off to the right and park. Someone would be with us in a moment. Another customs Officer came to the window, asked a few more questions, “where was home?, how long had we been in Alaska? Did we have proof of our social security numbers with us?” Well, it was then he told Carl to shut off the truck and to come with him. I started to get out of the truck but the Officer said I didn’t need to come inside. So, I sat in the truck and waited and waited. It seemed much longer than it really was but finally Carl returned to tell me a Carl E Hill Jr. was wanted in Indiana. It didn’t take long to realize my Carl wasn’t the one, the other guy was younger, so we were free to go. What a start to the morning, eh? The excitement just kept on coming when we drove through town with names like Trout Creek, ( Montana ) , Houston (Texas ), Hudson Bay and Burns Lake. If we had a GPS, I’d say it might be broken because we never left British Columbia. The region we drove through today is rich in timber production while huge fields of hay, in various stages of growth or being baled, are on either side of us. Somewhere among the piles of useless trivia I’ve accumulated is the knowledge that Lawrence, Kansas is the geographical center of the contiguous United States and I can now file, in that same trivia drawer, Vanderhoof is the geographical center of British Columbia. Just thought you should know this. Carl pushes the driving today, in spite of only getting a few hours of sleep, getting us all the way from Prince Rupert to Prince George, 448 miles. He was pretty pleased with himself right up to the point where we pulled into the Wal-Mart in Prince George and see the sign, “No overnight camping”. Just three words but they sure had an impact on me. We wander into the store and head straight for the customer service desk where we are informed not to pay any attention to the sign, it’s fine to park in their lot. Oh and I can tell we’re in timber company in spite of driving by huge lumber yards filled with huge piles of logs and massive stockpiles of wrapped kiln dried lumber ready to be shipped. The moment I stepped from the truck, there was that unmistakable rotten egg smell we used to get in Whitefield when the paper mills in Berlin were operational. The photo was from last night's sunset. We didn't get any photos today, moving too fast!
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