Somewhere over the ......

• When I was driving the 80+ km from Lipton to the Regina airport, the sky was pretty much clear; a few fluffy clouds contrasting against the blue of the wide-open prairie sky. I was inside the airport for over an hour before my flight with my nose in a tabloid magazine so I didn’t notice how drastically the sky had changed.

• The plane taxied down the runway and as it turned for take-off, I could see that menacing, black clouds had moved in over the centre of Regina city about 3 km away. As we raced along the runway toward lift off, suddenly there was stroke after stroke of lightening. Yikes, I thought – I can’t believe they let us take off!

• Before we were even off the ground, the captain issued his stern warning for everyone to stay seated and belted for the bumpy ride to 40,000 feet. In the blink of an eye, the patchwork of the prairies disappeared below me and I could visualize the Wicked Witch of the West cruising on her broomstick alongside the plane.

• Two hours later we descended into Calgary where all other incoming flights from the east, as well as those eastbound were “delayed due to weather.” It must have been quite a storm. Apparently Regina got a huge dump of quarter-sized hail.

• After several hours wandering the Calgary airport, I happily fired off a text message telling my kids that, after some crazy travel adventures, I was finally boarding the plane, planning a snooze and looking forward to touchdown in Victoria 90 minutes later.

• Not so fast!

• I was no sooner buckled into the seat when the pilot announced that “due to the need to record some maintenance, the flight would be delayed about 10 minutes.” He said he had instructed the crew to turn on the television system and distribute the head-sets. I turned to the guy next to me and said, “that doesn’t sound like a 10 minute delay ….it sounds much longer to me.”

• Sure enough, after 20 minutes the captain came on again to share the news that during the routine checks, one of the maintenance crew noticed “a dent in the tail” that had to be checked out because “if the skin of the aircraft is compromised or if the dent is above a certain size the plane automatically has to go out of service.” Ladders were put up against the plane and the maintenance guys climbed up to check the skin and measure the dent.

• As far as I was concerned, if you have to measure it - it’s too big!

• To be honest, I was hoping they would just take us off the plane. I really wasn’t sure if I had any travel luck left. When they decided the plane could go anyway, that made me nervous since once you’re in the air, there is only one route back to the ground if the tail suddenly falls off. Every time the plane gave a little shudder I half expected it to go into a nosedive.
  

• Happy was I was to set my little feet onto the ground in Victoria! I took a bunch of pictures from the plane I think are actually quite lovely, as well as a photo of the dented tail. Paint, it would seem, is not part of an aircraft's skin. Or, perhaps we just "took another bird" on the descent into Victoria.
  

• The adventures of travellingsmurph are not yet done. Stay tuned for more…..

Little Town on the Prairie

• When the Greyhound bus finally slithered into Regina, Saskatchewan, I happily claimed my suitcase, slammed it into the trunk of a rental car and made good a northeast getaway toward the Village of Lipton.

• The highways aren’t the greatest in the world and some other drivers seemed clearly annoyed by my “speed-limit-minus-one” driving policy. I, however, was completely mellowed by blissful solitude and the sight of flatlands to the left, flatlands to the right and a blazing crimson orb sinking slowly toward the horizon. With the smattering of clouds and the big sky backlit in shades pink, yellow, blue, orange, red and mauve, it was a postcard-perfect prairie sunset.

• I went to Lipton to visit my friend Helen who, as a young bride established a home on the range with her husband Charlie. During a rare vacation from their 40+ years of ranching, our paths cross in Mexico and, as kindred spirits are wont to do, Helen and I have now been visiting back and forth for more than 17 years.

• Established in 1904 and named for Sir Thomas Lipton, the tea guy, the founding fathers of Lipton were clearly big dreamers. Main Street is 6 lanes wide, flanked and intersected by streets with names like “Patrick”, “Shamrock”, “Erin” and “Watson”. Although the Irish influence has dissipated and the best dinners – to my delight - are more likely to feature perogies and kielbasa than corned beef and cabbage, the town is still pretty much contained within the original 3-street x 7-street framework. Along the perimeter, the folks in the modern houses on one side of the street look across at open farmland as far as the eye can see.

• Built on the CPR main railway line to provide services and supplies to wheat farmers and cattle ranchers, Lipton’s population maxed at 500-ish. In its heyday, the village featured a peak-roofed, red-brick train station and red-brick bank building with upstairs manager's quarters that were once standard architecture for small towns. Four towering grain elevators signaled the town’s whereabouts from a considerable distance and clustered about the T-intersection of Main and Railway Streets were a farm implement dealership, car dealership, bakery, and 7 churches plus a synagogue; all of which can now only be seen in old photographs. Even the presence of the railway is now evidenced only by the sandy-trailed rise where once lay the train tracks. I’m quite certain I may have further irritated local drivers by coming to a full stop before crossing.

