...And Back Again.

Our checkout time was 11 AM saturday morning. We arrived in the hotel lobby at about 10:59 AM. There was a line of pale hangover heavy metal party zombies, but the receptionists handled it well. We were out of there by 11:15 and because it had been so nice the first time around, we decided to visit that over-the-top mall at the west-end one more time.

On our way to the mall.

Our first stop there was the food court for breakfast (I had sushi), and then time just flew away. Shopping malls. I didn't buy a single thing, one of my companions got himself some kind of garment, but the clock had run on to 3 PM when we turned out of the parking garage.
We were on our way home, on a slightly different route this time. Two changes: We wanted to avoid gravel-highway 9 and also later on instead of the divided highway use a smaller one which suited our direction better. This together was supposed to shave off a good hour of our overall travel time.

I myself was kind of tired, and anticipating driving again later on I fell asleep in the backseat. Missed all the bisons.
I woke up again when we passed into the next province and stopped for coffee at a Tim Hortons without a drive through. Imagine that, no drive through. I immediately suspected foul play here. A fake hoax sham corporation pretending to be the nations famous coffee chain. Once we were inside further warning bells went off inside my head after reading a sign advertising "real fruit smoothies".
Real fruit smoothies. That sounded delicious. Outside it was summer, t-shirt weather, blue skies all over, really really warm, a real fruit smoothie would be just the thing, wouldn't it? But I just couldn't believe there'd be someone in the back room throwing real fruit into a blender. Not in a coffee and doughnut place. And what exactly did they mean by "smoothie"? Blended fruit? Blended fruit with yoghurt? Blended fruit with slush? Fruit-flavoured slush?
There were just too many questions, so I asked.

"What's in your real fruit smoothie?"

The woman looked at me as if I had asked for a horsemeat burger and managed "I'm sorry?"
For some reason I always automatically assume that people don't catch what I say because of my accent (German) or perhaps because I mumble or something, so I just asked the same question again. This time I tried to pronounce everything as carefully as I could.
"Your real fruit smoothie. What is in it?"
There was a pause, and then she responded something that I didn't quite catch, maybe because of her accent (Asian), so I said: "Excuse me?"
She: "Fruit. There's fruit in it."
"Yes", I said, "is it just fruit or do you put something else in it, too? Like dairy?"
They (a second woman had joined her, drawn in by the strange delay in serving costumers) just looked at me as if I was nuts.
"I just wanna know what's in your fruit smoothies", I said. "Some people put yoghurt in there. Is your's just fruit and fresh and all?"
They exchanged a glance, then the first one said: " I don't know, it's fruit."
They have no idea, I thought.
"It comes frozen", she added.
"Okay", I said, "I'll have a large black coffee with two sugar, please."
From the other line-up my companions had watched the whole conversation with a mix of confusion and amusement in their eyes. "He doesn't like it!" the driver said with a grin.
Woman number two put my coffee in front of me, woman number one said: "1.46."
I didn't want to start my 50, so I gave her coins. "1, 1.25, 35..."
"Exact change", she whispered to her co-worker, shaking her head ever so slightly.
"40...1...2...3...4...5...6. Thank you very much."
I went outside and had a smoke and my coffee (which was really good) and enjoyed the sunshine. My fellow travellers joined me, and we watched people in convertibles drive by.

Then we drove on through the ever flat prairies.

We saw a fire in the distance.

We saw flocks of geese in the sky.

We tried to drive faster than our shadow.

We stopped to take a piss.

We stopped to stretch a bit. The sun went down.

The moon came up.

At dusk we reached a little place that featured two gas stations and not much else. On the right they offered no-name fuel and had a restaurant called the "12.40". I assumed everything was $12.40 in there. On the left they had Esso.
Since our motto has always been "When in doubt, go left", we chose the Esso. A brand name is always good, after all. Nobody wants their engine to blow because of some crappy no-name gas.

It was right there, at that dusty Esso station among those few buildings in the middle of the everlasting flatness, that I fell in love a little bit.

I took this picture when we turned into the gas station.

