DAY 3
Week 1
NORDMAN (Idaho, USA) to CASTLEGAR (British Columbia, Canada)
Friday June 23rd, 2006
TODAYS MILEAGE – 197 miles or 317 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 734 miles or 1181 kilometres
Hopefully Day 3 brings a change in fortunes!!! 
After getting to bed around 1:30 this morning, I decided to sleep in until 7:15 before getting up to make some breakfast and then checking out the Man Pad, to make sure everything was OK.
I had a shelf collapse in the pantry and the radiator overflow reservoir break away from it's mounts, no biggy. Of more concern is the high pitch screaming of a fan belt slipping has returned. I had this happen after the trip to Missoula (Washington) in May and found the the fan clutch had seized and was disintegrating. After that trip I replaced all the hoses, fluids, belts, starter motor, alternator, spark plugs, plug leads, distributor cap & rotor as well as a full coolant system flush in preparation for this trip.
The directions I got from Microsoft's Street & Trips 2006 said the quickest and easiest way from Priest Lake (Idaho, USA) to Castlegar (British Columbia, Canada) was to travel on SR-302 to SR-22 to hook up to Highway 31 into Canada. I thought SR stood for State Road but I was quick to learn that it in fact stood for SHITTY ROADS. The roads were dirt and got narrower as I went along. At one point I stopped at a posted map and it only mentioned snow mobile trails. It was at that point I unhooked the Trailblazer, turned around the Man Pad and headed from whence I came. This added 70 miles to the trip, but I was much happier with more mileage than being stuck in some back country mountain goat track.
The car towing is still causing no end of headaches. I felt the Man Pad was really "pulling hard", so I pulled over to find the tie down strap had come loose and got wrapped around the axle and tire of the tow dolley. This caused the fender of the tow dolley to be dragged into the lower front fender of the Trailblazer, causing enough damage to stop the drivers side door not to open until I got a hammer and pry bar out to knock the fender away. A trip to the panel beaters is in order now.
From about town of Metaline Falls (Washington) to the Canadian border, they are doing roadwork for 22 miles. We had to wait 35 minutes to get a pilot vehicle from the road crew to escort us through the road works, due to loose gravel. The "loose gravel" were chunks of rocks between golf ball and baseball in size and they were putting it down about 12 to 18 inches thick. With no real weight over the drive axles of Man Pad it would simply sink down to it's axles whenever I had to stop. This facilitated the need for me to hook the snatch-em strap up and have a water cart, loader, grader or vibrating roller pull me out. What really should have taken and hour to drive, even accounting for the condition of the original road, took 3 ½ agonizing hours.
I got to the Canadian border and my spirits lifted considerably. I've made probably 50 border crossings over the years and thought I'd breeze through this one. In my mind I had already opened the first beer with Jungle and was taking a long pull of the cold, effervescent, bubbly nectar of the Gods when I was brought back to the real world with "State your business in Canada please".
I'm visiting my mate in Castlegar for a few days before heading back to the United States was my reply. I answered the usual questions you always get asked pertaining to alcohol, firearms, tobacco products and the like. I also agreed to a search of my vehicles. For the next two hours, three of Canada Customs & Immigrations finest had me standing at the front of Man Pad while they went through it.
The lead searchers, who from memory, had a name tag the read something like ")Officer Prick With Ears" comes and asks me if I have any "inappropriate material pertaining to a sexual nature or violent sexual conduct with minors" and wanted the password to my laptop. I wasn't sure if (a) he was for real, (b) wanted smut for himself as the border is 60 miles from any town and he looked lonely, or (c) whether he still had issues with the Australian B rugby side hammering the Canucks by 80 points.
It turns out that because I had declared I only had 11 beers, a bottle of both Vodka & Kahlua (for medicinal purposes), a bottle of Sambucca and a bottle of wine form J-Mo's family winery, but omitted the ¾ full bottle of Galway Pipe port, that I obviously had some thing to hide.
Let this be a lesson to you all!!! Next time I cross a border, I'm going to smoke a ½ dozen 3 paper joints of the best Goondawindi Gorilla Grass, eat all the food that's within a 5 mile radious of my person and drink all available fluids within that same general vicinity. That way I will have nothing to remember to declare - or be able to for that matter.
From the border it was a short 80 kilometre (were in Canada now you wankers!!!) hike over Mt Everest (it was a fair hike in the Man Pad) into the town of Castlegar (BC, Canada). The view down the valley into town was spectacular, which caused a few anxious moments to the locals come up the hill toward me as I was gawking at the scenery. 4:30pm saw me camped on the back porch of Jungles joint, taking the first of what was to be many long pulls of the cold, effervescent, bubbly nectar of the Gods.....................
Tomorrow is another day.
• NORDMAN (Idaho, USA)
• METALINE FALLS (Washington, USA)
• NELWAY (British Columbia, CAN)
• CASTLEGAR (British Columbia, CAN)