A Warm Kamloops Welcome

Rocky Mountain Chocolate & Chat Tour, 2008: Day One

In which the intrepid authors brave the Coast Mountains, make minor detours in Merritt, have a great time in Kamloops and fall afoul of a few technical problems....

I'm writing this the morning after the night before, due to the aforementioned technical difficulties. As you might well determine from the fetching self-portrait (courtesy of Photo Booth), I discovered last night that I had left my camera cable at home, and was thus unable to bring to this blog all the pix I took yesterday of :

• the beautiful drive through the Fraser Valley
• the extent of the Mountain Pine Beetle damage (and repatriation efforts) in the interior
• the astounding ability of James (that would be my partner in this particular crime, the author James McCann) and kc to get _lost_ in Merritt, BC (a city of fewer than 7,000 souls) wending our way to a heli-pad airport before finding the highway once again...
• a fantastic gig at the Chapters in Kamloops, where we met some wonderful folks who all made us feel truly welcome

Then, I sat down last night after discovering the missing cable and wrote a lovely blog post, complete with Comic Life illustrated panel, only to have my system crash. I took that as a sign from the tech gods, and gave up, hence this morning missive.

One other technical note -- I have also discovered that my home email address will allow me to collect emails but not send them from the road -- so apologies to all those who have recently tried to communicate. I've received all your messages, but cannot send unless I use webmail, which first removes your messages -- so I will do all my replies when I get back. In the meantime, my gmail address is working just fine, so that's the best way to reach me these days.

James and I head on to Banff today, where I hope to find a computer cord and will post a more colourfully illustrated blog entry this evening. And if you'd like to read James' take on our day today, you can find it here.

~kc