It’s Surprisingly Difficult to Take Pictures From a Moving Car

Along the Coquihalla highway, there are a series of signs with the names of Shakespearean characters on them. On the way up to Kelowna, I was all “I’m *totally* going to take photos of those on the way back and post them on my blog because they are awesome!” As it turns out, this was much easier said than done.

The first Shakespeare-related sign (when heading south on the Coq) is for Juliet – and I totally missed seeing it until it was too late to take a photo. “OK,” I said, “I’ll be prepared for the others.” I remembered that there were a bunch of non-Shakespeare signs between Juliet and the next Shakes-related one, so I dutifully waited with my camera at the ready and got a bunch of shots like this:

Coquihalla

and this:

Coquihalla

I think this might have been the one that said “Verona” or “Lear”1.

I did, however, manage to get a nice clear picture of this:

Thar

Thar. What the hell is Thar???

I also got a fuzzy one of a sign that says Duke:

Duke

And an even fuzzier shot of “Iago”:

Iago

Plus one with the “o” in Romeo cut off:

Romeo

And one where you can see most of “Portia”:

Portia

(Look down below the more prominent “Boston Bar Creek” sign).

All was not lost, however! I got a good shot of the sign for Shylock Road:

Shylock Road

And, as a bonus, a shot of the bridge where Shylock Road goes over the highway:

Shylock Road

The little green sign on the bridge says “Shylock Road”, I swear!

And an OK photo of the sign for Othello Road:

Othello Road

Of course, all of this made me wonder why the hell there are a bunch of signs with names of Shakespearean characters2. Apparently, it all started with the Othello Tunnels:

You can tell I didn’t take this photo because it doesn’t suck3

Apparently, the Coquihalla is built on what used to be the Kettle Valley Railway, which included five tunnels cutting through the mountains – and these tunnels were called the Othello Tunnels. The stations along the railway were all given names from Shakespearean plays – Lear, Portia, Iago, Romeo, and Juliet – because either the engineer or the railway president – or possibly the railway president’s daughter – was a fan of old Wills.

Anyway, now I know. Which I believe, as Shakespeare once said, is half the battle.

  1. I missed both of them. []
  2. And, in the case of Verona, a location. []
  3. Here’s where that photo actually came from. []

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