93 F/ 34 C

A day in transit
makes me very weary, so
I'm glad to be home

~carliewired

My daughter and I were off to an asian grocery store by 9:00. She has plans to make a special meal and this store will have what we cannot find at home. 

Our second stop was not one I was looking forward to, but I had a duty to perform. Several years ago, my friend D left a tote bin with an ominous content that we'd dubbed "The Doomsday Clock" It has sat collecting dust in my garage and I had promised I would deliver it to the Mission Museum, in Mission, BC. 

The story is the clock was in the old hospital there that closed in 1965. D's father, who had been the fellow who maintained the systems at the hospital, was handed the clock when the hospital closed. When he died, it went to his son in California, but it eventually came back to the son living in Canada. The clock has a reputation as being very bad luck to those who keep it but fail to keep it wound and ticking. So, the wish was to hand it to the museum for posterity.

We arrived and mounted the stairs at the museum to find a note on the front door asking one to ring the bell and wait. An elderly man had just arrived before us with a box in his hands. We decided between us that we would leave our offerings at the front door and leave. So, we did!  I'd attached a card with the information to the top of the container. That should suffice. 

We motored on to Hope for lunch taking Highway 7 from Mission. I lived in this area for about 4 years when I was still in school. They were not happy years, so I have seldom travelled this way since those days. It takes one through the beautiful Fraser Valley's north side. It is rich farm land and has views of the river and mountains. 

I stopped at a pullout where I found blackberry bushes in bloom and thimbleberries, a favourite. I stopped later to get a shot of the 10 foot Sasquatch carving. This area is noted to be Sasquatch country, so local artisans make the most of it. 

I got a shot across a cornfield looking to the mountains on the south side of the valley.

After lunch in Hope, we started up the Fraser Canyon route on the TransCanada Highway (#1). I stopped for a couple shots of the bottom of the canyon and the highway through the canyon. Before we'd reached Yale, several emergency vehicles roared past us. We knew that was not a good sign.

We got as far as the entrance to the Hell's Gate tunnel, when the traffic was held and many vehicles were already turning around. We were told there was a bad accident with two fatalities on the highway just past the tunnel. It was estimated that the road would be closed for 12 hours. I turned around to head back to Hope. 

At Hope I got on the Coquihalla Hwy 5. Not my favourite route at all at any time. Now with all the traffic rerouted onto this one, it was a road rally!  I drove home averaging 130 km/hr. We were home by 5:30 and exhausted.