Mexico… Again!?

¡Hola, amigos! I'm guessing you know I'm back in Mexico from the title. And it's all Diane's fault... She suggested that we come along, so how could we say no? But regarding the again, I know, I know, I haven't written about my previous trips yet, but please bear with me. I'll get there.

Let me start with the flight down... Kudos to Deedee for finding a flight the travel agent couldn't. Namely a nonstop from Vancouver to Cancun. For a switch, I had the window seat. Most of the flight, I was looking at clouds, but there was kind of a cool stretch over Colorado where I was looking down at an open pit mine. Couldn't see much going on, since we were 7 miles and change up, but it was still kind of neat to see:

The flight was a little bumpy, in spots, with even the flight attendants getting caught unaware at one point. But even so, they remained totally professional and maintained their cool in spite of the 11 infants on board our plane.  Honestly, the kids were all pretty well behaved.

At any rate, we landed at just a bit after 6pm local, and our instructions from Diane (my cousin, more or less... She's family, so I don't worry about how,) said to head out of the airport and turn right once outside. Well... I'm not going to pick on my wife, but we eventually get over in the direction we need to go in.  Lesson learned... Set up transportation before we leave.  So we end up in a collectivo, or multi-person taxi at a ridiculous cost, but this will land us at the doorstep of our hotel, rather than the bus station in Playa Del Carmen. So, fine.  Except the driver can't read the address, since the interior lights don't work, and he's not familiar with that part of Playa. Hmmm.

The hotel we first stayed in was alright, clean, quiet, close to amenities downtown. It's called the Hotel Plaza Playa. Item number one on our list of things to do was feed ourselves. Here's where my experience in Tijuana came in handy. No, I don't have any pictures, but I'm not flashing an iPhone at night on a busy street, nor am I packing my big camera. Just good sense, there. We quickly found a little corner restaurant, and ordered 2x enchilada especiales. They were pretty good... Better than what passes for Mexican food up in our neck of the woods. Poor Deedee found the salsa a lot spicier than she expected, though.  We also found a market where we got juice, water, and fruit. Good enough for one night.  That was probably the highlight, however... The bed was so tiny, I was forced to sleep on the couch, which DID convert to a bed. And hard? Holy crap!!

The next day, we had breakfast.  I had breakfast tacos... And I'm once again reminded that I've never seen hard tacos anywhere in Mexico. So I have to wonder where the taco companies come up with their hard taco shells... Next, hire a cab. It wasn't a long distance to the condo where we would be spending the rest of our trip, but plenty long with baggage. We get to Natz Ti Ha (Mayan for by the sea,) and the room isn't ready. Okay, fine, it's early. Can we leave our bags somewhere? Done. Down to the pool for the next 3 hours.

 Oh yeah... The beach here has taken a beating, and I'm assuming the tide was in, since there wasn't much beach to be had at all. So, pool it was. At least for now. After we were able to get into our room, we changed and headed up to La Quinta Avenida, or Fifth Avenue.

Foot traffic only, and basically your typical market street. Don't give too much heed to the hawkers, and do your own thing, and you'll have no problem. This is one of the few places that almost prefers pesos to US Dollars. Kind of nice. Following that, it was off to La Mega, which is a chain department store, somewhat like Walmart. We grabbed a few things, some essential, some not so much, and walked out 1800 pesos poorer. But that included enough booze to last quite a while.

I guess it's time to think about going to find some grub, again... At 8:30pm :)  I'll leave you with the view from one of our balconies to think on....

Go North, Young Man!

Last year, Dyno Nobel asked me if I would be interested in going to work in the Seismic field when things slowed down. It would be on a three weeks in, one week out basis, working six days a week with the seventh being an on-call reset day for my logbook. (As truckers, we're only allowed to work so many hours a week.  Dyno's system has us doing a maximum of 70 hours.)  Me being me, I naturally said "Yes."  And so began a whole new education.

 

We started in November of 2013 with me flying to Calgary.  From there, I would proceed to Rockyford, AB, to pick up the truck and drive it up to Fort Nelson, BC.  Our Operations Manager, Kevin, would run ahead of me in a company pickup that would be left there for our use.  When I arrived in Calgary, they had just had a blizzard pass through, bringing high winds, and a big temperature crash.  It had dropped roughly 15 degrees and was suddenly -10 or so, instead of +5C. After spending the night in Stettler, Kevin and I proceeded to Rockyford, finished loading the last minute items into the truck, and left on our way to Fort Nelson.  Well... talk about nasty roads.  Admittedly, I've driven on worse, but there was no way I was going to make highway speed on that polished ice.  I didn't quite need to chain up, but I certainly needed to think ahead of what I was doing.  It took us 4 or 5 hours just to get to Whitecourt, where there are government scales, but I wound up being passed right on through as all the MOT workers were more than tied up with other trucks.  We made it as far as Fort St. John that night before I ran out of hours.

