Today was a depressing day. I drove back to Calgary from Saskatoon
today, after leaving my girlfriend there for her summer job. She's
staying with relatives, and working at the University of Saskatchewan
doing work in her field. Its a very good thing for her, especially
since she's considering doing grad school there, what with the
Canadian Light Source coming online soon and all.
It was a semi-interesting trip. As interesting as the flat lands
between Saskatoon and Calgary can be anyway. The most interesting part
was the Red Deer river valley, which is sort of badlandish. Other than
that, you have a lot of little rolling hills and gullies that aren't
much after living in the shadow of the mountains for all your
life.
As I drove out of the 50 zone in this small town, I hear a weird noise, as
if had run over something. It sounded pretty serious and didn't go
away as I accelerated; it got worse. I slammed on the brakes, got out, and
looked around a bit, and found that the stone guard had broken off on
the right side near the bumper. It's held on at four points, two
plastic brackets connect it to the bumper at the front, and two
plastic connectors hold it one further back. The plastic connector on
the right must have come off at some point, so every bump I went over
flexed the plastic bracket until it broke. The stone guard was now
dragging on the ground, and the sound I heard was my front tire catching
it. I pulled off the other connector deal and broke off the other
bracket since I didn't have a proper wrench to take it off with, and
no wire to hold the right side on with. So I had to remember to stay
off gravel roads and to get that fixed. They'll have to replace the
whole bumper I think, which probably won't be cheap...
I was sort of fighting getting depressed all the way home, and once
I got there I broke down for about half an hour. It dawned on me that
I had left my best friend in the world, the only person I've every
really missed (in my adult life), in a place very far away, and that I
wouldn't see her for at least a month. Well, there's more to be
expressed here, mostly about my feelings of isolation and so no, but
I'm out of words for today.