When my friend Dave agreed to come with me on my Quebec road trip people asked us if we planned to stop along the way and take pictures or blast straight through?
We did stop in Rouleau, Saskatchewan; at the old set of Corner Gas for a couple of pictures, on our way to the US border.
We got through the border in about 5 minutes so it proves my theory that my wife is the problem in crossing the border as we never got hassled at all.

And around 9 hours later Dave was taking photos of the Erskine, ND sign – and that was a couple of hours before we got to bed – sleeping in the truck as there wasn’t a hotel/motel room to be had in either North Dakota or Minnesota for a couple of happy-go-lucky travellers. Apparently the beer festival in Minot is a really, really big deal in this part of the world.
We left Red Deer at 6am on Sept. 28th and we didn’t stop to sleep till 4am on the 29th – 22 hours later. Granted, it was local time so that takes off an hour  for the time change and another hour when we stopped for supper in Rugby North Dakota. There isn’t much to see in ND when it’s dark out as we had supper about 100 meters away from the “Geographical Center of North America” Monument and never saw it. We lost about an hour stopping to check with hotels/motels and another hour or so when we’d stop for fuel so really it was about 18 hours of driving for 1800 kilometers. So it looks like we are blasting straight through.

I wish I could say the reason I’ve been so out of sorts the last couple of days was a premonition of Christine’s death, but I know that just isn’t the case.

I was shocked and saddened to learn of her suicide. While I want to learn what happened, I know it’s probably for the best not to know.

I always considered Chris a friend even though we’d lost touch for a long time after high school. She was always so nice and easy to talk to but I was always too shy to ask her out.

I was so happy to see her and James come in to see me at work. Sometimes she would come in by herself when she was in town and visit for a bit which always brightened my day.

A few months ago she told me that she’d broken up with James and her job had ended but she was optimistic about her future and she would stay in touch. That never happened.

I’ve thought about her a few times since and last month I asked her brother how she was doing. He told me she was doing good, but obviously not.

It’s been a lifetime since I’ve had any thoughts of suicide, but I remember them well.  I’m often reminded of them everytime one of those “Depression hurts” commercials is on tv because I know it’s true. While I obviously didn’t follow through on any of those thoughts I do understand the process that can lead people to that conclusion. The pain that inflicts on others though, that is a different story. It’s been said that the dying is the easy part. And for those of us left behind with the pain and guilt it seems so true.