Jan 7, 2014 - Finally Home

We were both asleep really early last night.  Dawn went to sleep about 6:00 (just saw the beginning of the news on Global), and I went to bed about a half hour later.  We just could not stay awake.  Consequently, we woke up pretty early in the morning.  Both of us were awake about 3:00 am, but we stuck it out until about 5:00, when I just couldn't stay in bed any longer.  So I got up and thought about checking my emails.  Dawn, realizing I was up, decided to watch some TV.

After getting ourselves organized, we left the hotel at about 9:00 am.  We had to make a stop in Vancouver, at a shop that made something that Dawn wanted to purchase, so we set out looking for it.  Old GPS Jill took us right there, and we then had to look for a place to park.  We ended up just stopping in a driveway of one of the businesses nearby, and Dawn went in while I stayed in the car.  Of course, the place couldn't sell it to us because the were a wholesaler, not retail.  We have to order it and get it shipped to us.  Crazy.

Then, we headed off to find the freeway to come home.  We hadn't eaten since the plane the day before, so we decided to fine a White Spot.  As we got on the freeway, I knew I had to gas up for the trip, and the price was quite high in Vancouver ($129.9/litre), so we decided to fill up in Abbotsford ($118.9/litre).  We stopped at the White Spot at the Whatcom Road exit, ate, then filled up, and headed home by about 12:30 pm.

The trip was good, most of the way.  It didn't seem to take us long to get on the Coquihalla, and although the road was wet, it was pretty good until we started going up the Great Bear Snowshed hill.  Then the slush started building on the less travelled lanes.  Each time we passed one of the trucks, and hit some of that slush, the car was jerked back and forth.  We had to stop for a pit stop near the toll booth area, and then we continued.  After leaving that area, the roads got better for a while.

About 10km south of Merritt, we came across a sign saying "accident ahead" with a couple flares burning.  Just around the corner, a pickup had been in an accident, but it didn't look too serious.  The RCMP were there taking photos, but we didn't see any ambulances.  We went by the scene fairly slowly, and as I sped up again, our car started to slip and slide.  It was then we realized that this was black ice.  I stepped on the brakes (after I got it down to a much slower speed, and all 4 wheels locked up, so now we were nervous.

It was like that all the way from the accident until almost to the Lac Le Jeune turnoff, so that part of the trip was relatively slow.  I let all those who wanted pass me by, without being concerned about keeping up with them.  As we came down the last bit of the hills into Kamloops and the weigh scales, it began snowing, and by the time we got to Costco, it was snowing quite a lot, and visibility was getting worse, so I decided to some down the Summit bypass and go through town, rather than my normal way on the highway.  We were glad I did, and we don't feel it took us any longer to get home.

It was sure nice to roll into our driveway.  We quickly emptied the car, unpacked our suitcases, threw in the first load of laundry, and just sat in our rockers.  Nice to be home.