Scrub and strum

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

CHILLIWACK, B.C. — It was clean-up time this morning in our well-supplied parking spot in the driveway of Ken and Linda Byrt — hot water and unlimited hose coils made a proposed car and RV wash session ideal. To sweeten the process even further, ever-energetic Linda volunteered to help. (Ken had an eye appointment today, so he managed to avoid getting his hands wet!) While Linda used the long-handled brush on the truck and trailer’s sides with wonderful vigour, Val attended to the elbow-grease sections, and I took rinse duty with the hose.
Somewhere along the Cassiar Highway, when we passed a paving crew, we got splattered all down Val’s side of the truck and rig with some kind of liquid that dried on like cement. It would not budge under the high pressure hoses we used, nor with hot water and soap. It did respond to rubbing with a special dry wash solution and plenty of elbow grease. That’s what Val undertook, spot by spot, while Linda and I soaped and rinsed elsewhere. He got most of the stuff off the truck, but the trailer spots will have to wait.
The brown streams of water that flowed off the trailer as I sprayed the sections Linda had scrubbed were evidence of the many dusty, dirty miles we had covered. We are expecting pavement pretty well the rest of the way home — although nothing will surprise us — so we figured we may as well start this leg of the trip in a clean state.
After that chore was done, we went in for some lunch. Ken and Linda had invited a couple of friends for dinner, and my brother Alan was driving in from Victoria to see us, so there was a nice big turkey thawing in readiness. The blackberry pie from last night had been such a success, I offered to make another one for the crowd, since we still had plenty of berries from our picking session yesterday. So, while I rolled pastry, Linda prepared the berry filling, and we popped it in the oven ahead of the turkey.
Not long after that, Val’s cell phone rang, and it was Al, calling from the street outside the house! We were in the back yard, so it was a good thing he didn’t try the doorbell. It was great to see my dear brother and catch up on all his news. We had a leisurely afternoon that melted happily into a pleasant evening when Kerry and Betty, the Byrts’ friends, arrived.
When our delicious feast was consumed and the sun had gone down, lending a chill to the evening air on the patio, we moved indoors for the musical portion of the evening. Al had brought his guitar, and Ken and Linda pulled out theirs, and plugged in the keyboard. For the next couple of hours, we sang, strummed, laughed, listened and sang some more, flipping through the Byrts’ collection of lyrics and tunes for various numbers, as well as listening to Al’s wonderful solos of songs he knew by heart. There’s nothing like making music with friends and family, and a good time was had by all.
It was hard to wrap up our jam session, but wrap we did finally, since we had to pull out in the morning and head on our way. We set up the pull-out couch for Al in the trailer so he could spend the night and make the return trip to the ferry and Victoria after a good night’s rest.