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Now, days off, hot summer days upon us, the streets of town filled with tourists, the homeless, all catching up and in good spirits, flush, it's Wednesday (Welfare) and they're in the cafe's, out grabbing lunch, there are the early and colorful arrivals for Shambala (still searching for the addled lost member of the tribe, MIA since last year, never found), the weekend, hopefully a bit quieter - next week will be the reverse migration of the confused festival goers trying to remember their way home and a whole new crop of homeless people will be added to the streets.
Anyways, a day off and I must make of it what I can.
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And the days have suddenly gone insane, previously, busy, but in spurts of an hour, now, 2, 3 hours, non-stop all day, people have gotten used to higher prices, it's the same all over, everywhere, there's no getting away from it, patio, restaurant, full, if you're lucky 3 staff, usually just two.
Full on gong show.
Tell the customers - "Sit at any Clean Table", and they'll undoubtedly find the dirtiest table, husband gotten up to pay, wife in bathroom with child, and seat themselves there, like swine the lure of filth is too attractive and steam whistling from my ears they pretend not to understand English.
Sunday, Monday, we're busy, Tuesday the pace is furious, we're the only show open between Nelson and Nakusp, and paving & construction on the road means no one is taking the time to go to town.
Manners, people, manners, and did the Pandemic teach you nothing?
That said, there's the regulars, who've gotten used to it, and so you do what you can when thrown in the trenches but what you can is seldom enough.
7 weeks left of this, the full tilt madness, then it will drop an order of magnitude, things will once again be manageable, but surviving these 8, 9 hour days until then, I'm not sure there's enough Vodka in all the Kootenays...
On a more pleasant note, a rather charming drawing of yours truly done by a child customer when I attempted to ID her for her Shirley Temple...
The resemblance is obvious.
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3 Fatal Drug "Poisonings" (or OD's, not sure what they mean there) in Nelson in one week.
Bloody hell. That's a big number for a small town.
Link: https://www.nelsonstar.com/news/3-people-die-of-drug-poisonings-within-1-week-in-nelson/
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Monday after work which didn't start, slow, JR felt he could handle it on his own, rainy outside, rain, in July, how often does that happen? Not very.
And I was chomping at the bit, had my granola, water, was ready to get up Crystal Mtn and clean it out. About time.
A long drive with nothing to talk about, beautiful, piss pouring rain, 2 hours to the logging road that turns up and up and I'm off, the first 6 KM, rocky, bad, but I can manage. This was the site of my last breakdown. This is the cause of some slight anxiety, as this place, this mountain, it's been the graveyard of a few of my automobiles, and the three cylinders of fury, gallon of oil, well, I'm not cancelling any adventures because of it...
The next 6 KM up, they're nail biting. The road, always bad, is plenty the worse for the lack of wear, from this point onward I'm unrecoverable, car breaks, nobody is coming up this last stretch to get me, peel your VIN, grab your shit and get the hell out of dodge...
And herein lies the rub, that this car, it's full, packed full of rubbish, more than I can carry in 2, 3, 4 trips even, and so a breakdown - well, it's inconceivable. Intolerable.
Up and up, the switchbacked cobbled roads climbing at 45 degrees and then pitching cliffwards another 45 degrees, less a road than a boulder-jammed rut with 6 inches of navigational wiggling, every year the road slips a little more in line with the slope of the mountain, away from the level, and already I'm thinking this was a very, very bad idea.
The roads up to 6KM are bad, past 6KM, well, ....
I arrive, breathe a sigh of relief, my fingertips are numb from clenching the wheel. I pour a goodly libation to the gods that got me here and if so inclined will see me safely down.
And begin work. The day is grey, rainy, overcast, you can barely see the mountaintops across...
The work, well, first the surface collecting, picking up the easy finds off the top of the dirt. Small, nothing too worthwhile.
By this time it's dark. The rest will wait for morning.
The next day, rainy, grey again, I'm filthy in a matter of hours. Dig down to bedrock, search for new pockets. Nada. I do a good job of baring a few meters, but - nothing. And so I go through the dirt I've dug, go back to a few vugs, clean them out again.
And for all this there's precious little return. A couple of one hour breaks to prospect other possibilities, above, below, but it seems this is the spot, the only spot, really, where the crystals got a chance to form.
Back to the digging.
***
I get, in the end, maybe 10lbs of crystals, most small, a few as big as my thumb, a couple of beauties. But this I would have gathered in a few hours a few years ago, and so - and so - this area is tapped out, no need to return unless I can somehow come up with some dynamite or explosives.
Which I may.
The mosquitos now are insane, and I've no Vodka left for another farewell salute, but it's time now to head down the mountain, now, the smell of brakes as I ride them the entire trip, and safely to the road aim the car southward, I need a shower, covered in filth from the pit, sweat, deep-woods-off, but I've done it, done for the season, done and I have my treasure and now to find a shower, find some food, find a town...
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Much like the habit of going to the gym, has largely dropped off due to the demands of work.
Yesterday, my sole day off after 7 in a row, town, coffee, laundry, meet a friend, go for lunch, walk, library, pay a bill, get another parking ticket, to Lakeside park to find shade and read my book, back to the library, read my book some more, (The Book of John Mandeville, curious, but I'll review that later), another friend for dinner, game of crib, killing time out of the heat of the day, my window doesn't roll completely down and the vehicle has become an oven...
Today, Kaslo, collecting the Kootenay Lake stickers for a friend, then to work, this weekend will be a madhouse, 4 days and then three in a row off, time enough to take the deathtrap up crystal mountain and see what I can uncover...
But not a lot of time for writing. The adventures will slowly percolate your way though, never fear...