Had a few appointments in town and we had run out of dog food, milk and cheap B flicks so, today, we headed over to ‘end-of’-the-road’ to pick up our car and head in.  It has been 15 days since we were last in town.  

Eor is so-called because it is the end of the logging road on the next island over that, at one end, leads to the first smattering of on-the-gridders (the ones who have TVs and telephones, garbage pick-up, fire protection and police traffic harassment presumably in exchange for the the convenience of a store).  The other very end of the Eor is an incline of about 250 feet of gravel road at a 20 to 25 degree angle.  It is a steep hill that is relatively easy to negotiate if you have 4WD but it becomes a bit more problematic if there is snow.

And there was.

A 4WD neighbour had made an attempt earlier to leave the mid-slope parking area and his truck was at the bottom of the hill.  He didn’t make it.  It didn’t even look like he made much of an attempt at getting up, really.  I assumed that he slid down the hill and realized at once that getting up was not going to happen.  The truck was abandoned with it’s wheels in the beach water (high tide) and he had gone home. 

Since I was currently parked next to where he had been, I decided to pass on my attempt.  No sense in two trucks being there. We went back home in the boat that brung us.

We have been trapped before by weather but who hasn’t?  You can be in Richmond and get ‘snowed in’.  But this was the first time we kinda needed to get out and couldn’t.  This was the first time I felt a bit trapped.  I mean, really…….no milk for my tea, dogs get nothing but kibble, no movies and a missed appointment or two……….hardly anything to complain about.  Still, I felt a bit trapped. 

But it was notable that, in the past 5 years, we have not been restricted completely by our remoteness except this time and maybe one other (can’t remember).  Generally speaking, we can get out or get by without any real inconvenience.  And, even this time, the inconvenience is mostly to the appointments (they have schedules) rather than me.  I mean; I am not complaining.  I am kind of surprised.  Five years on a remote island and inconvenienced so rarely I can’t even remember the second time…..if there was one.

Don’t get me wrong – there have been storms that only fools would go out in and so we didn’t even think about it.  But neither did we have to.  There have been storms that eliminated travel to places we wanted to go but they weren’t pressing – we could go another day. And there have been storms that limited us but not others whose vessels were more up to the challenge – so, in a sense, we were not ‘cut off’.  We could call a neighbour if it was that pressing.

There are obstacles out here that you can’t get past.  To be sure.  But the main one is the logging road on the ‘connector’ island, not so much the sea.  Trees regularly fall across that road in big storms and, when they do, they don’t fall alone.  In big storms it is not uncommon for a dozen or more big trees to block the road.  Even with a chainsaw (some guys always carry one after a storm), there can be too much fibre on the road to make a town trip worthwhile.  When that happens, we let the road crew do it.  And travel a few days later.

Today, we will let the milder temperatures and the rain do the job for us.  Maybe we can go tomorrow.