Day 37: to Nanaimo
I wrote in my journal twice today, once at midday, and then again at night. Rereading them gave me a chuckle because the first sentence in my journal was "Worst day since cold, miserable wet, 40 degree and rainy day with ridiculously steep hills in Glacierview, Alaska."
And in the evening I wrote, "Best day in BC!"
It started off as the worst day because, for some reason, Canadians think it is normal to ride on the freeway. We saw many other cyclists doing it, and everyone we talked to, including the bike store people, said that's the way to go. This is probably the first thing I have come to truly dislike about Canada.
We made it to Nanaimo and struggled to make it back onto the freeway so we stopped near downtown. I was angry and frustrated so I stress ate to make myself feel better. I also found this metal box was made in Minnesota!
In a stroke of good fortune, we were in Nanaimo on their "Bathtub Days" weekend. We were told it is the busiest weekend all year. We didn't see the main event, but they streets blocked off, all sorts of vendors out, a band playing, a classic car display, and all of that sort of stuff leading up to the great "bathtub races" tomorrow.
I don't think this woman was a booth, but she and her poodle attracted a lot of attention.
While I was brooding and watching the band play, Nick made a friend at the Bicycle Co-op booth. His name was also Tyler! Tyler turned my mood from bad to glad.
Tyler was kind enough to offer his and Laura's house as a place to stay. It was splendid. We got to eat plums, apples, and blackberries from their backyard trees.
They also took us to a beach to see the sunset and play in the water.
I played with the seaweed. I had never seen so many kinds of ocean seaweed before, and the textures and colors are something to behold. There's a seceret message in there. There would have been a second, but "d" and "a" are harder to make seaweed.
But thanks to Tyler and Laura, we went from having one of the worst days to having the best day of the trip. Thanks you two!
How we got a free *hand rolled cigarette*
Between the misery of hte evening, and the good fortune of meeting Tyler and Laura, we met a man and his dog Chico.
While waiting outside a bike shop (not the bike Co-op), a guy walks to the bike shop with an unleashed chihuahua. The man tells the dog, "Chico, stay." And without stopping to make sure the dogs stays, the man goes in. The dog then pees on one of the display bikes outside before it goes around to see who will give it some attention.
One us is giving the dog attention when the man comes out and starts talking to us, asking us where we started, where we're going etc.
We give him some more details about our route and eventually tell him, "We went through the lava fields outside of New Aiyansh."
At this point he stops and says (I'll omit the expletives, which were numerous) "No way! No way! I was born there! My grandma was born and raised there! A white dude... Down here... And you even said it right!"
Apparently we impressed him just by riding through his birthplace in the boonies, and pronouncing it right.
We talk a little while longer until he finally has to go about his business, which was finding a flyer to roll a joint with. That is why he was frequenting the bike store and beauty salon in the first place.
He takes Chico, his disastrously trained dog, with him and we all laugh amongst ourselves.
About five minutes later, the guy drives through the parking lot and beckons Nick closer. Just below window level I see the man holding what appears to be a *hand rolled cigarette*. Shall we call it that?
Nick hastily takes it out of the man's hand and thanks him. What else can you do?
The man drives off, leaving us with all laughing with a hell of a story, a thousand laughs, and a hand rolled cigarette to boot.
Awww, thanks for the shout out in seaweed.
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