Chapter 88: Crazy Weekend
This past weekend has been pretty crazy. A whole bunch of us went to Kelowna to play in a Coed 3’s volleyball tournament. While most headed there Friday night and stayed at the Comfort Inn, I opted to take the Greyhound to Kamloops to stay at Elaine’s place for the night instead. Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early just after 6am and drove the 210km or so south to Merritt then east to Kelowna. Wow, I just found out at this moment that there is a shorter route, at about 165km, which is going east from Kamloops to Vernon, then south to Kelowna. When doing a Google Map from "Kamloops to Kelowna", it recommended the first route with an estimated travel time of 2:22. When doing a map from "Kamloops to 1800 Parkinson Way, Kelowna", which is where the tournament was taking place, it recommended the second route with an estimated travel time of 2:23. Interesting.
Being so early in the morning, there was very little traffic on the highway, and I drove at around 140-150kmph regularly in Elaine’s RX-8, and going down a long hill, took it up to 208kmph, and that was not even trying very hard. That’s the quickest I’ve ever driven a car, but had taken my motorcycle up to 220kmph before. That was on the night before my road test, on the Alex Fraser Bridge going home from Action.
It was incredibly hot at the field, and even at 9am, it felt like a regular hot afternoon. By the time noon came around, it felt like we were in a giant outdoor oven. Had to reapply the sunscreen multiple times to prevent burning - but at least I was successful in that regard, unlike last year where I ended up a crispy critter for the next week or two. Our team consisting of Ron, Gary Wong, Blessy and myself did not fare very well. In fact, we lost every single game we played. We had our chances, including one where we were up 23-20, but then somehow managed to lose five straight points and fall 25-23. In the first round of the playoffs, we ended up playing Gary, Will and Mimi, and we put up a very good fight, and were up a sizeable margin in the first set at about 15-8, but then lost something like 21-19.
After going back to the hotel and getting cleaned up, we went out to eat, and a few of us went to Montana’s for meat, while the rest went to East Side Mario’s for Italian fare. After that, we went back to the hotel and played some drinking games. I participated in the first game of Kings, which I got through relatively unscatched, and opted to sit out the next one, which was a great decision. People got absolutely plastered on that second game, because of the added rules - you’re not allowed to say anyone’s name, and anyone sitting next to the primary drinker also needs to drink, leading to exponential consumption of alcohol. Later on that night, I played some dice games as well, but I hardly had much alcohol at all, and didn’t feel much of an effect. However, I did stay up until almost 5am, and didn’t get much of a restful night’s sleep.
Checkout was at 11am, and we were planning on going to IHOP to eat, but because it was jam packed, we ended up going to White Spot. After eating, Elaine and I started the trek back to Kamloops, while the others drove in a convoy back to Vancouver, with some detour stops in between. While driving back to Kamloops, I was driving around 130-140kmph mostly, and then got to a downhill and started accelerting, eventually getting up to about 175kmph, before Elaine said there were cops up ahead. I quickly stomped on the brake and got it down to about 135kmph, but didn’t decelerate any further because I still couldn’t see the cops… until I suddenly did. Damnit, a bunch of them in the median with radar. I braked a little more and just coasted at about 110kmph looking at them while I got nearer, hoping they wouldn’t step out… but they did. Fuck. I should have merged back into the right lane well in advance of him stepping out. That way he may have just deemed it unsafe to try and stop me and perhaps may have just let me go. I was expecting the worst, and I’ve got to say I felt a huge sense of relief when he told me that he clocked me at only 133kmph. He went to write me up, and gave me the lowest speeding ticket, which is $113 (if paid within 30 days) and 3 demerit points, which should be for those exceeding the limit by less than 20kmph. That’s a hell of a lot better than what I would have got if he trapped me at 175km, as I would be paying about $400 for the ticket, receiving 6 demerit points, which will cost another $300 for ICBC. So I guess instead of $100, I may have needed to pay $700. I’ll count my blessings on that one, and now that I know this, will definitely be more careful in the future. Three or less demerit points in a 12 month period, between about 17 months before your birthday and 5 months before your birthday, means ICBC won’t charge any premiums. That means from now until next March, I will have to be especially careful not to get any further tickets. The last ticket I received was probably about three years ago, when I got caught by radar at the bottom of Knight Street Bridge, heading to Richmond.
The reduced fine wasn’t the only thing I was thankful for. As I continued to drive along, I started to get really tired. From my past entry #48, I had mentioned how I had fallen asleep at the wheel once, which resulted in a minor accident. However, driving along at 120-130km and falling asleep could have much greater consequences. I had already decided that I would want to stop at the next pullout to switch with Elaine, but the highway continued on and on without any good stopping location. I was having serious difficulty keeping my eyes open. At one point, I swear I had dozed off for a couple moments, snapping awake just before a soft bend. There’s no telling what would have happened if I didn’t come back into consciousness. That was enough of a scare. I stopped at the side of the road soon after and let Elaine take over. I’m a little upset at myself to have even let it get to that stage. I guess I really should have just pulled over immediately as soon as I knew I was having trouble staying awake.
So I guess overall, even though I got a speeding ticket, I’ll consider myself to have been very lucky on that drive back to Kamloops.
We made it back before 4pm, and went down to the casino because Elaine wanted to play in the slot tournament. Yes, it’s a stupid game with absolutely no skill involved, just endless mashing of the spin button for 10 minutes. She actually got me to sign up for the final 48th spot as well, but somehow the organizers screwed things up and in the end I couldn’t play. Oh well, at least I got $15 in free signup money, and some useless momentos for it. Elaine wasn’t doing very well in her first round early on, and through the first eight minutes, she was not amongst the leaders. Out of each heat of eight, the top four move on. She went on a roll in the last two minutes, and got to about 4300 credits, which was good enough for a solid third place… until her buzzer beating final spin, which yielded the second highest winning combination, yielded a huge 3950 credits, rocketing her to over 8000 credits, easily more than the 5000 or so the second place finisher had. In the next round, she had no such luck, and found herself in a tough heat where the top four all had over 6000 credits, while Elaine only managed less than 4000. It wasn’t as bad as another heat, where someone rang up a solid 7200 round, but yet didn’t even make the top four! I feel sorry for that contestant, as 7200 would have been enough to finish FIRST in the next heat. The highest overall round was a whopping 11000+ credits. That person must have hit the jackpot of 6000 plus a few other huge spins as well.
All in all, she had fun, and we left to pick up dinner at KFC/Taco Bell before heading home. Could you believe the KFC ran out of chicken that was ready, and people were told they had to wait half an hour for their order? Unbelievable. I just ordered Taco Bell stuff, so I didn’t have to wait nearly as long. After eating, we were both really tired and took a nap… all the way until 2am. My Greyhound back to Vancouver was scheduled for 3am, so I packed my stuff up and headed to the depot. The bus was supposed to be a regular one that made stops at all the major points like Merritt, Hope, Chilliwack, Langley, etc. and was supposed to get back to Vancouver at 8:30am. Fortunately, there was another bus there that was a direct bus to Vancouver, and I ended up arriving much sooner, at about 7am.
What a crazy weekend.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Good words.