We stopped between a truck with an old guy in the drivers seat to the right and a van with half a family in it to the left. A guy was stowing something in the trunk.
To the right a matching old lady exited the store. She was carrying ice cream in her hand. Ice cream. I instantly wanted ice cream. So I got out of the car and went around the corner to the door and saw a woman locking what must have been the ice box. She was wearing some kind of light blue or so sweater. In a sudden influx of politeness I decided to say hello and just as she was turning towards me I said: "Hi! What's the name of this place?"

"Oh", she said, with a bright smile, with sunshine in her eyes, with friendliness and happiness radiating out of her like an aura: "it's just regular Esso here."
She had dark hair to her shoulders, and a beautiful face and pale skin. Her eyes were blue, or maybe brown, I didn't see or don't remember, because the welcoming cheerfulness in her demeanor lit up the whole place.
"Oh", I said, "no, I mean, what's the name of this..." and my English left me for a second "..village?"
Her smile never stopped, and her eyes sparkled, and she said:"The name of this town? Blaine Lake, this is Blaine Lake."
That's when I fell in love with her a little bit. There was a vibrancy of joy about her, so very natural and radiant; she seemed to be doing this without thinking, she emanated happiness that could only be pure.
It was a liveliness that Layla wouldn't possess in a thousand years.
This pretty gas station woman from Blaine Lake in the middle of nowhere had just done what Layla couldn't. I was excited.

I could feel it. "Hello", called my penis.
Blaine Lake, I thought, "Blaine Lake", I said.

She had just made my day. Just by being friendly to some passers-by stranger this woman had taken from him a nice little chunk of his heart, and had given him not only a little crush but also an impression that would last and a pleasant memory that he would cherish.

It must have taken me a while to process her charisma. She wasn't there anymore.
I realized she must have gone inside again.
So I went in, too.

It was a small store, the usual chips and snack food, a little back a few wall coolers filled with drinks and beverages. There was a section for camping. A shelf for household staples. A few audio CD's and a few DVD's. My travel companions were already in there.

She was behind the counter. He name tag said "Courtney". I walked the aisles a little bit, then found the ice cream cooler right next to the counter.
"There's the ice cream!" I said.

I bought a Magnum and paid with a fiver. She gave me about 81 cents back. I thought: I should complement her on her friendliness. I thought: I should ask her if she wants to be my facebook friend. I thought: I should have the driver take a picture of Courtney and me.

I didn't do any of that.
I went outside and started eating my ice cream.
Then we drove away.
Blaine Lake, Courtney, Blaine Lake, I repeated in my head*.

A few hours later we stopped in a major city outside a restaurant, just to adjust our navigation system. I amused myself by taking pictures of unsuspecting restaurant guests from inside the car. Then one of them started staring at me and I realized a tiny orange light comes on everytime I aim my camera.
We quickly drove away and went to the same Wal-Mart we had visited before (I bought red bull again), and then to a MacDonalds. Then gas. Then on.

She sold us our burgers just before midnight. Very polite. I took this picture out of the car, because we were bored waiting for what seemed like a lifetime for our driver. He was in the bathroom. The restaurant was just about to close up for the night, and a few minutes earlier the manager and her had tried to check the restrooms, but stopped dead in their tracks upon opening the door. They walked away quickly and busied themselves otherwise. In the car we were laughing our asses off.

I tried to sleep some more. At about 3 AM we pulled over. It was my turn to drive. I looked around: we were somewhere on a straight highway with nothing but woods in all directions. It was dark and chilly. I opened my first can of red bull and settled in and drove. Same as before: stay between the lines, keep an eye out for deer, stay awake. I established a routine to keep me busy: Look straight ahead. Check left mirror. Look ahead. Check rearview mirror. Look ahead. Check clock on dash. Look ahead. Check kilometer clock. Drink beverage. Start over.

We reached the next town at dawn and gassed up at a closed down gas station. Pay at the pump. We also saw two joggers there. It was like 5 AM. Crazy. It was only four more hours to home, and it was light out, so I just kept driving until we reached that junction we had stopped at on our way out.
I got myself a coffee.

This time the squirrel didn't evade me.

Then the last little bit. One more hour of highway, then gravel. We arrived back in bfnowhere at about 9 AM.

Me, tired. Not far now.

*Back home I looked, but I couldn't find her on facebook.