Thursday, August 09, 2007

Road Trip(ping)

It's about 30 degrees outside the car, and damn well nearing 40 inside. I'm in the back in flood pants, a bathing suit top and a tiara plowing through "To Kill a Mockingbird" and attempting to ameliorate my feelings towards the current heat with those that Scout must have in the deep south in the summer. As of right now, the cracks between my toes are swelling and the pages of my book are buckling under the sweat of my fingers, and neither are helping to lend sympathy to Ms. Finch.
Everything in here smells slightly of sunscreen and licorice and skunk, with nectarines every once in a while when the smushed escapee gets nudged under the seat in an attempt to redirect the sweat thats pooling in the back of my knees.
Each place that we've passed through have a prevalence of one type of a shop or another - Prince George has a number of pawn shops and thrift stores, Fort St. James had pizza and hardware shops, Quesnel ice cream and tattoo parlours.. poor Williams Lake and its abundance of corn bread women just had an over abundance of lingerie stores. So far, the highways have offered up nothing of interest, just mile after mile of incredibly depressing landscape in the hue of dead, dry and dying - and the occasional ominous cherry stand.
Inside however, crammed among backpacks, shovels, old books, new books, dirth/clean and every state in between, our three aching bodies are trading massages for um fillled screamers, magazines for books and brief naps for time in the drivers seat. The impossibilty of driving down the middle of BC in a non air-con Subaru from the 80s without being parboiled.. is dawning on all of us.

1 comment:

JL said...

It sounds suspiciously like driving through Eastern Colorado, which even at 140/kmh takes, like, six hours of
nothingness.