around the flagpole and some pre-historic bones

Another weekend.. and me faced with the inevitable boredom. Finding something to do has become more challenging than ever.

Anyways I decided not to go down without a fight. I had to drive to the US border anyways to get my visa change reflected. And on Friday evening out of the blue I decided to rent out a car and just drive 300+ kms.

The day started pretty good. I reached the car renting office and mentioned my reservation for a compact car. She looks at me and says "I am sorry.. I don't have a compact car available now, but I can give you a bigger one for a special price of 20 dollars per day".. "Good deal.. which one?".. "That one" and she points to the 7 seater Ford Taurus crossover SUV. What in the world will prevent me from saying Yes to an SUV?.. Few minutes later she finished my paperwork and I hit the road (btw, she was the cutest among all girls working there.. I know.. I am such a shameless creature.. )

There's nothing like a long drive across the country and I decided to beef it up with some country music.. I have never been a big fan of country music (except Johnny Cash, my friend Nick got me into the entire Johnny Cash world.. eating and drinking like an authentic russian and listening to some Cash, some Marley and some Hendrix..sometimes he'd even play some Russian songs, I had no clue what they meant, but I went along.. sometimes I would make him watch some mallu action scenes from one of those Mohanlal movies.. it was cultural integration..or was it disintegration??)

Ok.. getting back to what I was talking about.. So there I am driving through the provincial route, with cattles and horses grazing in farms on either side of the road, listening to Keith Urban, Tracy Lawrence and a number of other artists I am hearing for the first time, occassionally switching to my favorite road trip song "Roadhouse Blues"..

Driving is something I love to do- be it any part of the world.. But the songs I hear change all the time.. when I am in Kerala I listen to proper mallu songs, if in North India I switch to old Kishore Kumar songs and now in cow town, I should hear country..

Was a long drive, with occassional Tim Hortons breaks and I reach the border post.. Now heres the tricky part - I need to exit Canada without actually entering the US (my US visa had expired about 4 months back), and then get back to Canada. How do I do that?..there is no no man's land in between. Relying on what I'd heard, I courageously drove to the US post. They flagged me down and asked for my details, the gentleman led me to the immigration post and I explained my desire to return to Canada without actually entering the US. He was pretty helpful, handed over a sheet which says I am withdrawing my request to enter the US (except that I am already in US soil..) At the reason column it says "Flagpole"..

Apparently a lot of people do it and both the Canadian and US officials has coined the ceremony "flagpole". Basically you just drive around the pole and get back into the country where you originated from. I signed in the column which says Signature of Alien (I always thought there is a high probability of alien existence, but this.. I didn't know I was one)


I woke up the next day with an even more desire to drive somewhere else.. After contemplating between the Columbian Ice Fields (Athabasca Glacier) which is 5+ hours drive and Dinosaur Provincial Park (2+ hours drive), I decided on the latter. So I was off, hitting the road once again with the right mix of country music, but this time to another direction.. Dinosaur provincial park is the place where they found the maximum number of dinosaur fossils (around 150 of them).. The terrain itself is interesting because of the soil erosion, which made the area so much more likely to find fossils in the first place.. I was lucky to reach on time to hop into the guided tour of the restricted area.. A restricted area is a place where you can't go in without an official assistance.. The trip was awesome, particularly the point where they just let us off the bus, gave simple tricks to differentiate bones from rocks and said "Now go and find some bones".. Can you believe that? actual Dinosaur bones.. small ones though.. the scientists are usually interested in big ones, particularly where they have the entire feet or hands or spine or even better the entire skeleton.. There were lots of small bones in that area.. I personally found about 3 of them.. You are not allowed to pick them up, but just touch them with one finger..

The group had a number of kids, and I sort of found myself playing the Dinosaur version of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" These kids knew so much about Dinosaurs and all that I could talk about was J2EE, Sharepoint and Facilitation 101... I felt ashamed (oh yeah, I do feel, sometimes)..

We also saw a number of complete fossil structures including one that of a Corynthosaurus, Albertosaurus, mostly veggie dinosaurs.. and our guide was explaining how these were attacked by predators and their defense mechanisms.. An excited parent goes "I thought dinosaurs were so big, why were they attaked by predators?".. There you go.. I knew the answer for that one.. I felt happy.. I am not the worst in "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?"

Finally it was driving back time.. some country music.. a few Tim Hortons breaks and I was back home..

But it felt so good.. being irresponsible and driving around.. I love my life..

Hey not that I was irresponsible always.. Infact this is the first time in my life that I can afford to be a bit irresponsible.. and I am enjoying it..