 

Alaska Highway

 

The next day we continued to Fort Nelson, on vastly improved roads. The Alaska Highway is maintained to a very high standard, and honestly, at -20C, even ice is like driving on blacktop.  I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures while I was going up, but so much of that drive was so boring, I was just glad to get it over with.  Especially since that truck cramped me up terribly. An interesting thing about the Alaska Highway is that when you're approaching Chain Up areas, they have lights that the Highways crews will switch on when it's mandatory to do so.  The worst spot was what's called Sikanee Chief.  It's a steep, twisty little sonofagun that drops down into the Sikanee River Canyon.  You stop at the Brake Check, make sure you're good to go, and then take your time heading down, and walk on it to head up the other side.  I was lucky... I never had to chain up.  Kevin and I spent the rest of the week in Fort Nelson, preparing the site and the apartment/office that Dyno had rented for the other driver and myself.  After the week, I drove the company pickup down and waited for the call to say it was time to go to work.

 

Alaska Highway west of Fort Nelson.  Yes, it's icy, but very driveable.
 

That came at the very end of November, telling me to be there for December 2.  I left Terrace on the first, heading for Dawson Creek.  Note to self, and you, Good Reader, don't drive the Pine Pass at night if you have any choice in the matter.  The snowstorms through there can be nasty.  At any rate, I made it to Dawson Creek, and carried on the next day.  The other driver arrived two or three days after I did... Phil was his name.  Good guy.  Different, but good.  The first two weeks, we didn't really do a whole lot except detail work, but it kept us busy.  Then, when the job actually did get started, it was a little rocky at first due to the weather not being quite cold enough.  But we got them going, and then they decided they were going to shut down for a week over Christmas, so we had to turn around and clean their storage out.  Very well and good.  Just in time for me to fly home, anyway, for my first turnaround.  I'll tell you... when you don't see the family for three weeks at a time, you want to spend your time with them when you can.  I'll also tell you... the Fort Nelson airport is unlike any other airport I've ever been in.  Security?  Not there.  We stopped and grabbed coffee on the way to the airport, and I got on the plane drinking the same cup of coffee!  It did, however, land in Dawson Creek, where we had to disembark, claim our luggage, and go through security there.

 

That's where the next 'adventure' began... We got into Vancouver okay, although a little behind schedule.  That was no big deal, because I didn't have to fly again for 5 or 6 hours, and on a different airline.  If everything went right from there on, I'd have been home by 11:30 or so.  Except, this was December 22.  The busiest day in the world for flying.  Due to all the delays, my flight didn't leave Vancouver until 2:00am.  That put us at the Terrace airport at roughly 4.  Fortunately, I had a friend on the flight who offered to give me a ride home.  Thank you, Ian.

 

Anyway... I got word that I had to be back in Fort Nelson for New Year's Day.  So I spent December 31 flying back up there.  January 1, 2014, Phil tells me in the morning to grab my trunks and towel, and off we went to Liard Hotsprings.  So off we go, four hours to the west, to soak up some of the nicest natural hot water I've ever been in.  Along the way we saw moose, bison, and MORE moose on the return trip.  That's a pile of swamp donkeys up there, I'll tell you.

Bison

Liard Hotsprings

Phil

Frost covered tree from condensation and freezing

 

 



Another thing about Fort Nelson... I got to spend some time working on night photography.  I would go out to a place called Steamboat Mountain, and it was so dark, and the air so clean, that I could easily come up with this:

Shot from Steamboat Mountain

Shot from the Brake Check on Steamboat Mountain

Shot from viewpoint on Steamboat Mountain.  Click for larger view.

And then, the Northern Lights.  Mister man, I haven't seen Northern Lights like I did up there in a long, long time.  I keep hoping to, though.  Eventually we'll get a clear night... won't we??  Anyway... here's a few of my shots from while I was there.

Looking north from the Alaska Highway, just west of Fort Nelson

Shot from Parker Lake Aerodrome, just west of Fort Nelson

 

The Milky Way from Parker Lake, just out of Fort Nelson

Star Trails from Steamboat
 

The Church at Old Fort Nelson.

