B. Mann Consulting

It's been a long few days, but I've arrived in Calgary. I drove out with my friend Greg, who moved for work. We started out on Thursday evening, hoping to get as far as Sudbury or points west. No problem. We rolled into Sudbury around midnight, just starting to get into the groove of driving. We proceeded to pay way too much to stay at a Comfort Inn, but it was late, and...

So, the next day started out well. There had been a few flurries overnight, but the roads were clear. We rolled through Sault St. Marie, a.k.a. "the Soo", where we laughed at all the Soo business names, because Greg's last name is Soo.

Then we were about 40 minutes past the Soo, at a place called Botchwana Bay. Road closure. Doh! We sat and waited, hoping it would clear, but apparently farther on there were some jack-knifed semis and a combination of ice rain and snow. We waited over 4 hours, in fact, but it was almost 7pm by the that time, so we decided to drive back to the Soo and spend the night.

It was early, so we watched Head of State. It was pretty funny. I now have an obsession with Super Whores and may have to start my own training camp.

The next day (Saturday) we were still on the bloody Northern Ontario page of the map. We made it as far as Kenora. We could have probably made it a bit farther, what with the timezone change, but we were pretty beat.

So, Sunday made for a long haul. We hit the road at 8am, got the dirty bird for lunch, and punched through all the way to Calgary. Prairie driving is pretty easy, since you can keep it going at around 130klicks and it's dead straight. In Alberta we were met by intense winds blowing across the highway, and when we stopped, the engine was filled with broken bits of tumbleweeds.

That's it for now. I ship out tomorrow morning via Westjet for Vancouver. I'll expect a handshake and a pint from some of you soon...