Nice Trip

My partner and I just returned home after a ten day trip south - to
Vancouver via Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton, and Princeton. As is
our usual practise, we stopped at bookstores along the way - thrifts and
such too. Three boxes of books made the return trip.

A total delight! Rummaging in the stacks of books for we two old bats is
like foraging for food. Necessary to do daily and normally great fun. Many
of the booksellers we visited are anti-computer types who would never dream
of looking on the Web to price their books. Others simply don't have or
wish to take the time - and in the Okanagan Valley who can blame? There are
so many nice things to do outside.

Up here in the north, we lost two out of three used bookstores over the last
year, one of those being the one I had thought of buying. The one remaining
deals only in pocketbooks, and newer ones at that. Contrast that with
Vernon, where four or more are doing well at less than half our size. This
is a town where the thrifts price hardcovers at half or less the cost of
paperbacks - nobody save I it seems wants to have the "bigger books". So,
for example, a new reprint in paperback of "The DaVinci Code" would be half
the cover price - say $8. If I find the first edition, first printing in
hardcover, I might have to pay $.50!

Adding some excitement on the return trip, after dusk we were heading north
from Williams Lake when a form emerged on the left of the van. Now,
northern roads are long and one tends to tire of the trees after miles and
miles so the speed goes up a notch or two. At 110 in a posted 100 (km, not
miles) there is not much time to stop but enough to avoid. The form was the
south end of a north-bound moose. We were grateful that it had not been
heading west! The moose was taller than our van and dark in colour, making
it harder than deer to spot in the black of night, even with our new beams.

Willow

Pangarune Corner wrote:

My partner and I just returned home after a ten day trip south - to
Vancouver via Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton, and Princeton. As is
our usual practise, we stopped at bookstores along the way - thrifts and
such too. Three boxes of books made the return trip.

snip

Adding some excitement on the return trip, after dusk we were heading north
from Williams Lake when a form emerged on the left of the van. Now,
northern roads are long and one tends to tire of the trees after miles and
miles so the speed goes up a notch or two. At 110 in a posted 100 (km, not
miles) there is not much time to stop but enough to avoid. The form was the
south end of a north-bound moose. We were grateful that it had not been
heading west! The moose was taller than our van and dark in colour, making
it harder than deer to spot in the black of night, even with our new beams.

Willow





Two days after my wedding many years ago, my wife and I were heading
west from St. John's, Nfld. on the Trans-Canada Hwy . We were on the
Canadian National Ry. bus, as the "Bullet" was no longer operating.
Just west of Gander, a bull moose came charging from the field on the
right side of the road toward the bus. The bus driver finally saw it
and floored the accelerator. The moose missed the bus by a few feet
and stood in the road shaking its antlers and daring us to turn around
and do honorable combat. We didn't. I pitied the next vehicle to come
along that road.

That was just the first of several adventures that day.


Francis A. Miniter