On April 1, 2005 I set off across Canada on my bicycle. Or
at least I'd planned to cross Canada. These pages are an account of
that trip, as told through
travelogs I sent to friends. I hope you enjoy the ride!
After the Crash
Hey Folks,
Yeah, for those of you who haven't been keeping up, I
crashed last
week. A week ago today as a matter of fact.
Thanks to all of you who have been helping out
with your expressions of
affection and concern. It's helped. Helped like the patch of
raspberries in my host's garden. They're a fat ripe reddish purple
coming off the vine into your hands as soon as you touch them variety,
sweet like wind off Lake Superior exploding with flavour as they meet
the tongue.
Nice to know you care.
As far as my injuries go, my face has healed
pretty much, still have a
small scab on my lip and some darkness around my left eye. Otherwise my
mug is pretty as a picture. My left knee still has a scab, but will do
much better if I stop knocking into things, or getting tangled in berry
bushes with it!
It's another story with my left heel. It still
has some swelling and numbness. I can put a
little weight on it, but not for long. I've tried
riding Blu, which I can do fine, but dismounting can be quite
difficult. May have to teach myself to dismount on the right. I'm more
dislexic than ambidextros, so it may take a few years to get that one
down. The heel too would do much better if I could stay off it, not so
easy to do when you're sleeping in the hostel gazebo.
I call it Purgatory. I'm in the hostel purgatory.
Don't get me wrong.
Nothing really bad about Purgatory, nothing really good either. Limbo,
limbo, but no salsa to do the limbo too.
Here at the Hotel Purgatory, run be a couple in
their early 70s, life is . . .ho hum. They're
very sweet folks, former missionaries who came
from Borneo over 30 years ago and bought the Longhouse Village, a once
popular motel and campground out Lakeshore Drive, east of Thunder Bay,
and turned it into a European-style hostel. They're odd. He's a
non-stop exciteable guy who just goes, goes, goes. Everything from
building
and maintaining a good trail to the local swimming hole, to turning a
stretch of raw earth between the rail lines and the town's main
thoroughfare into a park. His wife, is a calm, quiet woman whom
everyone refers to as Mom, or Grandma. She too, is always doing
something, making food for her grandkids, writing letters on behalf of
refugees, lobbying childcare authorities, and looking out for her six
kids, four biological and two adopted, now grown with children of their
own.
Here's a story about them. The other day a
Japanese fellow showed up
here on a motorcycle laden heavier than BoB and Blu. It was late and he
was tired.
Moments after he checked in, Pa and Ma had a conference.
The biker
hadn't brought any food or cash, he needed to get to a store. The
conference wasn't about whether or not they would help the guy out, but
which one of them was driving! They're like that with everyone. At the
same time. Once they agree to do something like, take your bike to the
bus depot, then you're along for the ride, and that could include pit
stops along a local boulevard to pick up trash, or up to the local
landfill to retrieve useful objects, or down to Chapters Book Store to
read the Globe and Mail. On the way you'll be accompanied by a wide
assortment of grandchildren, friends of grandchildren, friends of the
kids, the kids themselves, hitchhikers, assorted hostlellers, and
refugees - political and domestic.
And all the while it is like a purgatory, like
being in a movie but
knowing you're really just a bystander, a movie-goer at a cinema of the
eccentric. I fit right in, I don't fit in at all, and nothing seems to
happen but there's always a full load of laundry on the line, the lawns
are always mowed, the kitchen always clean, the bathrooms in good
order, the fish pond clean, dinner always cooked on time.
Oh well, been here too long!
Just dropped a quarter of my monthly budget on a
Greyhound ticket for
Blu, BoB and I to Sault Ste. Marie. I wanted to ride around the lake. I
really did, and if the powers that be ever decide to put in a bicycle
lane, I will!
Even if I'm 80! But the point is, I plan to be 80
someday and that particular road ain't condusive
to turning 80, especially on a bicycle.
A friend is coming from Montreal to meet me in
the Soo. Depending how
my foot is, I may either continue my ride from somewhere east of there,
or I'll give it a real chance to heal, and accept a ride that's been
offered, to Montreal. If I can heal up well enough, I'll keep cycling.
If not, I'll have an adventure anyway.
Haven't passed quality time in Montreal since I
was a kid.
Talk to you all soon. Hope you're all well.
Will
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