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The Best Laid Plans...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 27 July 2026

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...I was never one to make. 

Thursday, Doctor.

After Doctor - head out. My destination, the north-easterly arm of Kinbasket Lake. I've a pin there to check, a source for large gemmy garnets, staurolites. I've got the pin on my map, read the old geology reports, I'm ready-freddy. And 3 days with a loaned car.

It's a long drive. Listen to the radio. Days 8, 9, 10 in the heartbreaking search for Parker, a nonverbal autistic child who wandered off from a day home and hasn't been seen since. A couple grainy surveillance photos that place him in the NE of Calgary. 

As of this writing he still hasn't been found. 

As well there's the case of Jeremy Lalande, who over 2 weeks ago set out in a rented 2026 Nissan to go hiking from Calgary. A day trip. No sign of the car or it's driver since.

Then the CBC, guests arguing the decline of reading; theorizing it's related to cell-phones, computers...

The radio, it's in and out here in the mountains and I'm glad when it cuts off, these subjects are inane beyond consideration...

But I'll come back to this in a separate post.

...

The drive, to Kamloops long and uneventful, I spot a couple places to get out and look at the roadcuts, but I'll do that on the way back. I'm on a mission. From Kamloops I head up the valley past Clearwater and on toward Valemount - a beautiful drive, with lots of scenery, and again prospects, but I really need to find places closer to home...

Smoky, like end of summer smokey with the stare-straight-at setting red sun, the thick haze, beautiful, but...

And the lake - this end, I've never been. I hike to the pin on the map. The lake is high, as high as it can get, and the place I wanted to explore - exposed schist-beach, well, it's under 25-50 meters of water. A thought I never considered, this dam is at high water, and everything I wanted to look at won't be available until early, early spring.

I find signs, small garnets in schist, other rocks of interest, but - well, the rocks I came here for, they're completely  inaccessible. 

***

A lot of gas and not enough planning. I mean, never in my life have I had to consider dam height in my adventures, but apparently it's time I do. But from this little misadventure I can perhaps find clues so when next I'm this way I can find even more...The plan refines itself. And I need a boat...

From the beach I gather a few mudstone concretions fallen from the sand cliffs, and bits of specifically shaped driftwood. "Mixed Media". 

***

Hiking through the forest, an abundance of mushrooms, common, a few turning orange. I take a picture and Google lens assures me their on their way to becoming Lobster Mushrooms. Which I kind of guessed, but you don't fuck around with mushrooms unless you're certain, and they're not yet ready. 

***

A long and disappointing trip home. The places I'd laid aside for the return trip, the light has changed and it's pouring rain. I can't spot them again. 

***

Home, survey the mess I left behind me - a big mess. A stack of boxes from the locker to be gone through. Make some dinner, a home-cooked meal is just what I've been missing - "road food" gets old in a hurry; meet neighbour who tells me about another neighbour - part of the "Meet outside we're all smokers" network, Cathy, has had a heart attack and is on Life Support in Calgary.

She never looked well, never, always coughing, claimed to be my age but could pass easily for 20 years older.

***

Unpacking boxes. In the locker, maybe 2 dozen boxes left. A box of books, water damaged, some are salvageable, others not so - a shame, one was an antique historical/literary map of the world, the cartology of mind; the other an old leatherbound  copy of Speke's "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile".  You can read it online here: https://archive.org/details/journalofdiscove00spek. These two break my heart. 

Another box, filled with: more cufflinks, my silver antique cigarette case (thought lost, and so finding it was a joy), a Navaho silver inlay bracelet - this I check, maker mark, worth some $$$ but will I get that here? Some old watch boxes - Rolex, Tudor, Bulova, Longines, themselves now collectable but not here, I’ll have to get those to Vernon, use in trade with the antique watch guy, they'll fetch a much better price or value in exchange. 

***

SO, now at the library and time to get home, gather up the cufflinks and bracelet and see if I can find a home for them, get a few groceries, then maybe back to the library to work on a few other projects. And time to get back to work - the job, the Doc gave me the all clear but that job - it's stress, nonstop, and I'm thinking I need a desk job, clerical, boring, this "yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full-sir" sort of occupation has grown a little - a lot - old, as it always does and it's long overdue time to try something else...