The Survivalists arrived in Manley Hot Springs Alaska five days after setting off from here. The website says that half the fun of Manley is getting there.
Their half of the fun went like this: from the ferry straight to Costco for a cooler, folding stove and more food to add to the supplies already loaded on the pick up. That evening they got as far as Hope, BC where they stopped for the night, having first negotiated Daisy’s (that’s Fluffy’s fiance) room rate. The hotel proprietor, a young man in Sikh dress with a white turban and elaborately curled moustaches said the dog charge was $10. An elderly man, also seeking a room, butted in that he had a dog too. “It’s a little dog; it don’t amount to anything and I ain’t going to pay.” An argument ensued with the old man repeating that his dog was too little to be charged and the proprietor insisting that all dogs paid $10. The old man started to walk out and the young man began to waver, and then my mother piped in that if he didn’t have to pay for his Pomeranian she wasn’t going to pay for her Toy Poodle.
The proprietor stepped good-naturedly from behind his desk and, barefooted, said he would go out and see these tiny dogs. After inspection a $5 charge was agreed in both cases, although the Pomeranian, wearing a red sweater, was smaller, as well as more fashionably dressed.
The second day they drove along the Fraser River to Cache Creek and along the Yellowhead Highway to Vanderhoof. The following morning, as they started up the Cassiar Highway, it felt to them as if they were entering the wilderness at last.
They stopped at Dease Lake on the Cassiar and, with almost everything still shut for the winter season they set about doing some illicit motel cooking. When they had set up their little folding stove they realised they had no matches. The only store had closed up early and a truck driver smoking a cigarette outside only had a lighter that he wasn’t parting with. They drove about town looking for some place open and came upon a restaurant with lights on in the back, where the cook was closing up. He gave them a disposable lighter cheerfully adding that it was guaranteed for 1000 lights and he thought he had probably only lit it 999 times.
My mother’s messages are often foody, and this one made me hungry. Here’s how their day finished:
We got the stove lit. I put the carrots in the frying pan with a bit of water and some butter and salt and partially cooked them. I boiled the rice, and when the carrots were partially cooked I poured the carrot-butter water into the rice. Then I coated the chicken breasts with Italian flavored breadcrumbs and browned them in the pan with the carrots and some garlic, olive oil and butter. We sipped wine, it smelled lovely, and we began to feel competent once more. I made a little salad. After a while we had dinner, and while I washed up in the bathroom basin with motel face soap Jerry put the stuff away and closed up the stove. While doing that he discovered that it had a lighter switch.
Which is all very well, but while they are in Manley I think they are going to have to brush up their survivalist technique.
