Listen To The World

I knew that I should have written a few "backup" blogs. Sometimes when I am going to be busy it just makes life a little easier. I guess that this time of my life isn't meant to be easier.

Louise and I are in Vernon BC, and spent the better part of the day driving here. It takes six hours and twelve minutes to get here from Calgary according to Google Maps, but according to real life it was closer to eight hours. Google Maps doesn't take into account the amount of construction on BC highways in the summer. It doesn't take the snow and avalanches in the winter either. Kind of makes me wonder what else Google isn't telling me.

I don't know if anyone reading this has ever driven from the foothills to mountains, but it is a truly wonderful experience. The mountains keep getting larger and larger the closer you get and it feels as if you get smaller and smaller. I have always wondered how anyone ever found their way through the mountains. Before I saw mountains I just assumed they would try one pass and if that failed then they would move on to the next possible pass. That was before I saw how big the mountains are.

The credit for the discovery fall to names like Lewis and Clark, Thompson, Pike, Mackenzie and Fraser. They are names that I first learned of in school and those names are on schools, streets and rivers all over Canada. I had nothing but respect for these men, but now I suspect that they were just the figureheads that were given the credit for the discoveries. More than likely, the indigenous peoples told them the way for the price a dagger, blanket and some shiny objects.

When you go into the mountains, you feel so tiny and insignificant and at the same time you feel a part of something much, much bigger. They make you want to stop the car and just start walking. I have hiked and back packed in the mountains for years, and you could hike a new trail every day and never hike the same trail twice. It's a shame that we had to drive through the mountains and not stop. We will be coming back in a day or so and I have the feeling that we might just stop beside one of those beautiful mountain lakes and just listen to the world for a while.