CAROLINE'S CORNER: ODYSSEY INTO CANADA II

This is the second article in a two-part series. The first installment appeared in last week's edition of the Jackson U.S.A. Signal

With darkness approaching, Connie and I decided to stop and spend the night in Radium Hot Springs, which is a picturesque small town with lots of mountain views and a population of 400. We stopped at the Gibson Motel Ltd., which would have been called a motor court when we were teenagers. The rooms were detached, with swings on the tiny porches and clusters of beautiful flowers in window boxes and on the porches.

As darkness fell, Connie's imagination began to run wild. She wondered why there were no other guests at the Gibson. Since we had no phone, she decided that she would not sleep a wink that night and that she would personally see to our safety.

We did have a knife now. The Gibson had a small kitchenette with a big butcher knife which had seen many years of use and sharpening. It was long and thin and nasty-looking.

Now Connie has a vision problem. Without her contact lenses or her glasses, she cannot see who is entering the door of a room. Since she chose to sleep with her glasses on one side of her and the butcher knife on the other side, I chose to stay awake to insure my own safety.My imagination began to run wild. "What if I get up and she can't see that it is her cousin?" I thought. "What if she has a bad dream and uses the knife on the nearest person, who would be her cousin?"

We survived the night, and early the next morning the lack of knowledge about the metric system hit us again. The weatherman announced that the temperature was to be six degrees Celsius. We knew that was much colder than the 95 degrees with 95 percent humidity that we had left, so we dressed in layers. It would be possible to layer or un-layer and the temperature would be irrelevant.

After this first eventful day, we slipped easily into Canadian life. We made it to Lake Louise, the Columbia Icefields and Calgary with no major metric problems.

There was one small disappointment for Connie at the Columbia Icefields, which is a remnant of the great ice sheet that once blanketed most of Canada. Connie wanted to walk on the glacier, and the attendant informed us there is at least one fatality a year. Someone who doesn't know what he is doing falls into a deep crevice in the ice. We had not known what we were doing most of the trip, and we chose not to be a statistic.

Our only disappointment in Calgary was that we did not see a real cowboy. The clerk at the Westin was wearing cowboy boots, but he did not seem to qualify as real.

By this time, our stuff had expanded and would not fit into our luggage, so we stopped at Wal-Mart in Calgary and each purchased an attractive inexpensive carry-on bag that was just the right size. Only on the flight home did we notice that our luggage was actually roller blade bags.

No one in the airport assumed that we were roller blade queens and asked for our autographs. They surely must have wondered where the roller blade derby had been held. We could have explained that the Calgary Stampede is held in July and the Calgary Roller Blade Derby, for just at the crest of the hill females, is held on Labor Day.

On the flight home I was seated next to a dermatologist who was returning from a convention. The good doctor was obviously excited about his new-found information, and he diligently and gleefully examined literature on ravaging skin diseases. I could not help observing that each time he came to a picture of decaying skin, he carefully studied his skin for symptoms. Because I knew that he would soon run out of skin to study and I did not care to be the next patient, I unobtrusively excused myself and reached in the overhead compartment for my jacket and gloves. It was an extremely warm flight, but I felt more comfortable with my multitude of moles and freckles covered.

After all, I had escaped the knife in Radium Hot Springs and I did not care to go under the surgeon's knife on a flight from Spokane to Birmingham.

This trip to Canada was our trial expedition. Now we are saving our money for a trip to Scotland to find our Bailey ancestors and cousins and our roots. Before we go, we plan to study pounds and the exchange rate. We'll brush up on our plaid designs and learn to appreciate bagpipe music. We'll view the moors and if we're lucky, we will catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness monster. With our active imaginations, there certainly will be a column on him.