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The busiest weekend of the year. This year is no exception. 1/2 the tables, + an additional 7 tables on the beach. Impossible to serve, too far, walking on sand, can't keep an eye on this and the patio, the restaurant, we're running with 2 servers, me and the owners son, the restaurant is full.
The parking lot is filled with Alberta Plates, they drove all the way from Calgary, Edmonton, wearing their masks, took them off as soon as they entered the restaurant. I'm not kidding, it's like they were saving it for us. This is how the Covid got in...
We're busy, dumb-ass busy, stupid busy, for 2 servers, wtf? We did the same numbers last year with 6 servers, half the area, this year, it's pandemic suicide. The pandemic lemmings.
We're done. Done, done, done.
It's a record-setting weekend with only half the tables, a third the waiters, heat wave, beach, foreign accents, American the worst, License plates ranging from Quebec to Alberta, it's a gong show. A ton of complaints, startlingly few, all things considered, and it's over.
It's 10 hours of non-stop trauma.
Recovering, going to town for some tacos, a smaller restaurant, waiting 10 minutes for an empty table, count 7 servers/bartenders - and I realize that our crummy service, it's not so bad, you can count us, see that there's only 2, here, really, there's no excuse other than Kootenay indifference/incompetence, and while it'd be a lot calmer here I'm not thinking this would be a healthy change...
Anyways, it's over, it's all downhill, down the other side of the mountain, and soon it will be dead enough that I'm missing the customers.
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Walking on the mountain, bear scat everywhere, you know they're everywhere but I'm noisy enough they keep out of sight. Old mining trails leading onto old mining shacks and homesteads, some good exploring, and then I come to a meadow that rather intrigues me and I catch my first sight of one:
See it? Look closer...
Making noise, the cubs have fled the picture but mom's not backing down and so that ends a fine day of near discovery...
Need to start carrying my bear banger and spray. On the way out, fresh scat piled in the tire ruts I drove over to get here - the place is infested with them...
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Found this in the Dollarama, laughed at it's novelty, I've never seen a Pomegranate & Mango Disinfectant/Cleaner before.
But, really, why not? Why should we associate cleanliness with the smell of Lemon or Pine-Sol? So I overcome my prejudice and buy it, it seems to work fine. I just have to make sure I don't inadvertently drink it...
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At work, the chefs' girlfriend has been selling her dreamcatchers, finely beaded little spirals hung with feathers and leather thongs.
Jealous of her success, I came up with my own "indigent artist" crafts project to sell in the restaurant: The Kootenai Mancatcher. Tradition has it that when a Kootenai girl came of age and found herself single, she'd assemble a mancatcher from a pair of her choicest knickers and hang it upon her schoolbus or trailer to demonstrate her availability ....
Only $60.
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Finally, my 8th attempt in perhaps 3 weeks to get out and close to the areas I want. Close, closer, but the logging roads divide and multiply and I'm never quite sure where I am, I have only a rough number of KM up a logging road that becomes 2 and then 3 and then 6, and when finally I've explored every dead end the day is almost over and I'm parched and well devoured by black flies and mosquitos.
The geography up here, it's perfect, even the feldspar crystals in the granite are a couple of inches big, pyrite crystals a quarter inch, the whole mountain was slow to cool, and from here it's just get out and walk and explore...
On the way back, long road, I stop and explore a couple of roadcuts of interest, and finally find something, hard to see in the overwhelming, bright light of day, but I pack it home to check later. A white, degrading feldspar filled with smoky quartz, mica, some black tourmaline or schorl...
And, under better examination, more time:
Beryls. Small, pale blue-green crystals, some with good shape, none larger than a half a centimeter in the micah/black tourmaline/smoky quartz matrix, but what I'm here for.
Now to return, dig deeper, follow the vein up or down the mountain and see if I can't find better...