Alberta Highway 2
Nov. 6th, 2017 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
va6arnOn Friday, I drove to Calgary in the snowstorm; on Saturday I drove back home, both trips by myself. It gave me too much time to think about all the times I've travelled that highway. How many times? Dozens? Not a hundred, but more than a dozen. So dozens, plural.
I recall being 16(?) and coming out west to visit one of my sisters. The drive from Calgary to Edmonton was the first step in the summer's trip to Yellowknife. I recall sitting with my head stuck up in the back window of my sister's Celica, staring up at the most amazing night sky I'd ever seen, while my sister and father chatted in the front. That was the first time.
Of course, the pedant in me would later correct anyone who called it the prairie. From the foothills through the aspen parkland to the boreal forest. With a casette of the Eagles Greatest Hits playing over and over.
I recall years later, having moved west myself, taking the Greyhound down to Calgary, to buy a tent. That was before there was a Mountain Equipment CoOp here in Edmonton. I recall talking to the lady next to me about the Meech Lake constitutional accord--she worked for an MLA and was, predictably, pissed off at Quebec.
And I vaguely remember a bus ride with the regiment to Currie Barracks at CFB Calgary for some damned thing. Some combat engineering exercise or other. "Once a medic, always a non-trade radioman."
Any number of times, I've driven Hwy 2 to get to the Trans-Canada, when the Yellowhead would have meant a longer trip.
But the more I think about it, the less I can recall having to drive it alone. I guess those trips end up less memorable. I don't like driving, but there it is.
I recall being 16(?) and coming out west to visit one of my sisters. The drive from Calgary to Edmonton was the first step in the summer's trip to Yellowknife. I recall sitting with my head stuck up in the back window of my sister's Celica, staring up at the most amazing night sky I'd ever seen, while my sister and father chatted in the front. That was the first time.
Of course, the pedant in me would later correct anyone who called it the prairie. From the foothills through the aspen parkland to the boreal forest. With a casette of the Eagles Greatest Hits playing over and over.
I recall years later, having moved west myself, taking the Greyhound down to Calgary, to buy a tent. That was before there was a Mountain Equipment CoOp here in Edmonton. I recall talking to the lady next to me about the Meech Lake constitutional accord--she worked for an MLA and was, predictably, pissed off at Quebec.
And I vaguely remember a bus ride with the regiment to Currie Barracks at CFB Calgary for some damned thing. Some combat engineering exercise or other. "Once a medic, always a non-trade radioman."
Any number of times, I've driven Hwy 2 to get to the Trans-Canada, when the Yellowhead would have meant a longer trip.
But the more I think about it, the less I can recall having to drive it alone. I guess those trips end up less memorable. I don't like driving, but there it is.
