In 3.5 days: 2978 km, 33 hrs of driving, 23 hrs of sleep, and 440 photos!

The May long weekend was exhausting, but not unpleasant! The plan? Drive to Peace River, Alberta, for a friend's wedding.

We'd planned to drive as far as Valemont on Friday, sleep there, and do the rest of the route to Peace River on Saturday morning (the wedding being at 4 pm). However, my mom having slept in on Friday to make sure that we could stagger the driving, wasn't tired by our midnight arrival in Valemont, and figured that if she was going to remain wide awake, she might as well keep going. After all, why pay for a room if you're not going to sleep?

We made it as far as Jasper (4 am Mountain time) where we were forced to stop for three hours because the one gas station that was open doesn't sell diesel, and the only one that does sell it doesn't open 'til 7 am (actually the attendant was 7 minutes late!).

Once you leave the Rockies, you have about 500 km of mindnumbingly dull scenery. I mean, it's lovely, but not after 6 hours of the same stuff! It's pancake flat, with nondescript fields on either side, and ruler straight - unless you happen to go though a town with more than one road through it.

We arrived in Grimshaw (about 50 km East of Peace River) well ahead of schedule, happily looking forward to a leisurely couple of hours to unkink our backs, nap, and get ready for the wedding. Such musings were quickly shattered by a cell phone call: the wedding party was frantic. The photographer was a no-show, and we had 15 minutes to meet them at the Tim Horton's in Peace River (they have a Tim Hortons!!) so I could take on the task! I ended up getting dressed in between photo sessions, with hair and make-up getting done only after the ceremony and wedding party /family photos were all done.

I found out later that the "photographer" (also a guest, it seems) did show up, around 3:45 pm, but, seeing someone else doing the job, quietly slinked out and waited in a corner for the show to start. He didn't take out a camera the entire evening, despite the fact that having more than one person recording the event is only common sense.

Late Sunday morning we were back on the road again, headed for a visit with the Johnston family in Prince George. We arrived there around 6 pm (slightly later than expected, due to frequent photo stops), only to find that Kelly (dad) and Wesley (middle son) were the only ones there to greet us. Apparently Kathy forgot that she had planned to visit her sister in Edmonton the same weekend, and so we didn't even get to see her, Jared and Katie. Such a lapse is so totally like her that we could only laugh it off, as Kelly nonchallantly took it all in stride. He and Wesley had only just returned moments before from an overnight stay at some lakeside cabin, and, had they not returned earlier, would simply have called the next door neighbor to let us in the house!

The drive back to the coast following the Fraser Canyon was the loveliest yet. I had no idea that the road between Quesnel and Cache Creek was that beautiful: it's no wonder so many people fall in love with the Cariboo country and end up retiring there.

We were back at my mom's by midnight, but as she wanted to download my photos in her laptop before I left, I didn't get to my own bed until past 2 am. Yesterday was thus a very long day!