Janet Thorpe and I went on a northern journey to the Calgary Stampede. Janet entered Scott and I entered Roo. This would be Scott's last trial and as a tribute to him, Janet signed him up to go out in glory at the Stampede. he had run at the Stampeded a few years earlier with his former owner, Chris Hanson. we were hoping to see Chris at the Stampede but he had to cancel. So we did take videos of our runs and I will post them this weekend.
Janet did all the planning and it was top notch. I just had to part of my share of the driving and fiddling with the AC, which I failed miserably at and won't be hired back on that job.
The first day we left Janet's house around 10 in the house and meandered our way to Bonner's Ferry. It is just across the border from Canada and it was a good halfway point. we pulled into the hotel and checked in.
Did you ever see the movie, Psycho? Remember the "Bates Motel?" Well, we found it since we stayed in it. The hotel was not really named the Bates Motel but sure was weird. As we were checking in, I spied a bunch of wall mounted trophies. One was of a very nice large Bison head. I was impressed and asked the clerk about it.
This is what he said about it. "Well, it was alive and it was shot by the owner of the hotel as he owned a male and female and he didn't think the male bred the female so he shot them and then it turned out the female was five months pregnant so that was a waste but then the owner was drunk and an asshole and he was drunk when he shot it but they kept getting out of the fence and he was a mean owner and his wife came into work one day with a broken foot and she claimed she fell down but i think he hit her so i told him if he ever did it again it would hit him but i did hit him once and that is how i got this job as i used to be his foal raiser at the ranch and raise the baby foals and did you know when the foals are babies and if you handle them they imprint on you but the one foal that was born was killed by dogs and i went to shoot it but the owner did not let me so i hit him, well that was after he rammed into my shoulder but the foal died anyways so the owner wanted to fire me but the wife made him not fire me but put me here to run this hotel and i get $1200 a month and free rent and my 17 yr old son lives here with me but he and I don't get along"
This was all in one breath and my eyes glazed over and I fell into a deep coma only to be awoken by the severe shaking of my temporal lobe brain matter by a very concerned Janet. My parietal lobe overloaded with processing the tactile sensory information and determined it was painful and exploded. Janet gave me the "Stink eye" and therefore I did not ask any more questions about the magnificent elk trophy that loomed above my exploded head.
We got our room key and them left to explore the Kootenal Wildlife Refuge. We saw a doe with twins (Blog tomorrow) and a whole lot of grass. A few Canadian Geese and not much more.
Of course, we had to pose with our dogs since they both got groomed and we have photographic evidence that green goose poop is not permanent on their white collars. Both dogs got bathed, groomed and trimmed. This lasted for all of 24 hours but look below to see clean dogs.
Janet with Roo and Scott.
Roo and Scott. Notice that Scott does not want his photo taken? I was trying to turn his head to the camera but to no avail.
After our jaunt to the Refuge (appropriately named since we bolted to there after the hotel clerk encounter), we then found a local restaurant named Mario's Mexican Restaurant. And it was owned by Mario. He made us a beef, onion and cilantro taco that was tasty and we ordered dinner. It was good but the best part was his special taco he made for us. By this time, we had recovered from our trauma with the hotel clerk and made out way back.
Roo and Scott were the guard dogs all night and when we walked the dogs at night, I felt weird vibes around us. The hotel allowed dogs, which was really a smoking room that really smelled badly, and by the morning we were all stuffed up. We left rather early and went to the Starbucks across the street.
Now, one would think that Starbucks would hire people who can take a order and maybe, possibly get it right? Since I firmly believe that this Starbucks was in the range of the Bates Motel, the weirdness just spilled across the street.
Again, I made the mistake of asking a simple question. I know that Janet now arms herself with a crook and will bash me at my knees if I ever ask a hotel or coffee clerk another question. I asked if they made a decaf frap. That was for Janet's sake as she wanted one the day before. The clerk got all flustered and she could not understand what I was asking. I repeated it slower but that didn't seem to work. I gave up. Apparently this Starbucks and the one in Ellensburg do not make the decaf frap. I assumed that sign language would be too much for her to understand.
So, we ordered a decaff for Janet and a Vanilla Breve for me. We sat down and began to eat our banana bread. Sound simple enough, right? The coffee person called me to pick up Janet's order and I give it to her. She called me to bring back her drink as she can't remember if she made it a decaff or not so has to remake it. She give me my order and I thank her for my Breve. I sit down and she called me back. She remembered that she didn't make it a Breve. So, I bravely hand her my drink back. Finally we got the two drinks made properly and we raced out of town before the weirdness bubble struck again.
Tomorrow: pixs from the Refuge and day two of the drive.
No comments:
Post a Comment