Home from the Holidays

Vacations are always a welcome event. We spend hours at work thinking about our vacation time. What will we do? Who will we see? What will it cost?
Our vacation time never seems long enough and we dread going back to work when it is over. Although I dread going back to work my vacations can be just as tiring as sitting on my grader at work for 12 hours a day.
Living in Fort McMurray has many challenges and most of the challenges can be boiled down to one thing; location, location, location.
We live on the island of Fort McMurray and are surrounded by kilometres of tree. I use the term kilometres instead of miles because...well I am a Canadian.
The nearest city is Edmonton which is 378 kilometres away. If you drive the speed limit, which few do, then it should take you around 4 hours if you factor in a potty break here and there. So, we really don't travel that much and when we do, we try to see as many relatives as we can since we have no relatives in Fort McMurray. (The bad thing about living in Fort McMurray is you live a long way from your family, the good thing about living in Fort McMurray is you live a long way from your family.)
So with 14 days of vacation we set out in our minivan to see as many family members as possible.
Now I sit here, alone at home in Fort McMurray (the other three members of my family are still visiting) having traveled over 2,000 kilometers. And yes I am counting the days till my next vacation.
We drove from Fort McMurray to Edmonton, Edmonton to Dodsland, Sask, Dodsland to Calgary, Calgary to Banff, Banff to Brooks and then Brooks to Fort McMurray.
I have to admit that I didn't drive the whole way, I took the bus from Brooks to Edmonton before catching a ride with a friend from Edmonton back to Fort McMurray. My two kids are still at camp near Brooks so my wife kept the van and is still visiting her parents.
The bus ride was interesting to say the least. At the time I did not know I would have a ride from Edmonton so I planned to take the bus from Brooks to Fort McMurray with stops in Calgary and Edmonton and every little town between, which has a small gas station and great need to have parcels delivered by Greyhound.
The bus left Brooks at 3:15 a.m.. Take special note of the a.m. part. There was a bus leaving from Brooks in the morning but I would not get all the way to Fort McMurray on the same day if I took it. So my wonderful wife drove me to the bus depot at 2:30 a.m. When the bus showed up at 3:30 a.m. we said a brief goodbye and she hightailed it to the van and back to her parents house for some sleep.
Sleep is not something either of us had had that night. We both tried to sleep before my bus would leave but we both were afraid we would sleep in and I would miss the bus. I mean really, who would sleep past an alarm that goes off at 2:30 in the morning? How can anyone feel the need to sleep at that hour of the day?
So I handed my ticket to bus driver and after examining him to see if he was as sleepy as I was I boarded the bus. As I ascended the stairs and turned the corner I was met with an interesting image. I am exaggerating of course but my eyes were met with a mass of humanity all trying, with various states of success, to sleep. It appeared that the bus could not have been more full. It was tough to tell just how full it was since the lights were dimmed, so finding a seat would be a challenge. It would not be the only challenge.
As I walked down the isle, straining my eyes for some spot to plunk down my massive backside, it became clear that those who had empty seats beside them were not real interested in having someone occupy them.
Now, when conditions are perfect, there is an art to selecting a seat. I am not a small person, in fact you could say I am as large horizontally as I am vertically. In other words I am as wide as I am tall. Yep...I have a little extra weight. So I usually look for someone who is somewhat slender so I can make use of any extra space they may have on their seat. Waste not, want not...that sort of thing. I have made use of public transit in the past and I have used this method of selecting a seat several times. You should see the look of horror and puzzlement as sit next to slender young ladies on public transit. They know my plan and they are not on board with idea but when my butt starts its descent there really isn't much that can be done to reverse the process. I believe there is a formula for that in physics: mass times force times velocity...or something like that.
The skinny guys don't like it much either but they just look annoyed at me, they don't have the look of horror that women have.
So I was attempting to look for such a place but it soon became apparent that just finding a seat would be a greater challenge. The farther I waded into the dark mass of people snoring, mumbling and drooling the more I paniced. I ended up just sitting in the first seat I could find. For some reason I wanted to sit down as fast as possible, nobody likes to be the object of attention on a bus, but the person in front of me had her seat as far back as possible.
Like a skilled contortionist I was able to suck in my large stomach while at the same time sticking out my expansive back side with the hopes of oozing into my seat.
But I wasn't able to ooze, in fact, I think I kind of bounced into my seat. I bounce off the back of the seat in front of me then bounced off the arm rest as a aggressively swung my legs out of the isle and into a sitting position.
When I landed I could feel the sway of the bus. I wish I had landed on my seat but that would have been way to fortuitous. My left thigh did find the seat, after hitting the arm rest, but my right thigh landed on the left thigh of the lady sleeping beside me. She was sound asleep and was not expecting company. Like many people who are tired and have access to two seats she was making good use of both. I didn't realize this. Remember it was dark. I was shocked to be sitting beside her and well...on her but I was more surprised that she wasn't moving. She was still asleep.
Eventually she woke up enough to move a little so that we were not overlapping as we traveled down the highway.
Off we went, side by side, down the road to Calgary for the next two to three hours. After some maneuvering we managed to separate our parts but we were still significantly closer than either of us desired to be.
It was at this point I was reminded of play doe. Have you ever take a chunk of blue play doe and stuck it together with a chunk of red play doe? Then you squish these two chunks together and try to separate them? It is tough to separate them and make no mistake my play doe chunk was squished against her play doe chunk.
Much of me was blocking the isle and I was tilted to the right at what felt like a 45 degree angle. Its funny, our thighs were pressed together but for some reason I felt having our shoulders together would be too much.
My breathing was shallow since I had my bag wedged between my chest and the reclining seat in front of me. Eventually I turned my head to have a closer look at my surroundings. Across the isles from me was a little old man. I hadn't noticed him before since the seats are somewhat staggered, so he wasn't directly across from me. I realized from his vantage point he was able to watch the whole thing but his reaction was a little unnerving.
He was't laughing or cringing, he was just staring at me. He had no expression whatsoever. But if I could read his thoughts I believe he was thinking, "Did that just happen?"
But the story does have a happy ending. The lady beside me wasn't as large as me, it just felt that way. She was traveling from Regina to Vancouver so she had a lot of traveling ahead of her as well. She was polite and we chatted for a bit before we both fell asleep wedged together in a Greyhound bus. She understood the bus was full and I had to sit somewhere and we both made the best of it.
I hope she had a good trip the rest of the way. As for me, I have found the motivation needed to loose some weight before I have to use public transportation again.
All in all it was a good vacation and I made good use of the time off. I wish everyone this summer safe travel on their vacations.

From Dean's Pen has been launched

Hello Everyone,

Since my days as a newspaper reporter and editor, I have missed writing columns. I'm not sure if anyone else has missed them as much as I but if I am the only one who reads them then this has become a therapeutic exercise which does have merit. Although I do need therapy I hope that the few who read my words will enjoy them and take something useful with them.
My published columns were never deep or controversial. They were just my thoughts on my everyday life which sometimes struck a chord with readers.
I plan to post once a week and since I have created this site on a Wednesday, I will attempt to post a new column every week at this time. So, farewell for now...I have some writing to do.