I can finally escape those mountains that got to vicously suffocate me…. I leave in the same fog that welcame me in Yoho three days ago, only I am riding the towing truck this time. I thus land in Golden where we – my car and I – are saved from our end. It is not too bad in the end. After a quick repair of my broken ignition, I have one day and a half to drive my four remaining days of road trip…! I could even have escaped this hell yesterday if I had followed my instinct and not myself being tricked by the warm cabin along the rail road
I leave Golden and finally cross Glacier and Revelstoke National Park, naively hoping I will glean a hike on the road. The foggy snow – what am I saying, the snowy storm – changes my mind though! Invisible in mountains shadow behind the while curtain, dangerously lookable in my window, I drive without a stop except when I hit a car crash in a tunnel. The emotions of simple fraternity freezes my impulse, people are jumping out of their car to help the smoky remains. I don’t join them, useless; in this kind of accident, you need to acknowledge when too many pairs of hands prevent more than it helps. I therefore keep going as a military truck reaches the scene.
I hope the valley will pierce clouds layer at some point. Lost cause… Arrived at Revelstoke, lovely in the few hazy mountains, I try to catch up with my freeze-frame delay, only getting a glimpse of the town. And I actually change my time then, I have left the Rockies. This extra hour is welcome but not enough, I still have too much of a long way towards West to delay sunset.
Just out of Revelstoke, I cross a bridge and a river: Columbia River – the same amazing one than what draws the broder between Washington and Oregon State, but I am not aware of that when I cross – both haloed with haze. It is like magic in my heart, like I was crossing the invisible door to another world. Lower mountains change their faces. Haze is everywhere but has changed its detours. Earlier, around the glaciers, fog was like one and endless opaque cloud. It is different now, it is like dancing in an ethereal sky, you barely guess mounts and glens intertwined with the trees’ tangible breath. Visible. It is another fantasy, different from the ice kingdom I has just left. Even in this white light, yellow and red trees rise. Pastures blow my mind. I jas forgotten about te green despite last Monday.
I am moved so deeply, recalling I am getting closer to Canadian Cascades. I can recognize their colors and shape my heart races, I remember. My heart wants to be here. Maybe I remember my happy days. Maybe Washington State was enhanced. It was nonetheless my first look on America, it was my love at first sight, my endless love, independent from another love. My heart therefore sparkles as I get closer. My heart knows I am home.
All my being is amazed to be able to go against the clock and be back in Pacific Fall. My heart breathes differently with the closer ocean. And as twilight already shines meaning I will have to find a shelter in the dark, I enter a thirsty bar to write my endless day.
When I awake, I have definitely left the white winter to swim in fall’s colors. Even already faded in some places, they shine for my heart getting bored with white.
I won’t have time to walk my landscapes today, except this first one, my foggy morning one on the Okanagan River, ideal to stretch by cold nose. I then start my long journey of the day. First memories are as blurry as the scenery, but as the sun starts to draw clouds in between pins and reveals a blue sky above my head, my memory gets clearer.
I stop on Vernon Beach so I can get a glance at Northern Okanagan Lake, hidden in some undressing hills. My early day goes with the pure and untouched joy of an endless sunrise in the autumnal valley, blending the morning blue with the fall warmth, cheerfully soundtracked by Twilight‘s music. I sometimes have the right to be a goofy teenager riding my car after all!
In front of this hilly and soft valley, I cherish a new landscape, a new season. I am stunned by this glen in between two mountains range, Cascades and Rockies. Names are like scars in your life. – I don’t like the word scar, it comes with an idea of sorrow but I cant’ find my metaphor word… – There is some words today, like Cascades, automatically bringing me back to a place, to a memory. For anybody else, for you, it is only an American range of mountain but for me, it is an adventure.
It was a complete stranger for me three years ago though. Exactly like my head didn’t have any cut opened scar three months ago. Places are scars, places change their meaning and color in your life story. Thus, the first time I heard about Vancouver, I was 12 and some random TV shows actress was born there. Canada was a foreign place where people spoke another cheesy French on the other side of the world. I had never heard of other provinces, I didn’t know The Beautiful British Columbia was a thing. And I think this Pacific BC is like a mirror of Washington State. I can find Yakima’s dryness in Okanagan Valley. I will recognize evergreen trees when I will head to Hope.
