Falls Lake Turn Off

I missed the Coquihalla Summit turn off. This whole area is built up with so many big trucks.  There’s even a new parking lot for  truckers to stop. I’m surprised there’s not a restaurant up here. But I guess it’s just a place where people take a nap break.  Lots of lights. Much much more activity that I remembered from before when I came here. It was called ‘tool gate’ then.  It was dark and busy.  I pulled off at this Falls Lake turn around and checked the gps. Apparently I’d passed it 6 miles back.  I was tired. 

It’s been a long time since I pushed myself after a day of work and headed up country. I was doing fine till I got to the Agazziz turn off. I felt I was being pulled to go to Harrisons while I was thinking and wanting to go to toll gate.  I pulled off the road and made a turkey sandwich I shared with Madigan.  He’s such a good companion.  I’d been looking for a burger place but hauling a trailer I wasn’t comfortable parking in the A&W and gas station lot after I filled up with gas. 

After I had the turkey sandwich and a Monster drink I felt better. But then I couldn’t find the road that took me back onto the highway.  I had to turn around at the first dead end , not too difficult but the second dead end was a killer.  I was jockeying back and forth trying not to hit a guys mail box on one side of the road or go over into the ditch with the trailer on the other side of the road.  I’m amazed I did get turned around it was such a tight space .  I next ended up having turn around at the entrance to a native land reserve.  Three dead ends before I found my way back onto the highway.  An hour of being ‘lost’.  

I’d already lost an hour caught in the traffic jam at Langley. I was behind a huge flatbed hauling steel rods.  Twice the driver appeared to fall asleep and roll backwards. I reacted thinking I was rolling forward then hit the reverse a bit while slamming the horn. It happened once again and then I just hit the horn and after that took the HOV lane to get out from behind him.  I figure I gave a fright to the guy behind me when I backed up.  

Now I’m here.  On the side of road outside Falls Lake. Unfortunately I read up on the area and there was an advisory of theives in the Falls Lake region breaking into hikers cars.  They advised again leaving things in the car. That got my catastrophising mind going and immediately I missed Laura.  She so often stays at the camper when I head out and her presence ‘protects’ the ‘stuff’.  Of course she has a rifle herself and phone but while she’s afraid of bears and stays inside mostly I’m afraid of human theives. They’re not dangerous but prey .  So while I was driving up Coquahalla amidst all the big trucks I began lamenting the decline of government and law and order and miss Laura and wonder what the hell I was doing taking risk. I began thinking of having a house again. But when I lived in Shaughnassey theives broke in three times.  All the neighbours had been broken into.  Vancouver is a drug addict city of theives and insurance companies.  I began to worry how much my insurance premiums would pay back if my camper was pillaged.  I have an extra gun and I have a computer lap top and hand held Hamm radio. It would be several thousand to replace gear if I was broken into.  

Worrying is praying for negatives.  So there I am now driving in the dark up a mountain praying vigorously to block my catastrophising mind.

Jesus said ‘do not be afraid.  So as I told my sailing buddy, ‘worrying is wicked’.  Of course when we got into a tight spot in a blow and I was bailing the cockpit he grinned and asked “are we wicked yet’.  I was getting wicked as the night was falling and the wind was rising. I really was thankful to get to a safe harbour that night.

Now here I was wicked again and trying to block my thoughts with ‘all shall be well’ and ‘god is good all of the time.’

Only Falls Lake the turn around I pulled off at turned out to be the place where the thieves were reported.  

I put the struts out on the camper and having walked madigan climbed into bed for a great sleep.  

I woke at 430 and years younger I’d have headed out finding a camping place and starting the hunt. I rolled over and went back to sleep and woke again at 6. I’ve found coffee and made it on the stove top expresso and dressed. I’m feeling better now. But my dream is touring in my camper but I have to consider planning for possibility of theft.  Then I thought of my country homestead where I’d put in various protections. Even now I have motion detections lights. I once had motion alarms. I’ve got interactive cameras and want to get something for this camper.  But how to get such a thing outside internet range.  Still I don’t like theives and now it’s light and I’m missing Laura.  I don’t think there’s much risk from other people but the whole snatch and grab fold and the drug addicts and the light laws and the present government soft attitude towards criminals all work against property protection. 

There’s an election coming.  I am hopeful but was so disappointed the last two elections that I wonder about leaving the country. That’s my aging fear. Watching the abysmal way our government treated seniors during Covid was shocking. I fear aging and physical decline. I sometimes think the whole city girl gossip hanging out as a tribe with others is the way to go.  I have depended on my ‘manliness’ and ability to defend myself all my life but now ‘manliness’ in Canada is called ‘toxic masculinity’ and if you defend yourself you are the aggressor. Our PM who claims to be a feminist but is as borderline and gaslighting as they come says ‘if you kill your enemy they’ve won’.  What dribble.  I have thought long and hard about self defence and know that Jesus’s followers were armed. Fisherman always are.  Peter cut off the fellows ear. 

Even the Buddhist non aggression has three groups. Those who don’t eat meat at all. Those who eat meat if someone else kills it and those who eat some meat.  I studied the Chinese communists (the religions of aetheism) attack on Tibet and when the most peaceful monks were killed the B team of Buddhists picked up the left over English 303 and fought the Chinese machine guns with them. I enjoyed the fortress in Cambodia.  I’ve visitted Meteora and Cappadocia.  The Somalian Cabinet minister asked what he would do if he wasn’t reelected in Canada said he’d go back to his home in Somalia. So many of the Canadian politicians aren’t Canadian and the PM is anti Canadian claiming to be a ‘transnational’. Meanwhile I’ve nowhere to go.

I enjoyed meeting a Jain and loved worshipping with the Quakers. But I long ago figured that if a person was going to kill me letting him would make him a murderer so if I cared for his soul even I’d defend myself. If he died and I lived then so be it.  Of course there was the risk of both of us dying if I defended myself but in the past I’ve been able to stop assailants who would have killed me and lack morals and ethics and we both lived.  I’m not sure I can save myself without killing the assailant in a struggle now I’m older. We joke and say at our age there is no ‘second round’ so we have to end the fight in the first round.

So that’s what I wake with. Anxiety about possessions and theives.  Consumer world.  So many years of works three jobs to have the ability to be here where I am with what I have and I wonder about ‘safety’.  If I holed up in my bed it wouldn’t be any safer.  Yet so many of my patients do that.  Fetal position for days.

Anxiety.  

Anxiety is a measure of my distance from God.  Time to pray. Time to go too.  I’ll see if I can find the turn off at Coquahalla Summit .