As some people have surely heard by now, it took Karin and I an extra day to find our way across the big smoky province of British Columbia.

I would have guessed it was the fires that slowed us down, the summer of record forest devastation closing roadways and creating looming hazes hanging over the small scattered towns and lingering in the bowled valleys.

If it hadn’t been the fires, I would have then supposed that an accident on one of those treacherously tight turns on some high mountain pass might have blocked traffic for hours and left us sitting in the lineup of cars waiting to rubberneck by.

And if perchance it hadn’t been the fire or some random accident, I had also considered that summer construction on the aging highways and bridges might have provided us with a few minor delays.

I never would have thought we’d been delayed a whole day by Meatloaf.

Now in all fairness, as human beings, we tend to look for patterns in our everyday existence. We search for connections between events: cause and effect and all those sorts of random linear linkages. While Karin and I were ploughing our way up the steep southeast side of the Coquihalla highway, climbing towards the ten dollar toll just a kilometer away, her whimpering car, lugged a little, chugged a little more, and then decided to turn the engine into a percussion instrument. Unfortunately, it didn’t go well with the music we were listening to: Meatloaf

We killed the CD, drove our way through the booth listening to the tappity-tap of the internal-combustion frenzy, and pulled off to the side, just north of everyone’s favorite highway landmark. It was here that we — failing to diagnose the problem — made a few dozen phone calls and began orchestrating the means by which two soon-to-be newlyweds, their luggage, and their ailing car were going to get from the top of a mountain in central BC, to the comfort of small-city Red Deer

Two hours later we were rolling into Merritt in the lap-luxury of a tow truck, anticipating further rescue by Karin’s uncle and aunt, who were (and still are) camping in the Shushwap.

A day late, and a four vehicle relay race later, we’re now temporarily trapped in Central Alberta waiting to be wed, the car is sitting in Merritt waiting to be diagnosed, and money — it seems — is eagerly anticipating trading hands.

Meatloaf, you’re still wondering? Why on earth would we (a) be listening to that crap in the first place and (b) blame a broken car on the music. Well, as I wrote, as humans we tend to find connections in strange places. Further along our travels, riding the mountain passes in a borrowed car, we plugged a mix-disc into the car’s player. Twelve songs later a Meatloaf tune was hidden in the mix. Avoiding it, I ejected the CD.

The player hasn’t worked since.