With Enough Speed I Could Make It

*** continued from previous post ***


Finally the line to board the boat begins to move. Slowly. Very slowly. So slow in fact that it made me contemplate if driving a 900,000 pound bike down an incredibly steep slope with Canadians fore and aft was really such a good idea. The brakes on the Vision are great . . . but man, did my legs wear out. I had to paddle that puppy most of the way.

Of course, the insanely steep hill bottoms out and then climbs up an INSANELY steep ramp up to the level of the boat. For a moment I want traffic ahead of me to clear so I can gun this baby. Catch some air. I think if I did it right, hit the angle of the ramp at just the right speed I could probably not kill us.

Probably.

We wait our turn and the Ferry-folk point us to where we should park the bike. The space they have allotted us is maddingly small, and they want me to pull so far ahead that the tire is almost touching the bulkhead. It is then that I notice something is amiss. Something is very, very wrong. The staff manning the Ferry are . . . well . . . there's no other way to put it - they're smiling. Smiling and friendly. Instantly my spidey-sense tingles. It's a trap of some sort, of that I'm sure. I've ridden enough ferries in my day to come to understand how ferry staff should behave. They do not smile. They do not make eye contact. They sigh a lot. They're armed. They have all the personality of a pit-bull PMSing. I tense - just exactly what is your game, Canada? What diabolical schemes do you have for the people from THE STATES? Will they eat us? Are we the 'afternoon tea' for this boatload of maple-leaf worshiping hockey sacks?

Turns out my fears were unfounded. They were just nice. I'm not used to that kind of crap. I find it unsettling.

So we park and mom debikes. Or disbikes. Or crawls off the frickin' thing. Take your pick.

Another motorcycle pulls up behind us. It's a Suzuki S-50. They used to call them 'Marauders', I think. It's quite a bit smaller than an 800cc Suzuki C-50 that you ride - a bullet-proof cruiser if ever there was one - but it is still a good solid bike none-the-less. The person riding it is a young woman, and we find that she is very sweet and very shy. We strike up a friendly conversation, and I can't stop thinking of how much she reminds me of you and how much I wish your sister and you were here with us.


*** the journey continues - stay tuned ***