Boeing

The highlight of my time in Washington was the trip to both the Boeing factory and the Museum of Flight. Fascinating! I got to see the very first 787 Dreamliner under construction. It is expected to make an inaugural flight early next year, with commercial flights starting by the end of 2008. It was really neat to see "Experimental" painted along the top of the plane. There were two being built - one for test flight purposes and another that will be destroyed by fatigue testing. They will actually bend the wings until they break - just to find out exactly how much stress they can handle. I was enthralled by the entire tour! Unfortunately, no pictures...

But I WAS able to take pictures of the Future of Flight display area. Notice how LARGE the tail fin on the Boeing 747 is! Hard to believe until you see it in perspective with someone standing next to it! The engine behind it is in excess of 8' in diameter! If you want to see how much thrust these engines produce in a practical experiment, check out this: http://www.stupidcrazy.com/videos/play.cfm?id=274&title=747%20engine%20blast%20vs%20car

Ferries

My perception of the ferry has changed. The precariously tilting barge tied to a canoe with people expressly told to get out of their car and sit along the highest side of the canoe so as to “level” the barge was nowhere to be seen. Rather, a large platform consisting of two levels extended before me. I was directed, not by four people all shouting different directions at the same time, but by one person, silently waving me forward up a ramp, while not having yet even seen a boat! This brought me to a ramp that was wide enough to fit four vehicles at the same time. From there I was directed to the left, and alongside a row five cars wide, hardly noticing I had already entered the ferry! I parked where indicated, and that was that. The car vibrated and shook slightly in a rhythm that I could not make out as anything but random. Perhaps the two engines were slightly out of sync as they idled while we all drove on. Amazingly, I could not even feel the slightest adjustment to our ferry as more and more cars and large trucks got on! Below me was another deck filled with more vehicles than were on mine. Above me was a large seating area for perhaps 1,500 additional passengers, besides those who chose to wait out the 1½ hour ride in their one of the 360 or so cars on board traveling at an average speed of 22 knots (25mph/40kph)! So much for the three cars sandwiched onto a dilapidated and worn out World War II section of floating bridge attached to a hollowed-out hand-crafted canoe that regularly tosses its load into the river at some point!

The passenger seating area had a gift shop, a restaurant, restrooms (toilets), and any manner of seating areas and positions. Once again, I was struck by the ingenuity and ability of mankind when they work together to accomplish something far bigger than themselves that benefits so very many people who have come to rely on and expect such services! When will we in Nigeria come to realize that the ONLY way to move forward is to set aside our differences and work together?! In Nigeria, we easily and quickly state our differences and claim that Westerners have more mutually in common than Africans. Yet, I am coming to realize that this is an inaccurate perception on the part of Africans. Rather, the cultural differences are truly diverse! Chinese, Japanese, Indians (First Nation as they are now supposed to be called), Dutch, Italian, Danish, Kenyan, Sudanese, and pretty much any nationality you can think of, all set aside their differences to accomplish great things!

The past few days have been spent visiting with friends and lost acquaintances. I was privileged to spend time with some dear friends I lost touch with over the past years. To have a common bond and to so readily feel comfortable in the presence of people I have not seen in over 25 years is just amazing! There is this common bond with people who have shared a common life and experience. Few can relate to such experiences, and so when we meet again, we have a common bond that eludes most other friendships. Somehow, that shared African experience has bonded me to even those I have not met earlier in a way that surpasses expectations.

Rain

I was hoping I'd have a superfluity of experiences regarding this city to share with you, but Mother Nature had other ideas. MSN Travel says the first two things you can't live without in Vancouver is an umbrella and a coffee cup. I think I understand why – now… Rain, rain, rain. I've seen my share of it and then some in the past few days! Come to think of it, I think I saw about ten minutes of sun the first day I was here. Since then, rain… I understand why the umbrella is needed.

It took me a little longer to figure out the coffee cup thing. I think I have it now, though! You need to carry a coffee cup with you so that you can warm up at any one of the dozens of coffee shops along your route to one bus or the other! The weather’s not really cold, but it’s miserable when it’s wet. It’s been in the upper 40’s and low 50’s (9-13˚C) ever since I arrived – and it varies little between day and night. Having that coffee cup may keep you warm between stops and give you a chance to dry off in a café.

Meeting Bernie and Annemarie has been wonderful again! It’s been so good to see them! Bernie has been a very dear friend ever since we met in Nigeria. His wife Annemarie has been keeping us well fed! We went to Ineke Lodewyk’s place for lunch, meeting Wiena Groenewold there as well! It was great to reconnect with them and reminisce on past experiences that we share.

Hopefully within the next couple of days, it will brighten up some. Until then, plan your trip to Vancouver in the summer time…

Back Online!

