Northwest Passage
(Stan Rogers)
Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.
So I headed west out of Canmore while Karatechick and Forrest headed East back to Edmonton. Id' arranged to meet my friend Russ in Kamloops where we'd either decide to spend the night, or head straight to Vancouver from there.
I decided to head out a couple of hours early figuring that it'd probably take longer then advertised to get through the mountains. I was right, boooooy was I right. Everything from Canmore to Golden was construction... I lost two hours sitting there in the 30 degree sun, wearing all black sweating my freaking "O Ring" off.
I can remember thinking that the roads would have been really really nice if it wasn't for all the traffic, there's a lot of nice twists though there.
I hate passing lanes, there's something stupid about people and passing lanes. They're always placed where the road straightens out, so cages speed up through them, they get pissed off if a bike tries to pass them and speed up even more. So when the passing lane ends, and the road starts turning again the fast bike is stuck behind the slow cages again. And I have to wait for a dotted yellow to do a pass. GRRRRR
This thing is HUGE, 20-30 stories and it's one of the short bridge supports. They're literally building a bridge over a valley that traverses a road that used to wind down the side of one mountain then back up the other. Scary
Yay for sitting in traffic, I did this a LOT on my trip
The old bridge
There was a cool guy who came up behind me on an old style dual-sport in a skull cap who stayed right with for about 50km back and forth through the twisties, helping each other pass and all kinds of other stuff. When we made it to town he pulled up beside me, gave a biker grin and a huge thumbs up. It was pretty cool.
I stopped 3 times from Canmore to Kamloops, twice for gas, and once here for two sips of water and to adjust my headphones
I rolled into Kamloops 2.5 hours late, but Russ didn't mind, he left early and had beaten the crap out of his bike to get there, I'd left him messages every time I stopped so he wasn't too upset, but even so I felt bad about being late.
We grabbed some dinner, and figured that we should push on, didn't really want to spend the money on a hotel room. And neith of us had camping gear. Off onto the Kokahala (sp?) we went. It's a toll highway, but WELL maintained. Wound ALL the way up the mountain, getting colder and colder as night fell. Then shot back down the other side.
Meeting up with Russ
Getting gas
We rolled into Hope about 9:00PM, stopped for a coffee then headed to vancouver. Russell's headlight SUCKED so I was the one leading, and his front turn signals didn't work either, so he couldn't signal me. What we ended up doing was have me slow down every once in a while and if he passed then we were close, otherwise we kept on going. YIKES.
Got to his place about 1AM and passed out... or tried to. Russ has a little kitten that was desperately in need of attention AND had this psychotic urge to keep me asleep. Any time some part of my body drifted out from underneath the blanket it got jumped on. Or the blanket got jumped on. I had a cat on my head the whole damn night. Sigh...
My Arch-Nemesis
o m G. First, I'm glad you are alright. Thank god and whoever else (you) is responsible for your fast reflexes and super-awareness when you are on your bike. (Should've told me when we were talking but then again I guess it isn't something you necessarily want to re-think sometimes ...) Second, and this is bad timing I guess, I had just (like Just) read your near-miss write-up when my cell rang and it was Therap calling...all shaken cause some truck had blew a stop sign and just about hit her. She managed to get out of the way and swerve around him into the oncoming traffic lane and good thing it was clear. You guys have both managed to age me about 20 years or more in about 2 minutes.... yikes, be careful out there and I'm heading out to check on Therap too.
You're going to make me blush Bubba.