Here I go again on my own….

 

Well, today is the first day of the rest of my trip. I am leaving Vancouver and heading up the Sea to Sky highway through Squamish, Whistler and Lillooet – then heading down Hwy 1 (TransCanada) to Hope for a side  trip – turning around and heading back to the Hwy 1 / 8 junction and continuing on to Merritt. I will eventually be going on from Merritt to Princeton and the nheading back in an easterly direction to Penticton, where I plan on heading north again into peach-country and on up into Kelowna.

I don’t know how far I will make it today – it is, of course, pouring rain again and cool. I would really like to take in the sights at Whistler and Blackcomb, but the weather forecast calls for rain right through until at least Thursday.

Another trip will just have to go into the old planning machine, lol.

So, yesterday was a different day altogether. The weather was beautiful – 20 degrees and sunny – which of course meant that a great ride was in order.

Never having been on a motorcycle, Sophia borrowed a helmet from her sister and hopped on the back – and off we went to visit Vancouver Island. We took the ferry from Tsawwassen to Victoria (Schwartz Bay) and then rode the scenic route along the coast before breaking off and heading up to Nanaimo, where we boarded the ferry back to the mainland.

All told it was about a 10 hour day, and it was fantastic. The views were amazing, the ferry rides were very enjoyable, and Sophia turned out to be a pretty darned good passenger.

Sophia took me out for supper afterwards to a popular Vancouver restaurant / bar known as Rogue. The food was great – and other than that one incident where our waitress dropped an entire tray of waters and drinks smack-dab in the middle of our table – the experience was wonderful. I actually went ahead and filled out a comment card commending Mel, our waitress, for keeping her poise and maintaining her cool in a situation that would have found many wait-staff overwhelmed. Well done Mel.

Of course, having an accident like that happen at our table probably worked in Mel’s favor. Sophia and I had already had far too good a day to let anything spoil it, and we found ourselves laughing about it and helping Mel to straighten things up.

After dinner we took one last walk aroung downtown, strolling through Gastown once more – my favourite part of the city – and then called it a night. We had a really interesting conversation with a young couple that we met on the Skytrain while heading back to Burnaby. The young woman was voicing her opinion over the new crime bill, and sounded discouraged that addicted offenders are now going to be facing minimum sentence periods of incarceration.

I, of course, had to toss in my two cents.

I mentioned that addicted offenders still have the opportunity to opt into a Drug Treatment Court program. The young lady gave me a kind of disparaging look, as if to say ‘big deal’ – so I mentioned that it had worked for me, and that after 18 years of crack addiction and 4 years of being on the streets I am now approaching 6 years of being clean and sober.

It was at this point that the young lady began to cry.

A soul overflowing with compassion and the willingness to help, she works part-time at a local Elizabeth Fry Society, and volunteers at the Vancouver community court. She is afraid that offenders who are in conflict with the law due to their addictions are no longer going to be able to get help.

We talked for 20 minutes or so, shared some laughs and some experiences, exchanged hugs and went on about our evenings, and our lives. Maybe just a little more enriched. I know mine is. I thank god that there are people like this young woman who are so passionate about helping people like me. Without them, I would not be writing this. And that my friends, is the god’s honest truth.

Sophia, you were a wonderful host. Thank you so much for putting me up – and putting up with me – for the last 5 days. It has been a true pleasure to have a friend show me around one of our country’s most beautiful cities and I thoroughly enjoyed your company.

And now, it is time once again to pack up my trusty steed and hit the open road. If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days it is only because I am camping in the mountains. And enjoying the hell out of my life.

Between Victoria and Nanaimo

A bunch of pictures from the ferry rides and Victoria are right here.

Ok. The bike is packed.

Let’s ride!