I've been without Internet connectivity for the past three days, so it's high time I got back online!!

I've had a wonderful three days, having spent a couple of nights at Teus and Marja VanderVlis's house, the parents of my good friends Bernhard and Annemarie (whose house I am on my way to now).

Couple of things struck me: I had to concentrate at times to understand Teus' heavily accented Dutch brogue and now I'm starting to say, "das is dok ridekulus!!". Also, I SUCK at 5-pin bowling! It sure is a whole lot harder than it appears! Give me 10-pin any day. Okay, so I suck at 10-pin too, but at least I do a little better! They were so very hospitable and it was a great couple of days there too - plus, got to eat some meat again! Thanks, Bern!! :) (Bernie's Dad is a butcher)

Yesterday I went to Radium Hot Springs. That was a very interesting place! I had a blast there! When I read a sign (31C) on a brochure and calculated the temperature in Fahrenheit (why are Americans the ONLY people in the world that refuse to use Celsius!?), I came up with 88. I would hardly call that a hot spring! But since I was that close, I thought I had better check it out anyway. Thankfully, I did, as the COOLED pool was 31C, and the other was 40C (104F)! Now that was a hot spring! I joined about 80 others in that large pool (a big man-made swimming pool to accommodate large crowds with jets of hot water entering at certain locations at the bottom of the pool from a natural spring), and spent a full hour in there! It was sure nice to relax in that pool! I would highly recommend it to someone else making a trip in that area!

NOW I can honestly say I have seen the Canadian Rockies! Absolutely gorgeous! The last time I was in this area with Bernie, well, the weather was lousy with more clouds and fog than anything else. So this has been a wonderfully refreshing comparision! The weather has been absolutely perfect! That said, I've had frost (ice) on my car the past two days. This morning's was pretty heavy too! If it freezes overnight here tonight, I'll take a picture of that for my Nigerian friends too! :)

Today was a short day of driving. I'm now splurging and staying at a Best Western in Sicamous, BC (what classifies as high-class in my book - so you know I'm on a budget!! :)).

Yesterday, on my way across the Rockies and past the Continental Divide, I saw three moose (now, what's the plural of moose? Let's start a new one - meese (you can have mouse and mice, why not moose and meese?)). So, I saw three meese, one black bear, an elk, some rams and some sort of mountain goat. Not bad, I'd say! Sorry, I didn't take any pictures worth showing, so you will have to make do with these instead!!

Made it to the Rockies!

I saw my first real cowboy today! With the stetson hat, hot chick, and driving a PINK Camaro! Yup, sure as shootin'! Dead nuts (maybe in more ways than one!). That was one man very confident in his masculinity - or perhaps very in touch with his feminine side... At any rate, that certainly broke up the monotony of driving in such a vast space while I burst out laughing!

About the time I was on visual sensory overload with the repetition of ever widening spaces and ever rolling and never-ceasing hills, they were assaulted anew with a different scene! All of a sudden, there before me lay my first view of the Rockies! It came just like that! One moment, it was the usual wide rolling spaces, and the next, I climbed a hill, and there they were~! It truly came as a shock. I knew they had to be close, based on my progress on the map, but it still shocked me when, still more than 35 miles away, I saw them, protruding above the flat expanse of farm and grazing land.

This trip has been such a wonderful experience! It's been filled with moments (hours, actually) of pure solitude, time in which I could reflect on my past blessings and struggles. Then, when I came into a little town, having to slow from 70mph down to 25 in far less time than just releasing the accelerator pedal would allow, I would be enamored and enthralled by another little town, trying to figure out what kept it going. Most showed all the signs of depreciated and dilapidated houses and buildings. I wondered what sort of future there was for those little towns. Really, they hardly passed as villages. Yet, all around them were huge expanses of farmland. Surely, that must be the only real vocation available to people who opted to stay there! Many had not even a single fuel station! Some had "rest areas" where even the toilet was nothing more than a pit latrine, much as I'd used in Nigeria - only with a seat...

The border crossing posed more time-consuming than I thought it would. I got flagged for further questioning after the initial drive-by. I'm not sure what I did, had, or said wrong, but I came to realize after about 30 minutes of questioning and sitting and waiting, that they were worried that I had come to Canada to seek a job! Little did they know my apprehension of cold weather! What would possess me to move to a place where the weather rarely gets hot enough to sweat with a tee-shirt on?? I think that when I answered his question, "Do you know the laws pertaining to employment in Canada?" with, "No, and I could care less what the laws are - I'm not interested in working there!" he was satisfied! Not that I had any place to get to in a hurry - he could have searched my car and made me sleep there! At least it would have been a warm place, and I would not have had to pay for another night in a hotel! :)

I'm now in a town called Cardston - 80% Mormon and 20% other, according to my waitress. She knew I was new to the town when I asked what types of beer they had... Apparently, this is a dry town! Ah well, I used the opportunity to talk to her and get to learn a little about this town. Only she's not from here, and is among the "other" - which one, I don't know... Her husband is a semi-pro hockey player, just back from New Jersey playing for a team there. It's neat to talk to people and find out a little about them - but I only talk to those who are open to it and want to share a bit of their life with me. I hate it when people ask me all sorts of questions.

