My visit to Pembroke was brief. After short visits to my mothers and fathers house my car was packed and I was driving the 4500+ km to Smithers BC. Stops at my two brothers house along the way made the trip a bit more enjoyable. People often tell me they would die of boredom driving across the country by themselves, but in all honesty I prefer doing the trip solo. I would actually rather pay the extra gas money then go with someone else. Cheaper isn't always better. I often find my thoughts wondering about the great expanse of land we tend to call Canada. I am in awe of the hugeness and remoteness, but mostly the wildness. I drive across rivers that flow to the ocean in Northern Ontario, I gaze at a sunset on the freshwater like ocean of Superior. I battle headwinds on a plain that stretches thousands of kilometres. I pass the continental dived where the lands tower in the sky and the deer run wild. I see myself in all these landscapes, living wild and free like all that is around me.
Rolling into Smithers in the Jetta is another battle won in the war of life. I realize the fine line between the gas propelled automobile moving or being banged up and broken down on the side of the road. I know my ignorance of engines one day will be a disaster but all I can do now is smile at the odds I beat again. My time in Smithers was again brief, training courses and orientations stood in front of me blocking my views of the jagged peaks and ancient forests. There are times in life that even I have to sell out and make a dime.
All of a sudden I am driving a huge Ford with four people strapped in. In the back an atv waits for a handler. My all of a sudden huge responsibility looks to great for a person who just spent the last two months on the move by bicycle. But everything works out, I know what I have to do and I do it, and I always try to keep a smile on my face. There is never a "I can't do this" in my job, but only a "how can I do this". Up at 5am and in bed at 10pm, always something has to be done, that is my life and all I can do is go with it until the last tree is planted. So up that dirt road I go with a truck load of trees and tree planters, Julie squeezed in the front and the engine purring.
