Given this environment, a game of 'Eye Spy' can quickly get boring - kinda like 'eye spy' with Dory in Sydney Harbour - until Liam spies something 'red' that is.
Let me backtrack for you.
A beautiful Canada Day retreat after an insane week of our latest home reno's (which were inturn launched by Steve's inaugural injury - the words 'CHAUD' and 'HO' burnt into the palm of his hand. A whole other story!)... where was I?
Oh yes.
There we were on the logging roads behind Cowichan lake and I'm my usual white-knuckling self while Steve drives the narrow, windy, loosely-gravelled, barely-engineered roads at the 'posted' speed limit (if you can call spray paint on a piece of plywood nailed to a tree a 'posted' sign). We were both tired from a week of 1am or later bedtimes and still feeling the stress of days to come, so it isn't any wonder that we ended up having a bit of a 'discussion' about whether or not the speed of the car was appropriate to the road conditions - specifically the curves. After Steve asserting that he was driving safely and me asserting that he could be taking the curves a bit, ahem, ALOT slower, we lapsed into an awkward silence.
That's when Steve got it into his head that a game of Eye Spy was just the thing to break the tension. The kids love playing Eye Spy so they got right into it. And I tried to tell myself I was overreacting and to just chill, and got into the game as well. I spied something 'dark grey' - the shadows on the road - and that even had Steve stumped for a few guesses. Pretty good eh? Well, there wasn't much to choose from - as I said: grey, blue & green.
And then Liam spied something red. This was the moment we learned that playing Eye Spy on a logging road is NOT a good idea. What could be red? Steve was particularly baffled and took a split second to peer around inside the car, rather than keep his eyes glued to the road. That, of course, was the exact moment the road decided to do one of those things only logging roads can get away with: namely, narrowing dramatically while sliding into a blind curve at the bottom of a hill that ended in a thickly gravelled sharp turn onto a one-way bridge over a chasm. Did I mention that up until this moment we had completely forgotton our Jeep Cherokee has Four Wheel Drive? - Particularly useful on dry gravelly logging roads with unexpected sharp turns; Not particularly helpful when unengaged on those same gravelly logging roads.
Is this taking a while to tell?
Try being in a two-wheel drive Jeep sliding slowly (he wasn't really driving that fast) out of control on loose gravel at the bottom of a hill, unable to make the sharp turn and heading for a really big log at the side of the road. Now that takes forever!!
Fast forward to the next scene: We have managed to back the jeep up to a bit of a pull out (we crashed at a blind curve remember, and our tail end was sticking into the bit of road where the next vehicle would be coming from - not to mention that any vehicles coming over the bridge would be blocked by us and then they would be in a blind curve for that direction... bad situation). The left front fender was mashed into the wheel and making a horrendous noise. Both of us were freaking out trying to find something lying around that would work to pry the fender away from the tire. (Note to Self: Pack crow bar and duct tape on next camping trip.) Meanwhile the kids were in the car wondering what had just happened - and why were their parents dancing around outside the car...?
Along comes the next vehicle; a beat-up V-dub van (of course! we are on a west coast logging road afterall). But strangely Steve recognizes the van, and I belatedly recognize the driver. One of Steve's co-workers. The thing is Steve only has three co-workers, and this particular one works only a few weeks a year. What are the chances? To top it all off Alistair is the one co-worker who takes the piss out of anyone who does anything he feels is particularly stupid. Like say, driving a jeep on a logging road in TWO WHEEL mode, instead of 4wd. And playing Eye-Spy with your kids on a logging road while taking curves a bit faster than you probably should. So what happens on the logging road has pretty much no chance of staying on the logging road. At least he had duct tape and some longish metal things that could pry at steel fenders slightly better than rotten bits of wood.
Long story short: We made it to the campground (avoiding sharp right hand turns as best we could) having shed the last vestiges of stress from the previous week. Somewhere in that long slow slide into the log it became clear that just enjoying the weekend was far more important than stressing about chores at home or how long it takes to drive from A-to-B. It turned out to be the best family camping event we've ever had. But no more Eye Spy!
