Right, so this is the story of my trip to Canada, circa December 2000, the very trip, for those following along, mentioned in the Great Canadian Adventure, as my previous trip. I expect my travels to be earthshatteringly horrific; consequently, I'd forgotten about this one until Astolat reminded me. This one wasn't terrifying - although if I could take normal trips, this would definitely have the potential to leave scars - but it was creasingly funny, and has earned its place here.

As per my modus operandi when going to Canada, this entailed leaving very early in the morning. Why? Well, with no one else on the road, you can go faster. So I was picking Jen and Tina up at something like 6:00. When I got there, it turned out that Tina's then-fiance had stayed the night as well, and, since he had never been to Canada, wanted to go with us. This was fine with me - I know perfectly well that Jen can't read a map and that Tina is no better, so once I ascertained that Tom could indeed navigate, it was, as far as I was concerned, a Good Idea.

Lesson One: Never take diabetics to Canada on the spur of the moment.

So we're in Blaine, right on the border, before we remember one little detail: Tom is diabetic. Guess what we've got in the car? Syringes, insulin, and no sort of indication that this is, indeed, medication, and not say something like heroin. So we decide to conceal it. It wound up in a glove in the trunk of the car. I was praying that they wouldn't search the car, which - evidently since I owned this one - they didn't do. Although Tina did point out that, since non-diabetics would die if injected with insulin, if they found it, Tom would be more than happy to shoot up and demonstrate that it wasn't heroin.

Lesson Two: Never let the navigator sit in the backseat.

After we make it through the checkpoint, I start needing directions. There are two roads into Canada from Washington. One has a tunnel that goes under the Sound; the other apparently goes straight to the North Pole. Jen started in on wanting to have Tom see the tunnel, and Tom gets pretty excited and wants to see it. So, considering that Jen was in the seat next to me, I gave her the map.

Surprisingly enough, I didn't realize that anything was actually wrong with where we were going until we had noticeably started gaining elevation and the trees had started changing. For those who aren't familiar with Vancouver - and after reading my descriptions of it, I don't know why you'd want to be - Vancouver is located directly south of the mountain range that Whistler is part of, which is the very southernmost part of the Canadian Ice Shield. Douglas Coupland, in one of his books, has a really great image of crossing the Lion's Gate Bridge and being on the Ice Shield, which is pretty much true. If it wasn't for the fact that undoubtedly the river would change course or something, I'd love to go to the MacKenzie river wilderness, in the Yukon Territory.

Anyway, back in the story, we were climbing the Ice Shield. Jen's wonderful directions strike again. I can't quite remember how we got out of that - either we went west and took the Lion's Gate back into downtown, or we turned around. I suspect we turned around because I know we went to McDonald's for breakfast, and then went west.

I'm pretty sure we went to Chinatown then. We parked the car, which only entailed one minor scrape of the window, because evidently Canadians favor the narrowest parking spaces in the first world, by which I mean "the US and Canada."

Lesson Three: Canada is where you get geoducks. The ocean is merely a rumor.

Now, another picture of Tom that I don't have features him and a geoduck. So Jen and I were all hot to trot to show him a real live geoduck. Somehow, I have to go to Canada for all my penile bivalve needs. Then we wandered around for a while, again with comparatively tiny people speaking at comparatively high volumes. We bought some presents - the whole point of the trip, after all, was to buy presents, since at that point, the Canadian dollar was something like the Italian lira in American terms. That, and I like challenges.

So of course, after coming all this way, with only crackers and McDonald's to sustain us, we decided to get lunch. Actually, as I recall, we decided to find a large store. According to the map, there was a place out east that looked likely - since it was called the Staples Center. All I remember of that part is that we needed to follow the elevated tracks for the train system to get there, since, at that point, I wasn't letting Jen navigate.

Lesson Four: How to deal with Squeegee people.

So, as a consequence of this, we've managed to find every single side street located in Vancouver. When we found one that had a light on it, we were so impressed that we stopped for the light.

This turned out to be a mistake. While we were waiting for the light, some homeless guy with a squeegee came up and squeegeed the windshield. I didn't know what to do. I assumed I was supposed to pay him, but this wasn't a service I'd asked for. So Jen and I are sitting there going "Do I have to pay him now?" "I don't know!" "How much do I have to pay him?" "Hey, the light's changed! Drive!" We peeled out, more or less, stiffing the poor squeegee man who thought that we were competent.

That'll teach him not to mess with Americans.

Anyway, after a number of adventures dealing with the fact that apparently the Vancouver road system is under construction for your increased convenience, we decided to eat. The main reason we decided this was because we didn't have anything in the car that Tom could eat. That, and the line of cars blocking where we wanted to make a left turn was backed up to approximately Ontario. Fortunately, there was a restaurant on the right side of the street.

