This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Banff to the Border

Posted by ehren

Sunday night we hunkered down in the basement TV room of the hostel and watched Dirty Dancing followed by Top Gun. Neither Miro nor I had seen Dirty Dancing before (maybe a 10 minute snippet) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a quality film, lovely cheesy. Miro has had "I had the time of my life" stuck in his head since Sunday, but luckily I'm unscathed. I made the Top Gun suggestion as an aside, saying that if the girls had watched Dirty Dancing 100,000 times before age 13 then Top Gun would be the obvious response. I had almost forgotten the amazing cinematography in the dogfighting scenes, and the soundtrack in the key of testosterone minor. Michelle nodded off during both, and Charley was hanging on to consciousness by a thread. It's been a terriffic, but quite exhausting week all around.

Charley, Adam, Miro and I then made the short walk back to the campground from the hostel. The stars were out, and the mountains aglow with an almost full moon.

In the morning I set my alarm for 7, so Adam could catch his bus back to Vancouver, I said "It's 7" and he said "All right, cheers," perfectly lucid, so I set my alarm for 8 as we were still trying to limit the number of miles to drive on a steady fuel leak. Adam was still asleep then, but quickly flew to action. As far as I know he made his bus by the skin of his teeth.

We packed, checked out, and drove into town. The fuel leak, by then, was markedly worse. The spots of fuel on the street were close together, and as a result of a small set of turns to get into an RV parking lot we created a delightful set of arcs of fuel, culminating in a puddle -- not a wet spot -- under the bus. Woo! On my walk to the internet cafe I noticed a set of spots that were farther apart and on the wrong side of the street, and I can only assume it's the trail we left on our way INTO town last Thursday.

At the internet cafe Miro and I continued our search for competent and willing diesel mechanics within a 200 mile radius of Banff, called the few on the way to Montana, and I burned a CD of pictures including Michelle's, mine, and Charley's for future distribution among the gang. By 11 I was ready to faint from hunger, pretty much an assumed state the last few days, so I ducked into THE pizza shop for their two available slices. It didn't even make a dent.

But, I had food in my stomach and my mind started working again. I walked back to the bus to see if there was any hope we could fix the leak ourselves. Earlier in the morning while calling truck mechanics we disassembled the entire cowling and ascertained that the leak was coming from...I don't know the real name of it, but we'll call it the accellerator assembly. You know, in old cars your gas pedal pulls on a cable that's connected to a rotating thing that moves a valve internal to the carburator or injectors of whatever. Anyway, gushing fuel. On the second look (with food in my stomach) I could only see one bolt holding the whole thing together, and when I went to jiggle it around the whole assembly seemed loose. I didn't have the right size hex key so I walked to the hardware store, bought a set for $11, walked back to the bus, tightened the bolt a quarter turn, and voila, no more leak! And even better, the accellerator didn't jam open as a result.

So, covered from the elbows down in grease and internal combustion ejaculate (Yep, searching for amusing synonyms to keep the narrative lively) for the second time that morning I met up with Miro and Charley at our chosen lunch spot, a tex/mex joint called Magpie & Stump's. Michelle and Allison arrived a bit later, fresh from another successful day of jobsearching, and after an inexplicable 45 minute wait in the kitchen (we were the first customers, I think) we ate lunch.

After Miro and I bought 100 litres of fuel and Shelly and Sony dropped off another few resumes we gave everyone a ride back to the hostel (Allison requested "On The Road Again" one last time...to think, they've never heard of Willie Nelson!), for the "for real this time" goodbye. With the fuel leak and Kalispell pickups we'd been hemming and hawing about our departure date, so there was a bit of "Well, we'll probably see ya tomorrow, but... in case not.." I really want to make it clear that the week and a half with our UK friends is way, way up there on the list of awesome things that've happened on this trip. It makes us tempted to try the Kalispell and Glacier hostels, but I very much doubt we'll be this lucky again. At the very least, what if one of them snores? Plus, I'm not sure my liver can take another 10 days like that.

So around who knows o'clock (2, 3?) we drove off in our cloud of soot, back into the wilderness. To get onto the West side of the main mountain ranges we needed to drive 30k back towards Lake Louise, and usually I hate backtracking but since the sun was out it was an entirely different journey. The mountains all way way, through the Banff and Kootenay parks, down to Radium and beyond were incredible, far and away. I'll definitely come back someday to climb some of the "not quite as trecherous" ones.

