Yesterday, we went for a drive.  If you're interested, you can watch the video at The Camper; I just posted it there.  

Anyway, it was a strange trip.  The scenery was awesome, and the weather was really decent, but something about the whole trip just felt strange, in a way I can't explain. We visited a little fenced-off place that's supposed to be a cemetery for First Nations kids who were ripped away from their homes in the mid-1920's and forced to become "civilized"; not one headstone or marker was there to indicate where the bodies were. There were a couple of cairns with plaques on them, but there were no names on the plaques, and no markers in the ground itself.

The sky was strange, too. Some of the most amazing pictures I think I've ever taken were taken yesterday.  I can't explain what felt so eerie about everything; it just felt... well... strange. I wish I could describe how it was strange, but I can't.

We ended up in Longview, at a little hotel that was built in 1938.  Longview was an oil town - a big town in its hey-day. Now, it's downgraded to a large village; there aren't enough people there to make it a town.

Anyway, we no sooner pulled up and stopped than I experienced a very strong sensation of being crowded. The feeling only intensified when I got out of the van. I knew I would have to take pictures - which I did. And I also knew I would have to run the voice recorder - and that was weird, too: Before we even left the house, something told me to bring it with me...

We had dinner in the hotel's cafe, and then headed home. Inside of about ten minutes or so after leaving, we came upon a huge mess all over the highway. There were vehicles pulled over to the shoulder, there was debris all over the place, and it seemed like we really needed to pull over and see if we could help.

We quickly learned that there had been an accident.  A horse had been hit and killed.  According to the driver, the horse just ran right out in front of him; he had no reaction time, and he couldn't swerve to miss the animal, either, because there was oncoming traffic.  The owner of the horse - a young girl in her late teens or very early twenties - was in shock. She was sitting with her horse, who was just at the top of the ditch beside the road, and she was crying. I went to her to offer what comfort I could, and all she could say was, "But my hazards were on."  She couldn't answer any other questions, she couldn't do anything except sit there and rock and cry.... I knew she was in shock.

The girl's boyfriend (or maybe he was her husband or brother; we're not sure) came along and managed to get her up off the ground. He walked her to their truck, which was on the opposite side of the highway.  We checked on the driver of the vehicle that hit the horse - his truck was completely totaled; there was shattered glass all over the inside of the truck, and broken debris and ripped metal around the outside of the truck - and offered to stay with them until the RCMP and a tow truck arrived.  It wasn't very warm outside, and we didn't want to leave him and his friend without a place to warm up if they needed it.

Finally, the RCMP arrived, and we were allowed to go.  All the way home, Roger and I alternately discussed the accident, held our silence, and talked about other things. It was a very strange drive home.  We both noticed the stars were out in force, and that they were incredibly bright, and we were amazed by that. The Big Dipper seemed enormous in the night sky, and the Milky Way, too, seemed larger than we've ever seen it.  Everything about the drive home - including the sky - seemed surreal, somehow. What made it seem even more surreal to me, personally, was that the girl's boyfriend/husband/brother or whatever he was to her had told me that the horse was being put down in a week, anyway, because he was really old.  Somehow, that just made everything seem out of place...

Anyway, we did enjoy the scenery while we had daylight, and it was nice to get away from the city for awhile. I hope we can do that again soon - before the hardness of winter really gets here and the roads aren't safe for travel anymore.

I hope everyone has a great day.  Tomorrow begins another week of scary stuff here at the Haunted Holly Tree, so stay tuned!