A One-Eyed Meth-Addled Monkey

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Before I describe what happened after we entered the Lodge, it would be best to step back and take an objective examination of how we must have appeared to the outside world.

They say that people's opinions are formed in the first 2 seconds of meeting. If so, we were screwed. Mom was a soggy, muddy, bulbous, pale version of her regular self with the added attraction of dark circles and eyes that were open wayyyyyyy too wide.

I looked way better than she did. I was a soggy, muddy, bald-headed and goateed man on a cane, wearing leather chaps and bulky upper garments.

Protip: A guy that is fairly large and muscular, in his late forties, bald, wearing leather, riding a motorcycle, and walking with a cane garners mad props. Mad props I say! I highly recommend the look. It might be tough for you to pull off, being 22, blond, and a girl, but I think you could manage. No one ever comes up to me and asks what happened, but you can tell they assume it to be a motorcycle-related injury. As I walk past, or pogo-cane-hobble to be more accurate, they cast furtive glances, and try not to make eye contact. I can read their faces. Their expressions say, "How hard-core do you have to be to crawl back on one of those murder-machines once it's crippled you?"

Ha! Works for me. Think they would have the same attitude were they to discover that whomever writes the sorry scripts for this thing we call life had decided I didn't need cartilage in my spine? Arthritis is not a party story. Well, not a fun one at least. Fleeing police at crazy speeds on your bike with a bottle of Rum in one hand, a saber clamped twixt your teeth and a one-eyed mangy meth-addled monkey riding on the sissy-bar flinging poo and flipping off everyone we pass - that is a party story. Discussing the nuances of arthritis is - well, just so damn pedestrian.

*** the journey continues ***

Hello? Certain Death? It's David Calling

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I'm sure I've been in worse situations on a bike, but honestly, I couldn't remember when.

I've been in places where the path was no more than a goat track, and walked the bike as best I could until I fell off the trail and had bike tip over the edge and land on top of me. That was fun. Also while riding trail, I've hit slimy, moss covered logs at the wrong angle and been shot off the road into the brush and trees faster than you could say 'howdy-doody'.

I've hit patches of oil and diesel in a blind curve at 60 mph. I've been caught in freak storms in the Cascades. Played 'run for your life' with a funnel cloud east of Yakima one notable spring day - where no tornado should ever be - and with a queasy stomach prayed that we would make it to shelter before the thing caught up with us.

We blasted around corners on Chinook, making our way down from Paradise on Mt. Rainier and had to thread my way between a herd of Roosevelt Elk – close enough I could have reached out and touched their hindquarters - hoping beyond hope that they wouldn’t spook and crush us while we were in the middle of the pack.

One time, in a moment of sheer stupidity in my youth, I took a turn WAY to fast on a motorcycle, and with shorts and a tank top, (but I was wearing a helmet!), rode the bugger straight into a patch of nettles and blackberry vines with enough time to contemplate how much it was going to hurt.

I've crashed, wrecked, ate the asphalt, and sported lovely, lovely road-rash more times than I care to remember.

I will not hesitate to admit that I was never more nervous . . . oh hell . . . I was never more scared than I was right then. It wasn't just me this time. I had your Mom to think about.

And I will admit something else. I say this next part with all sincerity because I know you'll understand completely: It was a most excellent rush!

*** the journey continues ***

A Bevy of Beavers

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"The boat runs every half-hour. Or every hour." She pauses. "Or maybe hour-and-a-half." She shrugs. "It'll get here when it gets here." She looks at the long line of cars in front of us, and looks and the semi's backing up behind us. "Hope we all fit. It isn't a very big boat."

In my mind's eye I picture a smallish canoe with a Canadian Mountie in the bow, decked to the nines in his traditional uniform. The canoe powered by tame beavers. Now there's a thought: can you tame a beaver? That would ROCK! I would lash like six tame beavers to a rowboat and have them pull me around. Ah someday . . . the good life. What would you call a group of beavers? I think a bevy. A bevy of beavers. A bevy of beavers at my beck and call.

Damn I crack me up.

Mom and I prepare ourselves for a long, long delay. We hadn't figured this little escapade into our schedule, and although it is still early in the day I'm beginning to get a bit concerned about exactly what time we are going to arrive in Carnack, Alberta. We have Glacier and part of Banff National Parks to drive through, and although we will be on the Trans-Canada highway most of the time, I really, REALLY, want to get there before nightfall. For various reasons. Not the least of which is I promised your Mom.

Suddenly the girls let out a squeal. "Oh . . . there's the Ferry Grandma! It's coming!"

