6am - My Shift. I drove for 3 hours into North Dakota then we stopped for breakfast and washed ourselves and out dishes. Then it was Claire's turn, then Simon's. Towards the end of Simon's shift the weather turned nasty. There were 50 mph winds which meant it was a real struggle keeping the van on the road and then it started to snow. Then it was my turn again. It wasn't very nice driving in those conditions and, I was keeping it at 55mph then all of a sudden we skidded! We almost did a 180 degree turn and ended up verging on the ditch. Luckily we were on a dual carriageway and there weren't any other cars about, otherwise I dread to think what would have happened. Simon and Claire jumped our and guided me out of the ditch. I kept it a bit slower but not slow enough as 5 minutes later I wiped out again. This time I stayed in the road and did a whole 180 degree turn. Only Claire got out this time and she slipped on the road too. This was when we discovered the whole road surface was pure ice. We had presumed, being ignorant English girls, that the wind was good because it was blowing all the snow and therefore it wasn't settling on the road but alas no! The wind was making the snow set like glass and it was invisible. We were about 25 miles out from Grand Forks, North Dakota and it took us an hour to get there. The engine was overheating by the time we got there as we were driving so slow - 20mph. We found a gas/truck stop and decided to camp there the night. The whole while I was driving I felt sick and thought I was going to cry and I had decided once we did stop I would cry, but I didn't. I think driving made me concentrate a lot and didn't let me dwell on the scariness. We settled down for the night in the carpark whilst having snow ploughs driven not 6 inches from each side of the van - scary!
Friday 14th November
The propane run out last night so we were bloody freezing, to put it mildly, this morning. So first priority was to find some propane. In Canada propane is sold at nearly every gas station but here you have to go to a separate thing. We found it eventually and filled up. Then we found another gas station in order to have breakfast. While we were washing the dishes in the ladies toilet (not literally), as we've become quite used to, we decided that we couldn't go anywhere today. Simon, who was really fed up with the cold said he would pay for a motel room so we could warm up. We found a really nice one and basically sat and watched tv all day. As well as washing lots. The room was so hot that we were sat there in shorts and t-shirts and the bathroom was like a sauna. We went to Burger King and Taco Bell for dinner and I called Aaron. It was really great to speak to him, he thought we were dead as I hadn't spoken to him in so long, only a week. I forgot to say that he called me back as he was shaving. Anyway, his news was that Tofino had had 8 straight days with no rain and they were going for the record of 12. He's shaved his head (!).
Claire called Bernie to discuss what we should do. Claire had been very freaked out about the snow and had got quite upset about it all. She was seriously debating going South and not going to New Brunswick at all. We watched the weather channel for what seemed like hours and Bernie consulted the internet. He also said we could do to Washington DC for Xmas which meant the pressure was off time wise to get to NB and back to Nevada for Dec 18th. I had a crappy night's sleep as it was so hot.
Saturday 15th November
This morning was mainly concerned with getting Simon to Vancouver to catch his flight to Honolulu! The supposedly "international" airport only had flights to Minneapolis! And a transfer to Vancouver was $600+! We drove to the greyhound station hoping that he could get a bus to Winnipeg and then fly to Vancouver. He had missed the bus by 30mins. So it was back to the airport.
I checked the oil and stayed with the van while Claire went in with Simon. They were gone for ages and I was beginning to think that we were going to get a ticket. Claire eventually emerged and we were on the road again, this time one fewer. We had only been driving for less than an hour when we smelt something hot. We stopped to go to the toilet and I felt the back wheels. The right one was scorching, too hot to touch. We drove on a bit further and anytime that we slowed down there was a rubbing or clunking sound. We stopped at a little place called Fosston and asked at a garage. The bloke reckoned it was our wheel bearing and that we shouldn't drive any further. He said he couldn't fix it today but we could stay on his forecourt and he could do it on Monday. So we set up camp again. We went and explored the town and I found Sharon a Xmas present in a really nice gift shop = a giraffe finger puppet. There was a cinema opposite who were showing "Red Corner" the Richard Gere in China one that Claire really wanted to see. So we went there at 10 mins before the film started. Unfortunately they didn't take credit cards so we were screwed. They said there was an ATM down the road so we went out in -15 degree C wandering around to find the damn thing. I only had my fleece on because I thought we were only going across the road. We never found one and when back to the garage. Our evening's entertainment was covering the van's ceiling in aluminium foil!
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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