On the Road Again 2013 #15

I am now back in my apartment. I am obviously somewhat behind in my blog postings..... I will continue to discuss my trip in sequential order.

Like most things at a Rainbow, Rosie and Ignacio didn't leave quite as early as they had planned. First we had to wait for the fourth member of our crew to get up to the top. Sometimes saying goodbye takes longer than one thinks and other times people just do not seem to realize that people are waiting for them. Personally if someone offers me a ride, I stick to them like glue. I want to do nothing to give them a reason to change their minds.

After the car was all packed and we were ready to go - it wouldn't start. The battery was dead. We thought that something had been left on for the week. The Parks people who were at the parking lot to make sure the park stayed closed graciously gave us a boost. They  really were nice people. I think the fact that we talked to them not as the "enemy" but as fellow forest lovers let them like us. We then had to get gas at little town of Holberg. The car just made to the little one pump gas station - stalling twice as we travelled on fumes.

Holberg was a dying town. It had been the site of a Radar Station during the Cold War years but once that base had closed down, there was little point in folks hanging around. From what little I saw, the town mainly functioned as a place for the lumber crews to park their vehicles. I suspect there was more to the town than that but I didn't see it. Pity - it was in a gorgeous part of the country as long as one did not mind a 50 kilometer ride on dirt roads.

We went into Port Hardy to both load up on some junk food and to fill up the tank with slightly cheaper gas (the gas at Holberg had been $1.58 a liter). The plan was for Rosie and Ignacio to drop off the fourth passenger at the turnoff to Tofinio and then to continue on to Duncan to stay the  night at my son's house. They needed to have a shower and to do some laundry. As far as I was concerned it was a great plan. And in fact it was.

I had gone a lot of miles in the back seat of that car and with the exception of the back seat not having quite enough support - it was great. The three of us got along well together and I think we were good company for each other.  The car which they had bought for $300-400 was amazingly reliable - especially as they had been told that perhaps they should not go on any long road trips with it. The hours blend together in my head and I can not say what we talked about  for all of those hours- we just talked as good friends do.

The only thing I can remember talking about were their plans for the future. It looked as it the Gathering was going to be moved to Rainbow Beach near Tofino and so they might end up there. But as our mutual friend on Salt Spring wanted to go to the Gathering in the Slocan Valley - they thought they might end up there with her. There were pros and cons for both destinations and it looked as if they were just going to go with the flow and where ever that took them. They did have a goal of going up northern BC to work for a while before their visas ran out. Then I think, they were off to South America.

We got to Duncan just before dark, went to the grocery store and bought some pizzas. We were tired. I had started up the trail almost 12 hours earlier. While after the initial two hour walk I had done little or day but sit in the back seat, it had been a difficult week. The tension of not knowing if we had to leave, where we would move to and the silly arguments about protocol (for a group that prides itself on not having any rules it sure seems to have a lot of them) had tired me out. I was glad to be home with my son and his family.