No service. The top right corner of my smartphone has been saying the same thing for the last half hour: no service, no email, no Facebook, no Twitter.
We are in exile from the electronic soup that surrounds our lives, out beyond its treacly grasp in a drop-top Porsche 911. Things, I suppose, could be worse. Amazing what you can put up with.
For the first few miles, whenever my friend John and I stop for photographs, I reflexively swipe and check. Maybe an editor has sent an email I need to respond to. Maybe there's a comment on an article that needs response, either qualifying or defending. How many likes did that last Facebook post get?
But there's nothing, just me, my long-time friend, the car and the road. For the first little bit, I can't help myself. Further along the way, the itch stops needing scratched - why bother with something fake when you can experience the real?
Duffy Lake is like glass off to our left, the road ahead empty, the mountains covered in fresh snow. It's one of the most beautiful days I've experienced. And as for the car, holy sweet Mary mother of acceleration. I've been ambivalent about the current generation 911 since its inception, but somewhere along the way, Porsche figured out how to improve things a little. The coupes are still more about absolute pace than thrills, but when the roof comes off (either Targa or cabriolet), there's the rushing air and turbine whirr of that flat six to raise your hackles. Hot stuff, firing up the canyons in a new, red 911 GTS Carrera4.
You don't really need this kind of firepower though. It's not been long since I came through here in a 1967 MGB with my Dad. There is, shall we say, somewhat less confidence in actually arriving at your destination when one is piloting cantankerous British iron rather than steely German precision, but the overall experience is the same. Car, road, camaraderie.
I rarely remember a flight, but I do remember any time I drive somewhere. For all of its modern conveniences and distractions, the car is still capable of providing some level of the same freedom it once represented 100 years ago. Stop when you want, go where you wish. Look for the squiggliest bits on the maps, and just get out there. It's worth considering just how enormous British Columbia really is when it comes to this stuff.
We're a third again as large as Texas, and while much of the province is inaccessible, there's a spidery web of roads leading up to the North.
In a day, it's easy enough to loop through Lillooet and back down through the Fraser Canyon. Start early, and stop for coffee at the Mount Currie Coffee Company in Pemberton. Just past Pemberton, the switchbacks beckon, and then the long humpy road that leads out to Lillooet.
Got time to go even further afield? It gets better. If you head up the valley and run the tunnels of the Fraser Canyon early in the morning, you can then dive East along the Nicola Valley towards Merritt. My brother and I did so in a 5.0-litre Mustang a few months back, from canyon to plains, all the way out to the Empire of Grass.
That's a romantic name, is it not? You continue through Merritt and eschew the speed of the Coquihalla, choosing instead the winding loneliness of the 5A. At first, it's clustered cabins around a lake; later, there's simply rolling waves of grasslands, and lakes dotted with the odd fisherman.
Heading down to the United States is pretty costly these days, what with the state of the dollar, so the temptation is to just roam around in your own backyard. Still, gasoline is cheaper for our cousins to the South, and Washington has some amazing roads. Stitching together a loop through the Cascade mountains is a must-do, and if you cross the border at Aldergrove, you sometimes cut out some of the worst summer traffic.
But back to the Duffy Lake Road, stopped at the boat launch to lake a couple of pictures. There's no wind at present, so the lake is like a mirror, B.C. putting on a show for the camera.
You know what the normal thing to do is, right? Whip out your iPhone, fire up Instagram, share this moment with the world. Famous for five seconds, a flurry of instant electronic approval to boost dopamine levels in your brain, and then back to business. But, "no service," says my phone. Get out in the wilds of Cascadia, and you're forced to unplug from this addictive little screen, forced to take a look around at the solid reality of the landscape instead of trying to capture it. You're forced to simply experience the moment, instead of trying to brag about it to your friends.
I shut my phone in the glovebox, and get out to walk around while John sets up a few photos. It's quiet — no engines, no airplanes, no traffic. A fish jumps in the lake, questing for some ill-fated winged insect.
This is what I love about cars. It's not the horsepower, the stomach-tugging G-forces, not the sound, and not the fury. It's their ability to move us, to let us write a story. My friend and I don't have as much time as we once did to reconnect. Neither do my father and I, and the same goes for the bond between me and my brother.
However, out here on the road in B.C., there's no room for the distractions of modern life. There's stuff to talk about, companionable silences to enjoy, and a new experience to be shared.
I slot the Porsche's key in the right-hand ignition, crank up the flat-six to a snarly idle. We're not yet mid-way on our little escape, miles of looping road yet to go. I've forgotten all about my phone - broken free from the self-imposed chains of technology.
The road beckons us onward. We go.