I try to print what I will write about this morning in my head, however my words have opportunities to get forgotten in so many new landscapes. There are depressions, there are glens, ther is sun, there is autumn. There is Northern Penticton Beach on Okanagan Lake and Southern Penticton Beach on Sachka Lake. There is the surprizing size of Kelowna. Then, there is the multitude of faded wineries towards Osoyos. There is this tempting wine that I would rather taste with someone. I still try in this low season Sunday, not in the best place but it is the only opened tasting room. I only remember Cabernet Franc’s softness, its tastes remind me I always preferred that one when we were two.
The valley is not magnificent, I can’t draw it in my camera, it is partial in my departed heart. It is different from everything I have seen for a few months, for a few weeks. The valley is simple and pure, it is perfect. It is only mine, it is my day’s promise, my endless promise.
I have to say goodbye though, almost crossing the American border so low I go, missing the right intersection. I then reach Manning Provincial Park, so peaceful. I both feel like I have already been here and this is totally new, it becomes my own memory now. I feel so free and independent. I also start to feel tired and hungry. However, when I run towards Hope, my heart is strong enough to be amazed. Sun light shines so low when it is not even 4 pm; North America changed to winter time yesterday.
I feel incertain for a minute. Should I listen to my fatigue and stop here? Sun is already setting. It is so early. I should leave and reach Vancouver, I have a ferry to catch tomorrow morning. Pacific is calling for me. Sun setting too. I keep going then. What a peculiar light! What an amazing beauty! Fraser Sound shines along my road. Its trees are yellow. Grass is green. It smells like rain scenery. Sun sets pink, then red. So red. Moon rises. Half, white, the complete opposite of the red sun shining on Mont Baker in my back. America is so close. But Canada is mine.
I almost hit other cars so passionate my eyes are for everything else than the road, the evening matches my morning blurring mountains with fog, putting to sleep Vancouver hills gates for my first encounter. What a magnificent entry as the purple city shines in the pink setting sky, as the moon is white, as lights sparkle in windows, as the bridge arises when I passed marveled, feeling like I am in a movie so perfect my life’s both soundtrack and picture are. It is astonishing! It is as breathtaking as my first look on the Rockies. It is a thundering first meeting and I curse like hell. I cant’ get over it and I am sure all my amazed “Fuck” are missing in this tale.
You can never forget your first look on a place. Or someone. In fact, it is a really weird process. At some point in your life, you are untouched. From everything. From anything. No scar. No knowledge. No memory. No one. No where. No why. But little by little, everything finds a meaning. You get memories. You get scars. When you meet someone, you will have a quick look, maybe you will try to read that person, and you could then quickly forget him or her; yet, one day you know every single detail about that person, even the first uninterested look you first had. Are you always that ready for your first encounter? Was I prepared for my first impulse to Vancouver? Certainly not! My heart was heavy to leave magnificent mountains in order to reach a huge city so different from all the little towns I have been through since the beginning of my journey, lost in an untamed and lost wilderness. I was thinking about my three missing days, wondering if I had to freeze-frame in order to fast forward in a sunny day. Even if I couldn’t walk that sunny day. I was randomly thinking amazed buy the red sun, I was trying to find another word for my places’ scars. I wasn’t ready, I didn’t know pink and hazy Vancouver was about to rock my eyes. I didn’t know I will want more; that one day, I will probably know the place by heart.
I end up at Horseshoe Bay, awaiting for my ferry the next morning in order to see the sun setting on the sea. The day was so rich, I saw in ten hours what I would have explored in three days. But even in a hurry, I enjoyed every minute of this last stretch. I gaze at the moon ‘s reflection on the Pacific. I don’t know what is expecting me… After… After the isle. I don’t know what I really want. I planned Idaho too early and Canada is pulling me back. British Columbia, my past’s perfect mirror in better, invites me to decide. I think about my missing Vancouver and Victoria two years ago… I was not available for Canada. I was not ready for my first look’s astonishment. So many things, feelings, words lost in my endless dreams, impossible to lay on paper.
* cf my first American diaries: Giant
Justine T.Annezo – Nov. 2nd-3rd 2019, British Columbia (Canada) – GMT -7 et -8
Fleeting Wor(l)ds 