Fun on the Ice Fields Parkway
So Jesse Ryalls and I (my friend the very hip urbanite that I was snowboarding with) were cruising the icefields parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper tuesday night.
The roads are terrible - there's blowing snow everywhere - and suddenly this massive truck passes us and I make the comment, "we'll see that guy in the ditch."
Well, fastforward half an hour and we're getting waved over to the side of the road by some brits driving a massive new dodge truck with an even more massive camper in it's box. And sure enough there's a roll-over in the ditch . The car is facing straight west (the direction we're travelling) and lying on it's side. Well, it wasn't the big truck that passed us - this car was travelling east and flew across the highway into the ditch.
The brits say they just pulled over - Jesse is an emt (emergency medical technician) so he's thinking he might have to stabilize someone, and he's nervous - because without your equipment and an ambulance, there's not much you can do.
no cell coverage - zero visibility - it's freezing cold outside - and I get this weird premonition that someone in the accident bonked their head and has since become disoriented and wandered into the woods... (trust me to come up with a strange worst case scenerio)
As I stand there freezing, a couple of Aussie's have shown up and offered to drive into Jasper to alert the authorities... and then Jesse and the brits come back to us.
Well, there's no smashed windows - no blood - and no tracks leading into the woods so we figure the people (person) must have got back onto the highway and hitched into town. The snow in the ditch is like 4 feet deep so it was a pretty pillowy soft landing.
We all stand there somewhat relieved - and laugh and talk about where we've been where we're going - and the brits are heading east, and the Aussies are heading west to Jasper... they've got no accomodation so we tell the them the hostel we're staying at and they say they're going to follow us in. (we're still about 100 km's away)
Jesse and I get in the car and I'm a little rattled - people in the ditch - still blizzard like conditions and I start to pray out loud... for the guy(s) in the accident, for safety on the road - thanks for the brits and the aussies, because if we showed up there alone, and there was a bloody scene, it would have been heavy...
fastforward 20 kms and Jesse is fighting to keep the car on the road - we've blown a tire... so we pull over - the aussies (who btw are brothers... massive brothers - I mean like 6 foot 6 - and husky) are right behind us - they jump out and grab the hub-cap and the younger brother is right in there pretty much changing the tire. It was incredible. And then we notice it - it's only like 20 kms away but the wind is gone - the bitter cold is gone - it's pretty much balmy and warm right now.
The spare is a dinky donut - but the Aussie bro's say, "no worries, we'll follow you into Jasper..." (secretly I'm wondering if suddenly we'll see a flash behind us and the 'aussie's' will disappear into a type of heavenly glory, leaving only feathers behind) but almost surprisingly they pull in behind us in Jasper and we hang all night sharing good conversation and hot tea.
In retrospect - the Aussie's (I guess) weren't angels - but they were definitely heaven sent. Nice guys too - good on you Colin and Brett - I invite them to Avonlea and their comment is they'd like to come for a Sunday morning service.
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