Bish & John

here-i-am

2008-12-01 08:23:15

Say hello to Pam, I met her today at Tim Hortons and she took pity on me, offering a bed for the night. Pam is full of good stories and likes to hear mine too. We talk through dinner and then late into the night while she matches me beer for beer. Just up the road we (I mean you and me) meet Annie and Martin and their family and they take me back from the bar to their house for roast bison, I sleep on the floor right by the fire. Now I wake up at Gayle's house, I'm on a comfortable sofa and not in the fresh snow I can see through the window. It's not too bad when I get going though, I ride another 30 km and then turn off the hospitality highway. My front gear cable snaps and my spares are with Tom in Seattle, I'm stuck in the lowest gear and so peddaling at any speed over 15kph is futile. Still, I hit a perfect hill and freewheel to a new top speed - 81kph. The road I'm on now is the route through Whistler, a quiet back road really. I rarely look at the drivers any more, but now I do raise my gaze and am greeted with a camera lens, I wonder if I'll make the album. I pass through a town called Lillooet and begin a 60km climb. It gets dark before I reach the top and so I stop and read Stephen King's Pet Sematary in my tent, then have a dream about getting caught burying my victim (Tom was my partner in the task). Eventually I make it to Whistler, late at night because I didn't like the town before it. There was more climbing to get here and so I celebrate my efforts with 8 pints of beer, then crash on Neil's couch (hospitality hamlet). Mostly it is downhill now as I approach Vancouver though I'm in torrential rain. I don't enter Vancouver though, instead I take the ferry across from Horseshoe Bay and I'm greeted by Bill in Nanaimo at the other side. After some sleep I look out the window at the continuing downpour, Bill says 'you could waste your life waiting for the perfect day' and so we play golf, Bill beating me on the last hole with an incredible pitch from 40 metres straight into the hole. We dry our hair and head for a hockey game - Nanaimo against the enemy and the enemy seem to be winning. The loyal fans around us start to boo the players, but Nanaimo was just cold, they're warming up now and come back to just 3-2 down, then a burst attack, the puck's flicked across the goal over its keeper and another stick intercepts its flight, sending it into the net. All is forgiven, the fans are on their feet now but the ref has gone to have a word with his friend at the other end. A near miss in Nanaimo's net 5 minutes ago is now deemed to have crossed the line, Nanaimo's goal can't count because there was no stoppage, the score is 4-2 to the enemy. Beers land on the ice and the last few minutes are ugly as the fans hate the ref and Bill and I see how funny they are. We sleep again and then Bill rides with me to the next ferry terminal. Now just a short journey to Salt Spring Island and we meet Tanya and David, they are parents of Krista and grandparents of Corbin (and we've met them before). I've been invited to stay with them and we're having tea. They show me to my room and en-suite bathroom, and I'm awed, it's matched in luxury only by the container ship, and I had to share that with Tom. Corbin is nearly one now, if people wanted to compliment him on his youthful looks they would have to say he looked no older than 6 months but I've not heard it yet. Corbin likes it when I do animal impressions, so does Krista. We're wrapped up warm now and here to see the Christmas lights turned on in Ladysmith, now back on island under an umbrella to see father christmas arriving by sea plane, and now back at the house, sitting in front of the fire playing Chinese Checkers and eating Krista's soup. Today I've been drinking with Gemma, here she is. She has no blue ribbon in her hair but she could. I make her play all her songs again, enjoying each one but really wanting to hear 'High Horse' over and over. Gemma, personal jukebox, queen of puns, paranoid drunk, Gemma, Gemma, Gemma, here she is. And she's wearing a tiara. It's late afternoon and we're both buzzed, we run out of gin at home and so head to the bar, Gemma carrying a batch of new cookies to offer out to new friends. Pete takes one, and says it's delicious "I'm John" I say "Ron?" he says "hi Ron" I say "I'm Pete" he says "ah, Pete, John, good to meet you" I say "how's it going" he says "you too" I say and so on. He slips 4 dollars into my hands when he shakes it (you're a lucky man John) and buys us both a gin and tonic. At 2 in the morning we are back at Gemma's house, still drinking gin and tonics - I guess we hadn't run out after all - and Gemma's cutting my hair with kitchen scissors, pausing each few minutes to admire the progress or drink or change the music. By 5 it's finished - grade 0 all over. I wake up and don't remember sleeping, we recover by playing Wii. And now here I am back at David and Tanya and Krista and Corbin's, writing a blog before retiring again to my luxurious bed.