July 10-22

I hate evacuations. Eric and I got up around 5 a.m. July 10 to get our supershuttle to the airport. The flite to Vancouver was unnotable except for two things. Both the supershuttle and Canadian Airlines charged us more for the bikes than they had said they would over the phone. We actually called the supershuttle company to complain and they said the phone rate was right and they'd mail us a rebate check.

Getting out of the Vancouver airport was no problem. We assembled our bikes in a little totem pole park outside the terminal next to the parking garage, while some tourists stared on. It took quite awhile. Then we rode a few miles into town and headed for the apartment of Ann, a Toronto Globe & Mail journalist who is a friend of our friend Meredith. She let us stay in her place without ever meeting us. Meredith must have said good things about us.

Then we got whisked into Meredith & Tim's wedding celebration--rehearsal dinner that night, work party the next day, and wedding on the 12th. I'll spare you the details, but I will say a lot of stress was involved. M & T had rented a truck to haul their wedding party gear over to their wedding site on Galiano Island, and minutes before we were to leave for the ferry, the truck broke down. It had a dead battery. We spent the next several hours with our stomachs in a knot wondering if the truck would be fixed in time to make a ferry in time to set up for the wedding. It all worked out.

Galiano Island is gorgeous. It's one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver Island, and you can't build there unless you buy like 500 acres at a time. So there aren't too many houses. Eric & I stayed in a B&B during the wedding and hardly rode our bikes at all. We got a ride in Meredith and Tim's wedding truck part way to the B&B. Then, the day we checked out, we rode less than a mile to our first camping spot, in Montague Harbour. It was awesome. We saw bald eagles and ate bagels and coffee on a deck at the marina store.

Next we headed to Salt Spring Island, the most commercial of the Gulf Islands. Once again we hardly worked. We ate lamb hamburgers--the place is known for its mutton--drank beer, had showers at the marina, and again, hardly rode. We were there for a whole day before we embarked on our first sizable ride--to the north of the island and then back south, for a total of 30 miles. The northern half was no problem. It was going south that killed. We started out on this up hill, which we thought would give way to downhill, but it didn't for a long time. Instead it turned into gravel and went over a small mountain. Eventually we rolled downhill to our campsite, a working farm that has tent space right on the water. It's called Ruckle Provincial Park. It's one of the best places we've ever camped.

Finally, on Wednesday (July 16th?) we ended our lazy ways and got the ferry to Victoria. The ferry system in BC is odd. Though it's quite cheap ($3 to $4 to go between the gulf islands, and about $8.50 to go from vancouver to the gulf islands), the ferry terminals are never near town. The Vancouver ferry terminal was about 25 miles south of vancouver, and the Victoria terminal was about 20 miles north of Victoria.

We rode on the highway, which was quite unpleasant, but we had a great treat waiting for us: Russ and Tracey, whom we'd met at Meredith & Tim's wedding. They had said we could stay with them and they meant it. As soon as we pulled up they showed us their spare bedroom and told us to get a nice bath in their jacuzzi! With bubble bath. It can't get any better than that. Later Tracey's sister Meg came over with her beautiful blond baby Oliver. We had a great barbecue and drank beer. We ended up staying for two days, spending the days talking with Russ, who is a woodworker, about BC politics and fishing in the wilderness. His friend Gord, a schoolteacher, came over and scared the bejeezus out of me with tales of bears eating hunters. We bought a "bear banger" to protect oursleves--a pen shaped launcher that fires a flare that makes a loud noise. Russ warned us to try to shoot it so it lands in front of the bear and scares him away, not behind the bear, which would scare him towards us. We spent the afternoons hanging out with Tracey, an occupational therapist who has a great job set-up--a 90 percent position! just six and a half hours a day. So sane.

We left Victoria on Friday only because Russ's parents were coming. I would have loved to just stay there forever. I wasn't looking forward to the Malahat, this twisty road out of Victoria. The ride wasn't so bad though.

Just a brief capsule of what happened since then. We rode up Vancouver island through strip malls and gross traffic and a few cute seaside towns and finally got on a ferry for Hornby island, this honeymooning spot. There we met Phil & Patty, fellow campers who showed us how to dig for clams and harvest and grill oysters. They made us a great seafood dinner the first night, and we made our own the next nite. I've never eaten so well in my life. I think we've only eaten Lipton noodles once. Makes me feel like a traitor to our Mississippi canoe adventure style of camping. The camping was expensive though--$18 a night.

Then on the way back, disaster struck. Eric got his fourth flat tire in four days. Turns out part of the problem was the way I was pumping. Eric has bursitis in his left arm, so I am trying to help him out by pumping. I used to do it fine when I was a kid but apparently I've since developed a method that wrecks the valve, making the tube unusable.

We didn't figure out it was me till that fourth tube. And that was our last one for Eric's bike. The flat happened at Buckley Bay, just after we got off the ferry from Hornby via Denman Island. Eric had to get back on the ferry to Denman to buy more tubes from the Denman bike store, which kindly sent the tubes down to the ferry dock so they were waiting for Eric when he arrived.

Then, since our batteries were running low on the Newton, I changed them. The Newton crashed in a big way. We couldn't get it working at all. We thought we'd lost everything. Including a column I was writing. What a massive bummer.

More bad news--we tried to find camping and couldn't. Rode our little hearts out around Courtenay and Comox trying to find a site. A Traveler's Lodge offered to let us stay for $69. What a rip! We ended up riding for miles and miles and finally backtracking to a great B&B in Courtenay, called Estuary House--$45 for two including breakfast. From there Eric called Apple's technical support and got the Newton working again. Turns out because of a glitch in the Apple operating system, we are supposed to remove the modem when changing the batteries. What a weird glitch. Apple kindly gave us a number where we can download a fix that will prevent that crash from happening again.

Today we are off to Campbell River. Big problems lie ahead. The Canadian fisherman are mad at the Alaskans for alleged overfishing. So they've been blockading U.S. ferries at Prince Rupert, where we had hoped to catch a ferry to Juneau. We hear this could blow over in days, or in a year. If we can't get a ferry from PR to Juneau we may have to fly or cross the border on bike and pick up the ferry somewhere in Alaska, if that's possible, or skip Alaska altogether.We'll try to write more often.

next: Campbell River and Gold River

Pacific Northwest Main Page