Beware the Ides of March Already

Based on how my day went on Wednesday, I'd have to say that the Roman sorcerer who first warned about this day must have been on to something.

The backstory began on Tuesday.

Catherine was coming back from Vancouver Island and her flight was supposed to arrive in Trail in the late afternoon.  Accordingly, I drove down to retrieve her.

Too much fog.  The morning flight didn't even leave Vancouver and the afternoon flight came out, flew past but couldn't see the airport because of the fog and went back to Vancouver.

She opted for a late morning flight to Cranbrook for Wednesday.  That flight went fine and she landed there just after lunch.

Meanwhile, on the ground....

First I drove to Trail and Rossland.  This normally takes about 2 hours.  Fine so far.

Later in the afternoon, I drove down to the Trail airport, waited, listened to the plane fly past, up in the fog, and went back to Rossland, while the plane went back to Vancouver.

In the morning, I headed for Cranbrook.  Normally, I would drive to Salmo, over Kootenay Pass to Creston and then on to Cranbrook.  About 3 hours in total.

Completely unannounced, Kootenay Pass was closed.  The radio was still saying that they were planning for a 4-hour closure at some point during the day.  But by 8 am, it was closed.  The only way past is to go to Salmo, down to Nelson, to Balfour, over the Kootenay Lake ferry, back up to Creston and then to Cranbrook.  A diversion that turned a 3-hour trip into a 4.5 hour trip.

Despite this, I made it to the airport in Cranbrook just after Catherine's flight landed.

We arrive back in Creston in an hour or so and Kootenay Pass is still closed.  It's now been closed for about 6 hours.

Kootenay Pass clearing avalanche debris on a sunny day

The only option is to continue north to the Kootenay Lake ferry where we arrive at around 4:30 pm.  Unfortunately, that's where everyone else has gone too.  The lineup is massive.  At least 2-sailing wait, with each round trip taking about 2 hours.

Catherine takes the ferry as a foot passenger because we have arranged for our daughter to meet us at the ferry terminal at Balfour with our grandsons, who will be staying with us for a few days.  We don't have any way to contact her to make alternate plans.

I wait.  And wait.  I don't get across the Lake for 5.5 hours.  I get home by about 10 pm.

Meanwhile, there has been a mudslide at Coffee Creek, which is between Balfour, where the ferry is and Kaslo, where I'd like to go.

Interestingly, our daughter, the grandsons and Catherine arrive at the landslide just after 6 pm and only have to wait a few minutes.  It's all cleaned up by the time I breeze past, in the dense fog, at about 9:30 pm.

I was listening to a CBC program in the car as I made my way east earlier in the morning.  It was about the history behind this special date.  Apparently, in Roman, "calen" is the first day of the lunar month (from which we get "calendar"), and "ides" is the middle of the lunar month.  So the Ides of March is nothing special, just the middle of March.

But there was this Roman sorcerer who warned Ceasar to "Beware the Ides of March".  I'm with the sorcerer.  Caesar should have heeded the warning too.

A Canadian favourite is Wayne & Schuster's spoof "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga".  You can see it here: