10.

Day4

Leaving jasper sent us eastward back over the continental divide toward british columbia but not without passing mt Robson a peak of massive proportions first. I had been looking forward to seeing this mountain for a while. At just shy of 13,000 feet it is the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. Unfortunately due to bad weather we were only able to see the base. It seemed like a much better idea at the time to stop at the base of the mountain (visitors center) in search of the ever evasive national park sticker souvenier (which i have become addicted to). They didn’t have any but there was a nice little greasy spoon in the same parking lot so we ate eggs and sausage and looked out at the cloudy snowed in base of Mt. Robson along with all the other families travelling through Canada in their mini vans, dvd players equiped with seperate personalized headphones and endless bathroom breaks. Granparents cut pieces of ham up for their favorite 3 year old grandkid, 5 year olds wandering off to explore bathrooms, and the 14 year old grandaughter perpetually on her i-pod, all in perfect harmony. It was times like this, as we sat with plastic forks and paper plates, steam streaming up from our hot coffee as we blew on it, hands cold from wind sheer factor that I am reminded of what a different experience we are having compared to others that travel our same road. We have no windshield, no wipers, no defrost, no cruise control or automatic transmission. Our movement is dictated by nature, by the conditions thrown at us. We have ever changing smells that waft through our helmets and leave with the passing wind. We feel the coolness of morning and have the warmth of sun warming our noses which poke out from helmets early in the bone chilling day. We have U-turns on tiny roads to peak at a hidden view. We lean to fight centripital force pushing us tangential to every turn, which keeps us constantly engaged with the road, the wetness, the potholes and oncomming traffic.

We took Yellowhead pass over the Rockies so named because Sandford Flemming used the low pass in the 1870’s as a fur trader. He had blond hair and thus the name. I steal my geographical facts from roadsign signage wich I have also become addicted to. I love how Canada insists on tons of road signs to tell us all about what happened in a place at any point in the last century. We pull over for most of these, in order to read and learn about them. It ads a funny depth to the journey and allows us to conjour images of what it must have been like then. Usually they spark some conversations as our minds wonder off on visions of that past.

I felt sad today. I think it was because we had already passed our northernmost point and all travel after today meant that we were headed home. The crescendo had past, and each mile meant the trip was that much closer to being over. I think this picture opitomizes my mood of this day. A bit bummed, clouded in, but still really amazing scenery. I'm still in the constant state of being amazed by everything around me, by the grandness and pristine surroundings.

heading south the mountain steepness passively gave way to foothills and flatness. We descend to farmland of the thompson river valley brimming with life as the sun started to come out warming the land. the road veers and sways along the edge of the thompson river so that we are contantly accompanied by its life giving presence. Steam rises as it did from our mornign coffee, although now the surroundings are bright with life. the polyphonic spree are blasting in my headphones and the beat of the music has somehow magically become in sync with the sprinklers watering the land and i am in what i consider a completely perfect moment. I will take the liberty here to inject a moment I had a couple weeks ago heading out to the olympic penninsula for a friends wedding because it somehow captures this moment perfectly. here it goes:

Sun,
Take some time to get away

Sun,
Soon you’ll find your own way

Hey
it’s the sun!

And it makes me shine

Hey
it’s the sun!
And it makes me shine

Hey,
it’s the sun
And it makes me shine

Hey now it’s the sun
And it makes me smile all around

All around

All around

This song has been playing in my ears for the last four minutes.

Tears are rolling down my cheeks,I am filled completely with joy, I’m singing, crying and laughing all at once, I am so fucking alive it is frightening. I’m frightened by the love that is flowing through this body. Frightened that I wont ever figure out what I am supposed to do with it until it is too late.

My feet tap out the music on the motorcycle pegs and I can feel the chain ever so slightly bouncing up and down with my movement. I’m speeding along the northern coast of the Olympic peninsula with my ipod blaring music and the five cups of coffee I had for breakfast have sent me into a physical and emotional roller coaster. I feel like I’m headed to oblivion or heaven, whichever comes first. I don’t know where I’m going and I’ve never been to this place before and I am filled with awe, filled with lust for living, filled with the joy of speeding on country roads. It’s a strange time of year now. It’s still sunny in Washington state but the clouds have been coming around lately and rain is held at bay by the optimism left from summer affairs. Its 9 in the morning and I can still smell fresh smoke in the air emitted from chimneys hidden deep in mossy green forests. The trees that stand on the sides of the road are dropping their leaves like flickering snowflakes before me. As I drive along they never hit me. The wind displaced before me sends them swirling over and around me like snow-flakes over your windshield on a snow storm winter night. I don’t even know why I am crying. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I have(I think it’s just one of those things our bodies need to do). Maybe it’s because singing makes me cry, and I’ve been singing loudly in my helmet where no one can hear me all morning. Maybe I’m crying because I’m remembering people, places, and times that have blown by like the speed of light. Crying because I know how good life has been to me and why shouldn’t I cry out of joy and happiness. Why shouldn’t I cry out of hope that life should continue to fill me with amazement, with opposition, with journeys, with beautiful people, with little babies. Why shouldn’t I cry and laugh when the sun shines on me, the wind rushes past me, smoke fills me and the air cools me. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I?

When I bought the motorcycle I thought it would be fun to ride around. I thought it would save me money on gas. All the things I thought about it seem totally irrelevant once I started riding it. It seems I bought a confidant, a choir director, and a tour guide simultaneously.

END OF DIGRESSION

We continue to head south toward Kamloops and the dryness of the lower lying land. We skirt east along the southern edge of Paul lake toward Cache creek. it is here that I think I have come the closest to death than at any other point on this trip. it is this area of rolling grasslands that we experience the awesome force that wind can have on a motorcyle rider. At 60 miles an hour I am blown from the far right edge of the lane and back to the middle dashed line in about one second. The mind bender is that at this moment there are fully loaded semi trucks headed toward you at 75 miles an hour. At this point, you hold on tight and make silent calculations like "ok if I ride on the right side of the lane to avoid the semi's I will be blown off the right side of the road into that ditch and barbed wire fence, assuming the wind will blow me toward the middle of the road or should i ride toward the middle of the road hoping the the wind will blow me away from the semi's comming at me. " Either way it's a crappy calculation to be doing at any speed. I actually have to pull over to get it together. With my dad's heavier bike he is much less affected by the wind but he is getting blown around quite a bit also.

As we finish our day of riding we enter the town of Cache Creek and pull into the parking lot of the one motel that seems somewhat hospitable. It seems a bit forgotten with brown weeds growing up from every junction of the asphalt lot and the curbs that line its border. We enter the totally silent front office to be greated by a singlular lonely standing rotary dial phone on the counter with a sign next to it that said "ring 9 for office attendant". I rang 9 and a woman answers in a deep Punjabi(I asked her later where she was from) accent "hello, Subway". Huh? What the? I told her I was at the motel trying to get a room for the night. she said she would be right over, and I hung up the phone. I told mydad what just happened and we agreed that we may have just walked into the twilight zone, dually noting the sign onthe window that said somehting about a health spa comming soon. Behind us stood an old treadmill in a small tile floored room adjacent to the front office.

A minute or so later a woman walked into the front office in a Subway sandwich uniform. I guess the same family that owned the motel also owned to subway in the same parking lot. It was much more efficient to have only one person working at both places, evidently.