Semi-Verbal Communication

Communication between friends is an interesting thing.

Minutes after picking up Craig and Sandy at the Saskatoon airport I was driving to the hotel pointing out the glorious Saskatoon sites. It was while I had my head turned, pointing towards the Robin's Flour factory that I heard that familiar, somewhat panicked sound coming from Craig's mouth. It's a hard sound to describe but anyone who's spent enough time driving with friends will instantly recognize. It's not a scream or a moan but you can't really classify it as a word either. It sounds more like someone is trying to say about twelve warning words all at once so it ends up coming out as a completely incoherent garble of vowels and consonants. Fortunately the sound is made with such emotion that as the driver you have no choice but to snap to attention and see what's going on. In my case I noticed the car stopped about five feet in front of me and had to slam on the breaks. That sound saved me the embarrassment of crashing three minutes into the road trip. Going 1500km with a smashed up car wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.

Running out of Saskatoon

I'm sitting here in my completely empty house on the night before I hand over the keys to the new owner. Six months ago I never would have expected to feel this way. Six months ago I could hardly stand the thought of spending any time in this city, let alone this house, but now I'm really, really sad to leave. I'm not sure if I'm feeling this way because of the great time and great friendships I've formed while here or if it's because leaving Saskatoon represents leaving behind the life I've built over the last eight years. Probably more the latter than the former but I'm sure I'll miss both.

I sent off a goodbye email to my colleagues at work and was genuinely touched by some of the responses. It made me feel guilty for all of those goodbye emails I've received to which I gave the old one-line "best of luck" reply. Some people wrote long emails with great stories of the good times we had and expressed thanks for the experiences we shared that allowed us to grow together. Makes me realize that I've spent so much time with my co-workers over the last eight years that somehow, without me noticing, they turned into friends. Knowing my communication habits I'll have to work hard not to lose touch with them.

So, tomorrow is officially my last day of work and the voyage begins. Watty and Sandy are arriving in Saskatoon for a night of partying with our old roommate Farley before we hit the open road - heading for Vancouver via Calagary. On Friday morning I'm envisioning a scene kind of like the early stages of Swingers where Vince Vaughn and John Favreau are heading to Vegas. They started the roadtrip with a lot of excitement, screaming "Vegas!" every few seconds until they get really bored and pretty much fall asleep. I'm sure that we'll only yell out "Road Trip!" about three times before the dull, flat, prairie road kicks our hangovers into overdrive and takes away the excitement.