Since these days are so long, everytime we get out on the road SweetPea and I end up talking about things we forgot to bring up on the blog. In that light, here are some meandering thoughts and things we've noticed...
The farther north we go, the longer it takes to get dark. Last night in Dawson Creek, BC it didn't start getting dark until around 10 or 10:30. By about 5 it is bright out again. I can only imagine that tonight, a couple hundred miles from the Northwest Territories (that is a Canadian province, similar to a state if I'm not mistaken) it will take even longer. Tommorow night's stop is near Watson Lake, on the Yukon border. In the guide book they claim that it is near Canada's 60th parrelel and "never gets dark in the summer". It isn't as far north as our destination so I'm sure darkness will eventually fall.
Oh yeah, Canada uses their own currency and the metric system. The currency is called dollars, but looks totally different. They also have coins for $1, $2, $.25, and others. When we walked into a place for dinner tonight, they had one of those gumball style machines that drops out little keychain toys. In the coin slot there was a note that said "1 Tooney". I looked online this evening and a Tooney is the $2 coin, while a Looney is the $1. Also, while looking for that I found out that a common negative nickname for Canadians is a "frostback". I giggled but don't plan to bring it up in conversation anytime soon. It's just funny to me that some racist names are considered SO negative, while others are just dumb. Oh well,..
While ordering in the same establishment the waitress asked me if I wanted gravy on my fries:
Me: "Uhm, I don't mean to be smart, but what kind of gravy is it?" (I thought they might call ketchup gravy or something like that.)
Her: "Meat?" as she shrugged her shoulders.
When it came, it was actually brown turkey gravy. Dipping the fries in it tasted awesome, too.
We also had to go to the front desk and ask for help using the coin-op washing machine. It was $1.50. The problem is we had .50 coins, 1.00, 2.00, but the machine had 3 slots. So, again the big loud Yankee had to go ask which coin goes in which slot (they were different sizes and not all coins go in all slots).
It's been funny that everytime I have to talk to a Canadian, their eyes light up and they smile when I start talking. I guess some people find the sound of backwoods hillbillies to be interesting. Again,...things that make you go, "huh."
Gas is sold by the litre here. So that makes it a colossal pain figuring out how much you need. I could get off my butt and learn the conversion, but like other Americans I refuse to let the metric system win!
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