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VICTORIA
This is how you do it: after cleaning & packing for days/weeks on end, you spend time bidding goodbye to your dearest friends, catch a few hours’ sleep, load up the car, get in, and drive away. You don’t look back at the cedar and the broom; you don’t watch the too-familiar sides of the Metchosin Road pass by. You don’t worry about the lowering clouds above (except to think, fondly, about Martin & David who braved waves & storm warnings to come from Race Rocks to the college to say goodbye). You give the view of Victoria from the gravel pits a final glance, knowing that in 30 minutes you will be there, and you keep the view of Port Angeles for later. You think: it’s just an ordinary rain-promise Sunday at the tip of Vancouver Island, and you think, but don’t quite believe, that you are driving away from the college for the final time.
OLYMPIC PENINSULA
Port Angeles through the mist
So an adventure is about to begin. The scenic route, Highway 101 west, through mountains and by the sea ...
It’s a misty mountain highway, 55 mph, running through evergreens & low clouds, with good north-west coast rain falling on our windscreen.
The trees here look different from those on Vancouver Island. Smaller, fewer cedars, less broom (though there is some), more Christmas trees with pointy tops. And looming, misty mountains.
When we’re not running through logging country, the scenic route is lush and wet. Where there’s been water there’s been mist - I tried a photograph or two at a glacier lake but vision was poor. The rain is unrelenting, but the scenery is GREEN.
2 hours out of Port Angeles we’re flagging, our 4 hours of sleep used up. So we play highway Bingo, a gift from Andrew & Lisa, and put on Queen’s Greatest Hits. Freddie & co rock the car and keep us awake (Hell Yeah!!!)
Philip, as we’re driving through places with names like Kalaloch, Quinault, Queets, says:
"Boy, the Indians surely got screwed."
And as if to prove it, we drive through a sizeable reservation, one road with no electricity (no power lines) not many vehicles, no settlement along the road and a few backhoes resting from digging a trench to lay fibre optic cable.
"Part of Clinton's plan to give the Indians internet access," Philip said.
(Seems as though Philip does all the talking. What do I say? Things like: "Silo!" or "Power lines!" (Highway Bingo), or, "Should I take a picture?" or, "Let's put on Queen." Nothing of great import.)
Tonight we rest in Portland, Oregon for the drive to Ashland tomorrow. We pick up David at the Medford Airport in the afternoon and then we rest up for the next three days of theatre.
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