Prompted by Kaymacs post in the where would you like to live thread.
It was I think about 1983 when I went to Vancover for a few months, I have relatives there and always wanted to visit the place. I met up with a guy and his wife, I forget their names now, but he asked me, "Would I help him move a snooker table to a hotel in Bannf"..Yeah why not I thought it would be fun.
Er No..we left Conquitlan where they lived one afternoon in his battered van with a extremely heavy
slate snooker table etc on board and headed off up norf!. All was going well until it got dark by the time we hit "Hells Gate" This is a road you would not want to be on in daylight let alone nightime...It has a cliff face to one side and a deep ravine the other with huge drops. We saw a few cars that had gone that way, very reassuring for me. It was dark now and snowing, the vans window wipers packed up and within 3 minutes the lights went off and we were stuggling to follow the tail lights of the guy in front of us, who obviously could see where he was going so started to pull away from us.
The van then just lost the plot in the snow and we had a choice of the ravine or the mountain side, we took the mountain option as the slate beds in the back kind of chose that for us....We crashed into it , luckily at no speed really as we had slowed to a crawl not being able to see anything.
They have break down trucks that patrol these kind of roads all the time, well after 3 hours one turned up, dug us out and towed us to the next garage which was about 20 miles away. It was now 4 in the morning and this make shift garage did not open until 7am. The owners lived on site, saw us pull up and ignored us... They were the original Beverley Hills gang, all odd looking and you wondered would they help you or shoot you first. We sat there awaiting there arrival for help and in the meantime saw about 30 tucks go past us loaded up for Bear hunting, ( I don't like that sort of thing but it is there way).
We eventually got the van sorted and delivered the snooker table. The only good thing I can say about that trip is I cut my Christmas tree down from the side of the road and took it back.. Another warning there though, never cut one down that is on the side of a hill that looks small , it wasnt.
I got home sick late December and decided I wanted to go back to the UK for Christmas...All flights were booked solid from Vancover so I found one going to the UK from Seattle, only thing was that year the UK passport office were on strike and I was visiting Canada on a yearly passport...
Normally the USA will not issue a Visa on one of those old yearly passports. I must of smiled at the right lady in the office as they stamped mine to get home.A long Greyhound bus trip and a flight, I arrived back Christmas eve lunchtime.
It was I think about 1983 when I went to Vancover for a few months, I have relatives there and always wanted to visit the place. I met up with a guy and his wife, I forget their names now, but he asked me, "Would I help him move a snooker table to a hotel in Bannf"..Yeah why not I thought it would be fun.
Er No..we left Conquitlan where they lived one afternoon in his battered van with a extremely heavy
slate snooker table etc on board and headed off up norf!. All was going well until it got dark by the time we hit "Hells Gate" This is a road you would not want to be on in daylight let alone nightime...It has a cliff face to one side and a deep ravine the other with huge drops. We saw a few cars that had gone that way, very reassuring for me. It was dark now and snowing, the vans window wipers packed up and within 3 minutes the lights went off and we were stuggling to follow the tail lights of the guy in front of us, who obviously could see where he was going so started to pull away from us.
The van then just lost the plot in the snow and we had a choice of the ravine or the mountain side, we took the mountain option as the slate beds in the back kind of chose that for us....We crashed into it , luckily at no speed really as we had slowed to a crawl not being able to see anything.
They have break down trucks that patrol these kind of roads all the time, well after 3 hours one turned up, dug us out and towed us to the next garage which was about 20 miles away. It was now 4 in the morning and this make shift garage did not open until 7am. The owners lived on site, saw us pull up and ignored us... They were the original Beverley Hills gang, all odd looking and you wondered would they help you or shoot you first. We sat there awaiting there arrival for help and in the meantime saw about 30 tucks go past us loaded up for Bear hunting, ( I don't like that sort of thing but it is there way).
We eventually got the van sorted and delivered the snooker table. The only good thing I can say about that trip is I cut my Christmas tree down from the side of the road and took it back.. Another warning there though, never cut one down that is on the side of a hill that looks small , it wasnt.
I got home sick late December and decided I wanted to go back to the UK for Christmas...All flights were booked solid from Vancover so I found one going to the UK from Seattle, only thing was that year the UK passport office were on strike and I was visiting Canada on a yearly passport...
Normally the USA will not issue a Visa on one of those old yearly passports. I must of smiled at the right lady in the office as they stamped mine to get home.A long Greyhound bus trip and a flight, I arrived back Christmas eve lunchtime.