The Wolfe on the Road

Well, I suppose I should actually dust this thing off and write in it instead of just thinking about it. I was looking back at some of my older posts, and realized that in some respects, I've come full circle in my life. And it makes me wonder how often it will happen again.  You see, when I was younger, 19 and 20, as a matter of fact, I was learning to drive truck. I started with a fella named Charlie, and he and I covered quite a chunk of territory around here with an old dog-logger (a type of log trailer.). Then I started running in the low-bed with a fella named Vern. Nice fella... Loved his coffee and his cigarettes. Both of these guys taught me that nearly anyone can learn to drive a truck... But it takes someone with something between their ears to do it safely.

So how do I say I've come full circle?  Well... Now I'm trucking. And yeah, that's my ride up there. My cargo is a bit more exciting than logs, though... it's explosives.  Find out more about where I work here. Now, don't get excited... as long as I keep following the rules, it's actually quite safe.  And I like to make it home at the end of my trip. And the interesting thing is that I'm going up into some of the same places I went with Charlie and Vern. And where I went when I was with Rona, when I wrote about going over the mountain.



At 6km on the Bob Quinn Trail.

Yeah... I get PAID to see scenery like that.  In fact, I'll post a few more pictures showing you my office when I'm on the road...

Up the North Kitimat FSR

 

 

There's some steep terrain getting up here, and more bears than I've seen in years.  It's common practice to announce on the road channel where you see bears so that workers can be aware.  There's lots of activity performed by solo workers on ATVs or UTVs.  Just a fact of life up there.

 



 





Near the back end of the Clore FSR

 

 

Next year, if I'm up in there again, I'll make a point of stopping and snagging a few other pictures.  The scenery is simply amazing. There's a couple of steep hills, and one of them is actually a sonofagun to go up when you're loaded.  I've only ever encountered one other hill worse... but we don't have to deal with that one anymore.

 

39km on the Kwinithal FSR, going towards Kitsault

 







39km on the Kwinithal FSR, going towards Kitsault.

Getting jealous yet?  This is what the job is like in the spring and summer...  But don't get fooled.  These roads can get you killed, if you drive too fast.  Or if you don't call on your radio like you're supposed to.  Yes, these are all radio-controlled roads.  Public access, which means anybody can get on them with or without a radio, so you have to travel these roads expecting to encounter somebody without a radio at any time.  Of course, you announce their presence and direction of travel to everybody else, so others know what to expect.  But nonetheless, it's beautiful, and the scenery is some sort of fantastic.  Yeah, I get paid to see that.  But I also get paid for this:

 

Going up the Kwinithal in the first snowfall of the year.

Yeah, you gotta take the bad with the good.  This is the SAME ROAD as in the last picture, but lower down on the mountain, and later in the year.  It's the first snowfall of the year up there, and I think this started somewhere around the 1000 foot mark in terms of elevation.  This is about 8 inches of snow on the ground, and the grader hasn't made it out yet.  How do you drive in this?  Simple... chain up.  Lots of truckers whine and snivel about chaining up, but to me, it's just a fact of life.  And there's worse things than chaining up... like sliding off the road. In all honesty, I made the trip with one set of triples (which goes over two tires at a time,) and a single chain on the steering axle, which I might have gotten away without.  But when you're hauling powder, why take the chance?

10km on the Brucejack Trail, heading down.

This road can be a bastard and bite you in the ass if you're not paying attention.  During the winter, you stay in the centre of the road, and don't even think about trying to make time until you get to 37km.  Going up, you start off with a 14% grade that you can't get a run at, so you make sure you're in the right gear to start with.  And you go up from around 500 feet altitude to over 3200 feet altitude in under 6 miles, or 10km.  Yeah... it's steep.  And then you start to drop down when you hit roughly 17 or 18km, with a lot of little ups and downs, and a few semi-flat spots, and some wild switchbacks to bite you hard if you don't know what you're doing.  This goes on until 36km, where it flattens out, but then you have avalanche zones to drive through.  Fortunately, the avalanche technicians are always paying attention, assessing and performing avalanche control.

Kinda makes "Ice Road Truckers" look like a bunch of candy-asses, doesn't it?  Don't get me wrong... I know damned well I'm going to get a lesson every day on driving.  Every day is different.  But I really do enjoy my job, snow and ice or no.  On that note, I'll leave you off with a picture I took while I worked last winter in Fort Nelson for Dyno.  That will be my next entry :)



 

Looking north from the Alaska Highway just west of Fort Nelson