
Managed to rise in time to say thanks + goodbye to Rick + Carol, + to take their picture. Then we had a leisurely breakfast after everyone had departed; washed, packed, loaded the car, and left. We hadn’t got very far at all when we realised that we’d left 3 films which were ready for developing behind. This made Val in a particularly bad mood, since we’d locked the house upon leaving. We bought our food shopping in any case, then managed to find Carol at work, + borrow her keys. We rushed back to the house… only to find it open (another girl who was staying there was in.) Found the films straight away, back to Carol’s work to return the keys, + then, finally, a little later than we’d planned or hoped, we were off.
Rick + Carol had been very kind. They were materialistic people, + rather spoiled Sindy, their youngest daughter, at the expense of the other 2 (and as a consequence Dean + Kerry were much nicer) but we couldn’t complain at our treatment.
We drove pretty much straight to Prince George, without incident. The only break in our journey was at Hazleton, when we turned off the main road for a few miles to visit an Indian centre. It took us a little while to find it, mainly because of our own stupidity, + when we did, not only had it started to rain, the main part of the centre was shut. Ah well. We did visit a sort of craft shop there, and were able to buy 3 cards, with a native Indian design on them. We shall send them home, and if they arrive in good condition, have them framed. From then on, it was virtually no stops, with Val doing the majority of the driving. (I had my nose buried in the Warren Commission.) We picked up a hitch-hiker just beyond Prince George – he was a very young, 14 or so, Indian boy. We had planned to carry on straight down the road to Jasper, + find a campsite on the way, but his home was 5 miles off the road, + there was a campsite at Lake Eaglet, just beyond that, so we went up there + dropped him off. It turned out the campsite he’d mentioned was more of a picnic area, but it had started to rain, so that was fine. We ate, listened to the radio, slept in the car.
Usual sort of organisational chaos – usual for us, at any rate – but no harm done. And then mostly driving, though not for me, it appears. I had a regular habit (still have) of losing myself in a book, in this case (in case you hadn’t recognised the reference) the inquiry into the Kennedy assassination.
Good to hear that we took the young indigenous boy (apologies for the previous reference) home, making one small re-payment on all of the kindnesses we had been shown.
The cards, by the way, arrived home safely… but have never been framed!
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