• Although new millennium Liptonites would likely engage in considerable debate about the town’s actual population (so-and-so had a baby, or so-and-so-died, or there’s new folks on Main Street) I would peg it at 300-ish.
  

• Clearly built-to-last and possibly teetering back from the brink of a ghost town destiny, Lipton now attracts people looking to retire or raise their children in a small town. The remaining amenities include the regional elementary/high school, micro-sized library and post office, a two-stall fire station, curling rink and bowling alley, a town hall AND legion hall for somber or social events, co-op store, café, and a tiny hotel with bar and four slot machines where I once won $250. Every night at 9 pm sharp, the town's siren lets out a long slow blast which, once-upon-a-time, meant curfew for anyone under 16 years old.
  

• Notwithstanding the options, the true hub of local activity is “the Dial” – a 19-seater café/movie rental store that hosts the only lottery ticket outlet for many, many miles around. By tradition, Helen and I feasted on grilled cheese sandwiches and Cokes at the Dial and stopped there daily to catch upon the local news and pick up a fresh supply of scratch’n’win Bingo tickets. The Dial is a bit like “Cheers” – the place where everybody knows your name and - after 17 years of visiting, even the townspeople who don’t know my name are quick with a friendly wave and conversation.

Welcome Aboard Bus 1227

• Many friends feigned horror and mocked my decision to ride the Greyhound bus between Winnipeg and Regina. On that route last summer a crazed man stabbed, beheaded and cannibalized a fellow passenger. Recently back in the headlines as the crazed man was declared still-crazy, the horrible incident was understandably at the forefront of many people’s minds. However, having already had my “bad bus experience” back in California when the lady next to me had a cardiac arrest, I figured I had a better chance of winning the lottery than having another bad-bus experience. Just shows you how wrong and unlucky a person can be!

• The guy was on the bus when I boarded Greyhound bus 1227; seat #4 in the front row, beside the window and across the aisle from the driver. A woman was with him and they were using sign language. Then she got off the bus. I sat immediately behind #4. An unsuspecting passenger got on the bus and innocently sat in seat #3.

• The bus eased out onto Winnipeg’s westbound Portage Avenue, the main drag that runs flat and straight with barely a curve in the 1,200 km road between The ‘Peg and Calgary.

• Within blocks, the driver announced a side trip to the airport to pick up more passengers. I think that’s when the guy in seat #4 started acting crazy; ugly grunting noises, rocking back-and-forth and up-and-down in his seat, and slapping his own face. Slap! Slap! Slap! One side and then the other, each slap violently harder and shockingly louder.

• Glancing at the commotion over his shoulder, the driver called out for the guy to sit down. Although they were strangers, seat #3 had figured out that, in addition to being incredibly enraged and acting crazy, seat #4 was deaf and mute. He tried conveying the “sit down” message with gestures.

• In a nanosecond, I decided I would get off the bus at the airport if the crazy guy remained on board. (With hindsight, I know it sounds cruel to refer to the guy as “crazy” but, in the heat of the situation, with just-refreshed memories of what-can-happen, the word “crazy” is actually quite minimalist.)

• Things escalated quickly. Pulling a notebook and pencil from his pocket, crazy guy wrote the word “Brandon” and kept jabbing his finger at the page. Although seat #3 wrote that he was trying to help, crazy guy’s anger just got even worse. His face, already scarlet-cheeked from the self-slapping, reddened all over as the veins popped out on his forehead. Standing up and struggling to get past seat #3, the grunting became a howling sound. He started lunging forcefully toward the driver, restrained only by seat #3.

• I’ll be honest - I was really, really, really scared and felt like I would cry. It seemed so unreal. Could this really be happening? I had already ducked across the aisle, lest crazy guy turn and punch me in the face. Other passengers had also moved further away. I pulled out my cell phone, ready to dial 911. Later, other passengers told me they were ready to do the same thing as they considered jumping out the bus windows because crazy guy was between them and the door. I could hear the driver on the phone with the depot saying that he had a “situation with a passenger and was turning back”.

• By then crazy guy was pushing even harder to get out of his seat and get at the driver. The guy in seat #3 held crazy guy back and said really loudly, “I might have to hit this man to protect myself or the driver or other passengers. I need people to witness that if I hit him I’m doing it in self defence or to protect someone else.”