And that reminds me of the little kid that walked into my hotel room yesterday and asked me what I was doing! It was really neat that he felt comfortable enough to talk to me and to go against the "don't talk to strangers" grain, but he asked so many questions that I really didn't know how to react! In the end, I picked up my clothes to wash, lead him outside, and locked the door behind me while he followed for a bit, then got tired of the silence in my answers...

By the way, if you click on the picture, you can see a higher resolution photo

Huge Spaces

More than once, my mouth burst forth with what some consider to be a Canadian expletive (I'm no longer a missionary!) as I would come over another rolling hill, only to have the full extent of my vision filled with yet more rolling fields of grain and hay - seemingly with no end!

I was not disappointed with the sight, but rather, very much in awe! It just kept coming - more of the same, yellow fields just harvested or ripe for the harvest. Don't ask me what they were (tho I could recognize when there were sunflowers in the field), but of one thing I'm certain - no garden tractor was used to harvest those fields! I wondered at whether it was possible for a single family to own such a large expanse, or what this the corporate farming I have heard so much about...

I now have some inkling of an idea what is meant by Big Sky. Truly, that's what I see so much of! The scenery is amazing, as is the bright and sunny sky! Anyone who can contemplate that there's no God just plain doesn't get it! It's clear to see, if you want to accept it, that this was put in place for our pleasure and to initiate awe for a great and powerful God!

I was very impressed with the scenery in Minot. It's obvious why people moved into that area! Gorgeous rolling hills, with a river running through it. I could live there - for the scenery... My mind kept going to wind power. I wonder why there are not more wind turbines in this area. surely, they have plenty of wind!

Another impression of mine is that everywhere I went, at each little house or trailer, there was a power line attached! It actually came as a surprise to me that a power company would go thru all the trouble of running a power line to a single building out in seemingly the middle of nowhere! Surely, they cannot expect the cost of providing power to pay for itself any time soon! Again, an indication of how Americans look at the bigger picture and see how each person is a player in a big team of Capitalism that keeps the economy and country going...

Cold Front

They said a cold front was coming through... Boy, were they right!! The temps dropped from 75 this morning to 44 this afternoon. And now I hear that there may be wet SNOW tonight and a low of 35 (okay, for you Kanuks, that's about 1-2)! Say what??!! This is NOT what I like... Still, we have had temperatures well above what is normal for this time of the year. But snow? It's been a very happy 16 years since I have seen snow! If I did not see another flake, that would actually be fine by me!!

As the cold front came through, so did the rain. The colors were magnificent, but hidden behind the rain drops and I saw little aside from streaks of rain running up the windshield, being slapped aside by wiper blades. For just a very short period of time, two lines of dry pavement appeared. But that was shortly followed by more rain. It's still raining now at 10:30 local time...

I've been traveling along US Highway 2 and plan to stay on this road until I get ready to enter Canada. It's a beautiful drive, and being able to stop along the road is also nice. But the "rest areas" are just that - areas to rest. I stopped in one thinking that I could use the opportunity to relieve myself, only to find out that there was little besides trees, a picnic table, and garbage (in Grand Rapids, by the way!). Being mostly African, that posed no problem for me, tho... That said, I stopped at others that were far better equipped - and one was even staffed by some tourist advisor or whatever name they have...

The trip has begun!

The trip has begun! And the weather has been incredibly warm - for now. I'm expecting it to cool down significantly in the next day or two. I just turned on the TV and the forecast is for cooling temperatures and more rain! It's been raining quite a bit while driving, so the scenery has not been what it could have been. I was a bit surprised that the UP did not have as much color as northern lower peninsula! As I was driving along, I thought the color would just get more and more pronounced. Of course, I stayed along Highway 2, so can't speak for what it was like farther north.

I stayed at Keith and Laura VenHuizen Saturday night. They are such a neat family! They opened their homes and their lives to me. I was so pleased to be given that opportunity to meet with them and to get to know a bit of that part of the country. My thanks go out to them for their hospitality.

Speaking at the church there went pretty well. The video started half-way through and the gain was set too high for the sound; they missed the beginning but no one mentioned anything about it...

I'm now in Cameron, Wisconsin - and will be leaving in the next few minutes. I am really enjoying this time, but it's early still...