Lesson Five: Car Thieves Work Here

We pulled into the restaurant - Milestones - and had quite a good meal, even though all of us, and particularly Tom, were being smartasses to the waitress. Not that she seemed offended. Amused, rather.

When we left, we found out that, bravely, we had left the car all by itself, with only the company of other cars, in a parking lot where they actually had a sign saying "Car Thieves Work Here!" We thought about asking the waitress if she was a car thief when off-shift, but decided not to, mainly because at that point we were out on the street again and couldn't turn around. Instead, we continued our quest to find a mall.

I suspect that the map I was using to navigate was minted somewhere around 1906; at any rate, there aren't a lot of malls there. We found some very bizarre "mall" that we didn't like much, so we left. At that point, I took a left turn, to go north, and nearly drove off the road at the sheer view in front of me - and I mean sheer view. I like high mountains, but I also like them far enough away that I don't feel actively threatened by them.

Lesson Six: The phone book rarely lies.

This lesson is based on the fact that we used a phone book to find a larger mall. I think the only way to find a larger one than the Metrotown mall would have been to be at the Mall of The Americas. So of course we went, with complete disregard for our safety, and ignorant of the knowledge that apparently the people who built the mall really, really get off on Barney the dinosaur.

See, we're driving - by which I mean, I'm driving and everyone else is discussing Tom's cooking - down this diagonal street that, in the interest of safety, will remain known as "a diagonal street". We see what appears to be a sort of an open space ahead of us, and so I'm guessing that the structure on the north side of the street is the mall, with a parking lot across the street.

Wrong.

Across the street, on the south side, was the mall. As I recall, the exchange went something like "Is that the mall?" "Where?" "There, on the corner." "I can't tell; wait till the light changes." "I'm pretty sure that's the mall; we're close to the right...oh my god." "What? What?" "There's the mall." "Oh my god."

Now, bearing in mind that Jen used to live about two miles from the largest building in the world - namely the Everett Boeing plant, which looks like a perfectly normal bulding until you realize that a) those little tiny doors are for people, and b) by people, I don't mean the midgets that appear to work there - none of us are particularly floored by the size of buildings.

We were rendered speechless for a brief period of time, possibly two seconds, while the glory of the whole thing - very large and very, very purple - hit us.

Then we parked and went in.

Lesson Seven: Never let She-Who-Cannot-Navigate loose in a mall without a guide dog.

There was some extremely technical reason for why we decided to split up in groups of two - I think we only had two watches or something. So, since Tina wanted to get Tom's present there, Jen and Tina went one way and Tom and I went another.

This actually sounds a bit simpler than it really was. Jen and Tina walked off, and right about the time they'd disappeared, Tom and I had the same thought. Namely, we'd agreed to meet back at the place we were in an hour - and Oh my god, we've just sent the two who can't navigate off with each other!

We decided that we'd never see them again, and promptly walked away.

Now, I'm digging into the memory in the wayback of my mind here, so details are lacking, but we did find them - in fact, funnily enough, Tom and I were in the wrong place, by which I mean "Around one corner of an open shaft to the floor below, with a clear view of the place we'd planned to meet." Nonetheless, the wrong place, as both Jen and Tina were proud to point out.

At that point, Jen and I walked off, and Tina and Tom went another direction. After a number of excellent adventures, including getting outside the mall, thinking that it would be quicker than walking back through it (wrong) and finding presents, we met up again and left.

Lesson Eight: The Canadian Mounties now drive cars.

Quite frankly, I've blocked the memory of what we did next. We may have cruised back through Vancouver, going through Stanley Park and then up to North Vancouver, but that feels more like the next trip. I do recall that we wanted to be back at a reasonable hour, as we were supposed to game that night, so we may not have stayed much longer. At any rate, we were driving around in some part of Vancouver, when Tom saw a RCMP police car. He was not amused.

Tom objected, in fact, to the entire concept of calling them the Mounties if they were merely going to drive cars. I can't remember exactly what was said, but I do recall that after a while, someone spotted the little horse logo on the side of the car by the gas tank. This, however, was not good enough for Tom. He was Mightily Offended Man. He kept yelling about how the little horse wasn't good enough to justify calling them the Mounties.

I'm surprised none of us died of laughter.

In fact, we had to pull over and go to Safeway to get dinner, just so we didn't herniate ourselves. After doing that, we headed out of town, this time finding the tunnel. Tom was awake to appreciate this; Tina had racked out.

Lesson Nine: Don't let the person keeping you awake fall asleep.

See, at that point, what with all the excitement, we were exhausted. Jen was supposed to keep me awake, being that I was the only person who could drive the car and be insured, but she kept falling asleep. I don't know how we made it back to her house, much less stayed awake to game, but we did.