• The bus pulled into the terminal. I don’t even remember how it got there. I was just too focused on what was happening before my very eyes and too darn scared. When the door swung open two burly security guards got on board. Crazy guy clearly did not want to get off the bus. When he was finally removed there was further commotion on the platform. The bus driver calmly re-boarded the bus, shut the door and with a bus full of traumatized passengers, once again headed westbound on Portage Avenue.

• There was a 10-minute stop at Portage la Prairie. Everyone got off the bus and everyone was still quite upset, including me. It was a very troublesome event. I think the reason people held off dialing 911 was because the situation was just so unbelievable and everyone was just hoping it would stop and everyone could picture what might happen if crazy guy jumped on the driver or if the police came. It was easy to picture a very, very bad ending; possibly with crazy guy being shot dead right before our very eyes.

• The amazingly calm hero/bus driver asked seat #3 and me to write reports at Brandon to put in his “daily report envelope”. He said we can expect Greyhound to contact us because they are sure to do an investigation. I hope they do. In any event I am going to write and compliment the heroic driver on handling the situation so well by diffusing an event that could have got Greyhound a world of publicity so bad that they wouldn’t be able to give-away their bus tickets.

• After Brandon, I sat with the guy from seat #3 until he got off in Moosomin, Saskatchewan. Equal to the driver in heroism, he was not afraid to take action to protect himself, the driver and everyone else. I don’t even like to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t restrained crazy guy from leaping onto the driver. I thanked him repeatedly.

• Although crazy guy scared me so badly and was so threatening and violent, I felt compassion for him because he couldn’t communicate and seemed so freaked out. My guess is that, despite his “special needs”, he had probably travelled solo on the bus between Winnipeg and Brandon before but had never been on a bus that deviated from the straight-arrow Portage Avenue route. What must he have thought was happening? I’ve gone over and over this event in my mind and although I feel incredibly sorry for him (presuming my assessment of the situation is accurate), it doesn’t change the fact that he went into a rage, terrorized people and could have hurt or caused them to be injured (or worse) and he could have been shot dead.

• Although the situation ended peacefully, I think everyone was pretty traumatized and I know my will remember my fear for a long time to come.

From This Valley They Say I Am Going

• This morning I will once again board a Greyhound Bus, once again be on the road and once again leave Winnipeg behind. It is more than 16 years since I crammed my most precious possessions into my Honda Civic, watched the city shrink behind me in the rearview mirror and, with a huge smile on my face, drove west toward my unknown destiny in Victoria.
  


• During this past month, I've spent a lot of time driving around the city, visiting with family and old friends, and thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking; a lot about the past (what would my life be like if I had stayed in Winnpeg?) and even more about the future (which once again seems certain only in terms of the magnitude of change ahead). One thing for sure: I have no regrets about leaving this old town and only excitement about what is yet to come.

• The side photo is the Girls from St. Mary's; high school friends with whom I meet for dinner when back in town. They are beautiful, successful women. Although our lives were once so much the same, so much has changed and continues to change for all of us. Whereas we once would have dedicated an entire evening to talking and giggling about cute guys, we now talk about children and grandchildren. Ok, ok, I admit it - we did talk about guys too; though perhaps a little lighter on the giggling.

• Back in the 80s when I decided to learn to paint watercolour, I joined an art class at a local high school and found incredible friendship in the form of Lorna, Don and Sandy, all artists whose talent far exceeds my own. This trip, we had a reunion dinner. Though there was little to report on painting achievements for which we all lamented "not enough time", we had a wonderful catch-up on all aspects of our lives. Memories! Memories! (Yes, it is disgusting that I, who have had 8 months to do exactly as I please, do not feel I have enough time for painting.)

• A highlight of my visit was having two of my children, Jodi and Jamison fly in from Vancouver for their own whirlwind visit with their Grampa and Gramma. Naturally we went to the Sals House for dinner and laughed about the good old days when a big night out for my little family was sitting on the high stools for counter service of grilled cheese sandwiches and cokes. Those were the days!

• I've had a wonderful time here but am ready to be heading home. One more stop, in the small town of Lipton, Saskatchewan (population around 300) with a friend I met many years ago in Mexico. More reminiscing to be done!

• Yes, I'm once again on the road and once again making my way home to Victoria. Spring has sprung in the 'Peg and I'm sorry to be once again saying good-bye to the people. As for the place .....well, I just don't belong in the Red River Valley any more.