Good News Everyone! I Got Nuthin'!

*** continued from previous post ***


As I was preparing to take one for the team and go in to rescue her, she emerged from the building holding a piece of paper in her hand. Victory! Sweet, sweet accommodations here we come!

However, the hackles on my neck raise a bit because I can see that your Mother isn't exactly exuding joy. I can tell from her body language. It's those subtle motions that are visible only to someone you've spent your life with, the hidden language that the two of you have developed over the years. No one else would be able to pick up on these clues, and if they did, they would have no frame of reference from which to decipher their meaning. In this case, your Mom was banging her fists on the side of her helmet and jumping up and down. I studied her as she approached. Ah. . . I recognize this - it's her universal signal for "I have great news! I love you and I'm sorry if we've been short with each other for the past few hours but all is well now, all is well."

Mom steps to the side of the bike and says, "We're fucked."

Oh. Well dang.

"Okay, how fucked? Fucked as in 'I forgot my wallet', or as in 'Hey, look! The right wing just fell off?"

"Fucked - fucked."

"Well alrighty then. So, was this some internet scam? Is there a Hidden Valley Lodge? Wait . . . don't tell me, did it burn down yesterday?"

"Oh," Mom says, a tad sarcastically I thought, "there's a Hidden Valley Lodge alright."

"Okay," now my patience was running thin, "so what's the problem?"

”Did you," she asks as she pokes a finger into my arm, "think to actually look where this place was before you booked it?"

"Well if I had, then we wouldn't be asking for directions, would we?" I say through clenched teeth.

She stares at me long and hard, and for a moment I think she's reaching for her shank. Or her rock. Or any number of other things she could use as a weapon.

"When I asked directions they looked at me horrified. HORRIFIED! It was obvious I was on a motorcycle. This place isn't IN Carnack. It's OUTSIDE of Carnack. Actually OUTSIDE and ABOVE Carnack and still another 40 kilometers away!"

I do a bit of mathematical calculation on the fly. That means that we have another 157 gallons to go. Damn you Canada.

"Alright, so we still have a bit of traveling to do."

"Forty kilometers away," she says and pokes my arm again for emphasis, "up the side of a mountain. On a narrow, one-lane gravel road. While it's getting dark."

I feel my stomach knot. The Vision is a wonderful bike, but it is definitely a street bike. Not a dual sport. With all of the rain water she weighs as much as a binging hippo. Or, in the metric system, 6000 stone.

My mind frantically turns, I'm trying to salvage this day somehow. Eventually I give up. I got nuthin'.

*** the journey continues ***