I look out into the brilliant blue water and am greeted with a pleasant surprise: There, skimming across the lake, gliding like a back-handed pimp-slap on a sweaty thug's face, is a ferry that looks like it will hold about 50 cars. Plenty of room. It's a one-deck, flat-bottomed craft with an elevated wheel-house off to the right side. Very old school, yet it looks fairly new. I notice it's hauling some serious ass in the water. It is, after all, staffed by the same speed-crazed maniacs that drive the roads around in these parts.

The Ferry is moving faster than even I had realized, and before you know it everyone has bidden adieu to their "line friends", crawled back into their vehicle, and started their engines. Mom and I hurriedly gear up, climb on the bike, and wait for the next phase of our adventure. But you know that odd feeling you get when you've been in line with someone and the conversation has run its course and then you realize that YOU'RE GOING TO THE SAME PLACE SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WITH THEM FOR A WHILE YET ONLY NOW IT'S AWKWARD BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO SAY?

Yeah. That's how people were looking at us. Like they might just sit in their cars, pretending to be engrossed in what has become the most fascinating steering wheel they have ever seen, in order not to have to notice us standing outside their window. The Ferry, in all its glory, has no seating - no room at all really except for the deck which is now lousy with Canadians.

It takes a bit for the Ferry to unload. There are 18-wheelers. Campers. SUVs. Cars and delivery vans and trucks galore. We even get to see a small rear-end accident between a camper/trailer and a rental car as they exit the boat, so that's a bit of a spectacle. Really - you can't buy entertainment like that. We all slow and gawk as we board. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have giggled like a maniac at the people exchanging insurance information, but what's done is done. You can't put the cat back in the box. It does no good to close the barn door after the horse has run away. Unless you want to spite the horse in case it wanders back. But if you do that, you also need to reinforce that you are spiting the horse, because as you well know, subtlety is usually lost on an equine. It would probably be best to tape a sign to the barn door that reads "I'M LOCKING THE BARN DOOR SO YOU CAN'T GET BACK IN. SO --- FUCK OFF HORSE!".

Seriously, you can't be too blunt with a horse.

*** the journey continues tomorrow ***

Motorcycles, Spontaneous Combustion and the 'Pfffftttt' Years

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I love her immediately. The way to a man's heart may be through his stomach, but the way to a biker's heart starts with "Wow. Nice bike."

Of course, as is normal, she then proceeds to tell us every horror story in her repertoire associated with a motorcycle. It's mandatory you know. When people do this, all I hear is the line from 'Christmas Story', "You'll put your eye out with that!" Evidently, she had known many a good man that had, through no fault of their own, spontaneously combusted while riding a motorcycle. But not before their legs were ripped off by vicious moles. And their arms, well, they simply fell off. Fell like over-ripe plums in a summer breeze. Not really a reason for the arm thing other than they were on a bike. She never came out and said it, but strongly implied that what else could one expect from such a lifestyle?

Once she finishes with her itemization of accidents, deaths, severed limbs, halitosis and chronic constipation, we strike up a proper conversation. She's Native American. Although in Canada, "Indians", as they are sometimes referred to by the less educated, are called "Carl". No wait . . . that's not right. They are referred to as "First Nation People". Although she calls herself an Indian. And maybe Carl. The sociological structure of Canada is highly confusing to me.

She looks at our license plates. "Oh, you're from THE STATES!"

Yes. Yes we are. And we are not armed. Probably. Mostly.

We continue talking. We learn that she and her granddaughters, who are now running back up the hill - at a pace that makes me want to sweat or puke, I can't decide - have been camping for the last week with their extended family at an annual reunion. I think she said there were 60 or 70 people at this particular gathering. I'm impressed. I could barely manage the 11 of us in Winthrop. For three days. I give her a silent, "Well done good lady, well done."

The girls have now joined us. Sweeties. Probably 10 and 12 or 13, but not in that stage of what I fondly refer to as the "Pfffffttttttt" years. As in, whenever you ask a question of a child in this stage of development, you get the same answer. "How was school today?" Answer: "Pfffffftttttttt." "Would you like some toast?" "Pffffffffttttttttt." "Shall I kill you with a brick, or would you prefer to be dumped by the side of the road to be ravaged by a homicidal UPS driver with a speech impediment?" "Pffffffttttttt."

We chatter away. Time passes. Seasons change.

I ask Carl how often the boat runs, and how much it costs.

"Oh, it doesn't cost anything. There's no roads up here you see. No way to get across the lake. So the government has to provide some way across, and there's no way they could charge for that." She then chuckles.

I don't say anything out loud, but I beg to differ. In THE STATES they would have found a way to charge you, tax you, and made you feel guilty for even driving up here in God-knows-where in the first place.

*** the journey continues tomorrow ***