Part III-Arrival.

After Winnipeg I spent most of my time on the bus reading and sleeping. Normally I have trouble sleeping at all but I brought a supply of nyquil and an energy drink to end any groginess should I have to wake unexpectedly. The nyquil worked so well that the vietnam vet said that he thought I might be dead at one point. I slept through the Saskatchewan border. We arrived in Regina shortly before the sun went down. There we would stay for about an hour or so.

I awoke the next morning as we were approaching Calgary. The city kind of looked odd. Well, not the city itself just its location, it seemed random. There seemed to be a lot of construction going on there. In fact if I remember correctly a young girl was actually killed at a construction site in Calgary only a few days later. I remember reading about that while I was in Vancouver. Construction seemed to be a constant in all the larger cities I visited. By this point I had been without a shower in nearly three days but I felt more or less all right. I wasnt the only one though. I was quite surprised at how many people had made the trip from Ontario and were going all the way to the coast. In Calgary as in Winnipeg we transferred onto another bus with another driver. The final stretch to Vancouver would take about twelve hours.

This was the first time I saw mountains. I still clearly remember the first peaks I saw and the feeling I had as we went between them. It was awe inspiring. Though at times it was scary, for me anyway. I have an intense fear of heights and had to look at the seat in front of me as we went up these mountains. Looking down was not an option for me. At a few points in this final stretch there was smoke visible in the distance from the forrest fires which were still raging at this time. Oddly enough that did not scare me at all compared to the height issue.

We arrived in Vancouver shortly after dark. Ended up taking the sky train to the part of town the hostel was in. I didnt want to walk for multiple reasons. Mostly because I would have to walk by a venue which was having a Rod Steward concert. That would have been difficult to navigate with my giant bag. The sky train was quite nice, it took less than a minute to travel the 2 km to the terminal where I was to get off. The streets were quite busy, then I remembered it was Friday night. Makes sense. I checked into the hostel and showered. That was quite refreshing. The only room mate who I actually met in Vancouver was an Australian just passing through on his way to Toronto. I didnt speak to the others. I picked up some maps and brochures in the lobby and began planning the next days activities with someone I met on the bus. I went to bed shortly before midnight. A bed had never felt better to me than on this night.