The news has become too overwhelming for me: Donald Trump will not stop saying we are nothing more than a vassal of America, while the Democratic opposition in the States would not stop being ineffective - while an election had been called for Canada. Given the informational overload, I decided to take a vacation last week.
My first stop was to meet up with my parents in Jasper - the way I got there was through Highway 24 through the Interlakes area, and then Highway 5 from Little Fort, stopping at Clearwater and Valemount for lunch and driving breaks. Throughout, it was a beautiful drive through the thick mountains and forests of the North Thompson. I got to Jasper in the afternoon.
The damage to Jasper is quite obvious - a lot of dead trees that were the result of a devastating wildfire that had made national headlines last year. But it was not just dead trees, we saw damaged and destroyed homes, gas stations and a church. There is recovery work going on, but it will be a long time before Jasper will be rebuilt - and even longer before the forest comes back to life. You may escape the news, but you still get reminders of it.
I then travelled to Edmonton - having gone through the Yellowhead area which Highway 16 had been named after - stopping in the towns of Hinton and Edson to have lunch and coffee respectively. Unlike British Columbia, there was nothing but forest and the closer you got to Edmonton, it transitioned from forest to farmland. I stayed at a hotel and checked out the West Edmonton Mall where I got a haircut.
Then I went to Calgary, passing through the well-populated Edmonton-Calgary corridor until I arrived at the city of my childhood. I didn’t exactly stay there for long, mostly attending to some chores. Then, I went on a trip on the beautiful Highway 1 corridor back. First, it was a stop at the beautiful mountains of Revelstoke and then a hotel stay in Salmon Arm, where as a child I had gone on vacations.
Now back in 100 Mile House, I return to news of the American-Canadian trade war, three East Asian countries putting aside their differences when it comes to Trump, Putin being Putin, and artificial intelligence somehow being able to replicate Studio Ghibli images, much to my disgust. The world does not change, even when you go on a vacation back to Alberta.
