Journey Interrupted	Short Cuts
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By: George Reiswig - 7/2002

From our hotel window in Blue River, we look out on Lighting Falls - snowmelt from the huge cornice at the upper right of the picture.

"Paradise Lost" July 26th, 2002.

Dear Mom, please send spiders. And bats. Lots of both. Now.

Blue River, British Columbia, seems to be proud of their local celebrity, the mosquito. When we pulled in for lunch, the little gift shop we stopped at had T-shirts with a mosquito riding a snowboard, its proboscis sharpened to a fine point. From our experience, the mosquitoes here do not sharpen their probosci, and they are dulled, probably from continuous biting. As a result, you really feel it when they try to drill it through your dermis. And afterwards.

The mosquitoes here pursue their biological imperative with a fervor that matches the frequency of their wingbeats. 20 seconds after stepping outside, and a swarm appears. A few more seconds, and the word is really out: "Dinner is served!" Dinner is served 24 hours a day here. No regard for sun or night...they are feeding all the time. They are not certified by the Red Cross, but they nevertheless expect regular donations. Apparently, the sheer number of flying hypodermic needles and their density means that they perceive the demand for blood is exceeding the supply, so it is first-come, first-served. They race to every surface, particularly exposed skin. A five-minute walk to dinner from our hotel room last night turned into a quarter-mile race, baby in hand, back to the hotel -- trying to stay at the front of the swarm. The flying vampiresses (only the females bite, using your blood to create eggs to further this rare and endangered species) find the wake of still air behind your running body, and collect on your back. On every surface, on every building, one can see five or ten mosquitoes per square foot, each armed with its own needle waiting to accept your donation. Perhaps the Red Cross should enlist their help.

Target practice with captions -- upper left is the aftermath, and lower right is the next target, locked on for imminent destruction.

Hotel? Hotel, you say? And have you noticed that I'm rambling even more than usual?

Yes, we're staying in a hotel, so I have nothing better to do with my time than to ramble. I mentioned that we had stopped for lunch here yesterday in the admittedly beautiful but mosquito-plagued town of Blue River, B.C. Immediately after lunch, I topped off the coolant (it was down a little), and the oil, and we hit the road. As soon as we started the engine, I heard what sounded like an exhaust leak. Vainly hoping that it was just a thermal-contraction-in-the-exhaust-manifold type of thing, we headed down the road. I watched the gauges carefully, and saw the temperature rise at an alarming rate. Slowing down the engine reduced the temps, but didn't get it into what was a normal range for the load the engine was seeing. Pulling off the doghouse (Mog-speak for the engine cover in the passenger compartment) again, I saw a jet of coolant coming out of the rear of the engine between the block and the cylinder head, pulsing with every engine revolution. And speaking of engine revolutions, this engine had apparently revolted. I was revolted, too. Evidently we were dealing with a head gasket failure. I'm talking about a revolution. Revolting.

Midway Service towed us to their shop in town, and sheltered the Unimog in the most mosquito-infested enclosed space available (the owner breeding his own crop in the bucket of his tractor). Very kind of him, but he doesn't seem to realize how sensitive is the skin of we foreigners. Indeed, the prevailing theory is that the head gasket didn't fail from combustion pressure; rather, a mosquito drilled a hole through it, thinking that the warm engine was a warm body full of blood. Imagine her surprise when, instead of blood, she got a crop full of hot coolant under pressure? Small consolation for us, that tiny explosion.

Closer inspection of the engine revealed no obvious cracks in head or block on the outside, no water in the oil, and no oil in the water. Hopefully, it is only the head gasket that is the problem, and no warping or cracking in the head itself. In any case, we are down for a few days as parts are shipped. We will have the Mog towed to Prince George, where Ken Schultz of Prince George Truck and Equipment has offered his services, which we will gratefully accept. The Glacier Lodge Hotel we are staying in is being very helpful and understanding. Jim Ince of Eurotech Services is our parts supplier, and is doing is usual excellent job of trying to help out as quickly and accurately as he can. They may even be here tomorrow, but more likely on Monday. Naturally, the breakdown occurred near week's end, thus ensuring the greatest likely number of down days.

To say the least, this breakdown is not happy news. We bought the Unimog because it was supposed to be bulletproof and reliable. When the alternator failed, I was less irritated because it was not a stock part, and the vehicle can run without it. When the battery isolator/combiners failed, I had the same feeling. Neither of those parts failing will stop us cold out in the middle of nowhere, but a head gasket failure is a different story. Why did it fail? What can I do to prevent it in the future? I had re-torqued the head bolts when I adjusted the valves. Did I do something wrong? Those were the thoughts racing through my brain as I tried to sleep last night. When I finally did get to sleep, my dreams were of trying to fix the engine with one hand while using the other to fend off a giant blue mosquito on a snowboard. I did not succeed in either task in those dreams. It is amazingly difficult to pay attention to torque settings while simultaneously losing blood through your eyelids.

Between hiding in the hotel from the mosquitoes or wrenching in Prince George Truck and Equipment, I find myself wishing for the simpler times, a few days back, when I was skipping stones at South Barriere Lake.

Angela (my lovely wife), Charlie (family friend and a huge help on the trip), and Krista (18 months old and full of a two-year-old's sound and fury) are taking this all surprisingly well. I did not have to sleep out on the balcony with the mosquitoes last night as I had feared they might make me do. Thusfar, they are not furious with me.

I, on the other hand, am furious with Grog, with myself, with God. Why here, in this plague? Why at all? I had resigned myself that the Unimog would be like having a donkey -- slow, but reliable. Now, however, my confidence in our ability to cross the vast expanses of nothingness (nothing but mosquitoes, that is) has taken a punch to the gut. Angela put it well, though; it wouldn't be an adventure if the outcome were certain. My thoughts go toward Christopher McCandless, the unfortunate subject of the book "Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer. Krakauer is an excellent writer, so I won't spoil the read for you. But McCandless went to Alaska to find himself, and over the course of a summer slowly perished by making uninformed decisions. We will be going to places as remote as he was in. What am I forgetting or not considering? Did we really want this much adventure?

Blue River is situated in a low valley with nearby glaciated peaks. From our hotel window, we can clearly see a vein of water cascading down from a huge melting cornice at the crest of a high ridge. The falls races down the steep stone in a zigzag, hence the name Lightning Falls. It must be 2500 feet long. The peaks are jagged and rough-hewn, new in geological terms. The valley is obviously carved by glaciers in the past. It is, to say the least, beautiful here. Were it not for the Winged Plague from Hell and the need to stay close to a phone, we might be more inclined to venture outside our glass cocoon. But it rained last night, which seems to drive the mosquitoes further into their feeding frenzy.

But I have a good friend and family here with me, and my guitar. The mosquitoes pound themselves listlessly against the window glass, longingly looking in at the blood reservoirs inside but failing in their efforts to reach us. Life could be worse.