Text 28772, 83 rader
Skriven 2012-08-26 22:12:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 2
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Sat night: Ray sold the log house in the country that his Ex liked
and is now living in town in a rented mobile home which just barely
accommodates him, Becka and their joint collection of four kids, so
we had booked a hotel in Peace River. PR has one good hotel cum
convention centre but it is very expensive; it also has numerous
grungy motels that have monthly rates for construction crews and oil
patch workers. The only in between place in quality and price is a
Super 8, which is always a good choice for middle of the road value
accommodation (and has a pool with a water slide, a huge bonus as
far as the kids are concerned), but it was booked solid two weeks
previously when I set up a series of reservations.

Trip Advisor had recommended another middle price place and we had
reservations there for a two bedroom suite to sleep five. For some
unknown reason, it wasn't available when we rolled in at midnight.
The best they could do was a large room with two queens and a cot
for the first night and a "junior" suite with one bedroom with two
queens and a living room with a pullout couch. Either that or two
separate rooms on different floors. I pointed out firmly that I had
confirmed, guaranteed, prepaid reservations, that Lexi and Charlee
were far too young to have a distant room unsupervised, that Neekha
was way too old to share a room with me and they had better do
something about it. Their only solution was to offer two $10
breakfast coupons at Smitty's pancake house next door, a place I
don't generally patronize. As I couldn't get better accommodations (the
expensive place had nothing available at the last minute) I settled
for 5 coupons times 3 days but I still wasn't happy about the
arrangements.

Sunday: It turned out to be hard to eat $50 worth of breakfast! We
ordered that much food anyway just out of spite, with lots of take
away boxes for microwaved lunches either in our room or at Ray's.
The day was spent mostly visiting at Ray's with a nice steak, rib
and hamburger back yard barbecue supper. Lexi and Becka's Helen are
BFFs as well as step cousins so they wanted to spend as much time
together as possible. Consequently Neekha didn't go home but stayed
at the hotel with Charlee and Lexi stayed at the house with Helen.
The next night they switched around and Lexi and Helen stayed with
us.

Monday: Another monster breakfast with steak and eggs or four meat
skillets (bacon, back bacon, ham and sausage) that came with three
eggs each. The Smitty's in PR is actually quite good compared to
most of their other places and I liked all our breakfast cum lunches
there.

Then all of us were off to nearby Lac Carindale for a day at their
fair and rodeo. We met Grandpa Raymond enroute on the highway on the
outskirts of Grimshaw and had a short but nice visit.

About his fishing trip... when he was young he once canoed from Hay
River on Great Slave Lake up to the mouth of the Mackenzie River
near Inuvik, a 1700 km trip. This time he was trucking up a four
bed ocean going cabin cruiser from Nanimo (owning such a boat
had been his life long dream and finally affordable after he sold
his construction company and retired) to retrace his route. His
ex-business partner was with him along with a younger guy hired to
drive the truck up to Inuvik. You can't drive directly from Hay
River or Yellowknife to Inuvik which would be about 1700 km if a
road existed but must go northwest part way up the Mackenzie to
Fort Simpson, then southwest to Fort Nelson B.C., northwest to
Whitehorse in the Yukon and then northeast to Dawson City and
finally Inuvik, a circuitous route of some 3300 km. And his trip
actually started 2400 km away in Nanimo. An 11,400 km round trip
altogether.

Naturally when we got to the fair, the 6 kids wanted candy floss; I
also introduced them to candy apples which were well liked all
round. Leftover floss does not keep well, whether refrigerated or
not. The next day they were all sodden, melted down, sad looking
gooey messes. But I was happy that none of them ate all of theirs or
complained when we threw out the day old leftovers.

Cheers

YK Jim


... I took the road less travelled. There were no street lights.

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