We stopped at the Radium Hot Springs for about an hour, on a whim, and I couldn't find my red shorts so I cut off the legs from some gray khakis and looked totally punk. I talked to my second Saskatchewanian (Only those from Saskatoon are Saskatooners, I think) after dipping my toe in the "surprise" hot tub (turns out the surprise is that it's glacial runoff, dressed up with waterjets). He said "Ah, c'mon, take the plunge, eh?" Saskatchewanians are a strange bunch...it's hard to really put my finger on it, but aside from the peculiar verbal delivery (they wait, frozen, for about 3 seconds before saying anything and are always smiling and effusive) they're just...I can imagine them opening all the mail that gets sent to Santa and replying to most of it. Well, I've only met two. There will be more. Also, he nearly fractured my wrist with his handshake.

I drove the remaining small distance down into the valley (including a 500' stretch through a deep tiny slot canyon, just big enough for the road...perhaps they were trying to build a tunnel and missed with one of the charges...?), and then Miro drove the rest of the way to Cranbrook. The scenery along 3/93/95S (pick one, but not the wrong one, or you'll end up in who knows where) was National Park caliber, but few have ever heard of this area.

We camped in the Wal Mart lot, I got a little work done, and went to bed early. Actually it was around 11 but the sun had just set.

In the morning by the time I got up Miro was about 1/3 of the way through a much needed spring cleaning. It took about an hour, we swept, moved things around, stowed this, folded that, swept again, dusted the dashboard, and got rid of the empty salmon cans that were beginning to turn.

We still had the number of McGibbon's auto & truck repair, and on the way there Miro dropped off a load of laundry. Lawrence, the man in command, talked quickly and was reluctant to give useful advice.

"So the accellerator assembly bolt we tightened. Do you think that'll sieze? Is that how you're supposed to adjust it?"
"Well, it hasn't siezed yet has it? Well, I'm not going to say anything without taking a look at it. Otherwise I'll be telling a judge what I just told you when it does fail and you try and pin it on me."

We took that to mean that the bolt, in fact, was tightenable. He was equally cagey about the power steering bearing and the grease zirk. We bought a zirk from him for $1.43: not rubber, metal, and with threads, though we don't have a threaded hole to put it in) and I tried it out and managed to get it halfway in, crooked, and stuck. I also asked how often he'd re-grease a bearing like that and he said "oh, every 5,000 miles" (it's been at least 12,000 since picking the beast up in Dallas), and then I asked how many other such zirked bearings there were on a bus like ours and he said "Oh, at least 15...two on each kingpin, at least one on each end of each set of leaf springs..." I asked him if he'd sell us a grease gun (made to interface with the zirk at pressures up to 4,200 PSI) and he said no, but recommended Lord's Autoparts back up the strip.

On the way to Lord's I dropped Miro off to finish the laundry, continued on, bought their most economical grease gun and a box of zirks (in case any others were missing). The guy at Lord's, when I mentioned that the hole wasn't threaded, said that you're supposed to hammer them in with a rubber mallet. There used to be a time when I saw a threaded fastener and thought "Hammer!" but now it's totally counterintuitive. In the next hour I managed to replace the original new zirk on the power steering (which my initial hammering attempts totally deformed, and then dislodged), and also re-filled all the other bearings I could find. Most of them were so caked with grime I can't be sure I found even half. I also had one of those really wonderful moments that almost anyone working in a confined space with tools and force can identify with: You're pulling really hard on something, and you notice that if it actually lets go your elbow is going to hit something else really pointy and sharp, and then at that instant it lets go and you cut the hell out of your elbow and it really hurts and then a bunch of yelling and cursing happens.

And without fail, when I was watching the power steering transfer case when Miro started the engine, power steering fluid squirted out of the new zirk. But, the leak is now better than it was five months ago, roughly, and I'm content to let it be.

So, tally ho to America! On the way down I drove and Miro selected a quirky, but fitting playlist including lots of songs with "America" in the title (even Neil Diamond), then other patriotically themed numbers (including Jimi Hendrix's acid-fueled Star Spangled Banner) and then Prince's "Purple Rain" album. Why? Not sure. We're going to Minnesota in July?