Toast to Roads

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

Hello Reader,

Recently, 

at my club one evening, 

I asked my fellows to stand and raise their glass in a a toast: 

“To roads!”

As I told my club, it’s queer: When we go to Washington State or British Columbia, (B.C.) we surely look at the nearby mountains and say to the locals, “Wow. Mountains so close by; I can’t believe you guys don’t go up.” Those folks surely come here and say, “Wow! Flat prairie and lots of roads!” And then be amazed that we don’t all take road trips. Well, I do. Sometimes. 

I especially like the quieter roads. Near my home I have twice seen a pair of big white trumpeter swans, and last month, on a quiet Victoria Day morning, a green headed mallard duck flapped alongside my car going precisely as fast as I was. At last he veered off.

So many roads to choose 

It was in 1926, when my mother was three years old, that the province of Alberta stopped referring to highways by colours and went in for numbering. I guess there weren’t many colours left by then. Today the numbering system is quite rational, for a quite extensive list of roads, too extensive to explain here. 

Of course names can be attached to the numbers, such as the Yellowhead Highway, #5, that emerges from B.C., goes along to Edmonton, and along through the border-straddling city of Loydminster… And the Crowsnest Pass highway, #3, that comes from B.C. through the mountain pass, and on through the city of Lethbridge… while the Icefields Parkway goes north and south along the Rocky Mountains to Jasper… And now the Boom Town Trail goes through some interesting east province tourist areas, including Camrose, the wee city I reported on in May 2019. This latter trail, actually, is not a highway, it’s more of a regional designation.

There’s one exception to the provincial numbering system: Calgary is at the crossroads of the QE II, or highway #2, and THE transCanada highway, or highway #1… and so the ring road, a freeway around the city named Stoney Trail, is… the #201.

It’s easy to find out whether a road is snowed over, or closed by a mudslide, as Alberta has a 511 website and telephone number. Recently I checked and found out the highway was closed north and south of Radium due to wildfires. 

We don’t say “forest fire” anymore, as a “wildfire” can roar through isolated houses or whole towns, such as the wildfire that took out Fort McMurray. (the 6th largest population centre in Alberta) After windows sag and pop, the fire pours right into the house. Incidentally, the government publishes guidelines for how much vegetation to clear to protect your home from fires raging branch to branch up to your door, and big embers flying from far away onto your roof. Alberta ranches have always had their long buildings, amidst vast plains of scrubby grass, separate from each other as a fire precaution. 

Breakdowns

When my car broke down on the Queen Elizabeth the Second highway I pulled across the white line onto the paved shoulder, only a kilometre from the posted turnout. Then others pulled up behind me; I guess they thought we were already at the turnout. In Alberta the turnouts—a short parallel strip— are supplied with garbage cans and very short merge lanes to get back on the highway. Anyway, I was glad people stopped because then I could ask a senior citizen if I could please use his cell phone. He was in a motorhome the size of a tour bus, or so it seemed; I laughed to see his summer home on wheels looming far larger than my own little year-round cabin.

Another time, stuck on a Crowsnest mountain road, I waved with two hands a big stiff white flag and got picked up by a young man and woman who drove me to the next town to phone for a tow truck. I politely ignored the smell of marajuana, what the government is now calling “cannabis,” now that such weed is legal to grow and sell, now that people at parties may show off their weed solariums.

Another time, same flag, I was picked up by a bachelor with a pickup truck and a big dog.

Another time, not from a breakdown, but being stuck within Edmonton city limits on the Yellowhead in a snow bank I could not shovel out of, (because my car bottom was resting on snow) it was a bachelor in a pickup who popped in some chains to the back of his truck to pull me two thirds of a meter forward (two feet)

To avoid such breakdowns, my last cars were bought brand-new. I am currently driving a Toyota Prius, a hybrid, with two motors under the hood—giving me good traction weight for for driving on ice using my front wheel drive. The storage battery, for my “tractor motor,” running under the passenger bench, is charged by my brakes. If you consult Consumer Report (CR) magazine, you will see how my Prius rates “excellent” in every category, earning the coveted CR “checkmark.” 

(Hey, maybe that’s why a “red tag days” letter from a Toyota dealer shows no Prius, and neither do any of the other dealership used-car ads in the newspaper: Maybe nobody wants to sell their Prius!)

My favorite category, of course, is for “ranked at top of the page” fuel efficiency: Because then I can look at the endless Alberta roads, beckoning to me across an entire time zone, and cry, “Road trip!”

Sean Crawford

Alberta

2019

Talk to Stangers Footnote:

As a road trip tourist, are there benefits to talking to strangers? 

(For me there is, as documented in my May essay To Camrose From Gotham) 

How about talking as a commuter, or in your own downtown? Scientists have researched the benefits, here’s (link) what they found

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48459940

Personal Footnote: 

Did I tell you I value my freedom, even to the point of graduating university without debt? And value buying my cars “all in one payment,” except for my last car? To paid off this Christmas? (And I paid off my wee mortgage on my mini-cabin before the first scheduled renewal) 

Well, thinking of road trips and cellular telephones: Years ago my client offered to buy me a cell phone, but at the time I didn’t want to be “tied down” to a plan. I forgot all about it until my boss was reminded by my old client. We were amused.