On the Road Again 2013 #16

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.

Rosie and Ignacio hung around for a day and a half. They did all of their laundry (at a laundromat) organized their car and went for walks with us.They were easy guests to have around - quiet, respectful of the house routines and easy conversationalists. If I had a complaint it would probably be from my grandson who really wanted their dog to be a bit more playful. The rest of us were grateful that the dog showed no desire to play with anything -especially the chickens or the dogs next door.

My drivers left for Crofton and the ferry to Salt Spring around mid-day of their second day in Duncan. I was sad to see them go. The reality of my summer life is that lots of people come into and go out of my life- most of them I will never see again. Which in some cases is a damn shame. Rosie and Ignacio were good people who were kind and generous to me; they were bright, funny and had a sense of nonchalant adventuresome-ness that was fun to be around. I did email them a few days later to see where they had ended up but I never got a response. I will always wonder if they made it to Chile to help their friend start/run some sort of Eco-hostel. I wonder if they will have kids. And perhaps most of all I wonder if our paths will ever cross again. I hope so.

It was now into the second week of August. My time out west was coming to an end. When I had left Raft Cove, I had thought that perhaps I could convince my son to take his two sons up to Tofino so that we could all go to a Rainbow Gathering together. It would have been great fun. However, by the time that Rosie and Ignacio left I had decided that it was just too far to go for an over night trip. As well I had checked on line and not only did the weather look crummy in Tofino but it appeared as if neither the local authorities or the First Nation community were thrilled about the Gathering happening on their doorsteps. With a partial sense of relief I shelved the idea of going north again.  I would spend another week or so with the family and then head east.  While part of me was excited about doing some travelling, that terrible sense of sadness about leaving once again threatened to consume me. I dread leaving so much that I become fixated on eking every possible moment with my family. As my tension increases I suspect that I become a poor house guest the last week I am there.

I was going to leave on the Friday - the last Friday before Labour Day weekend. My niece was getting married in Kingston that weekend and I really wanted to be there. As I started to read her excited postings on Facebook about the wedding I realized that one week to get from Duncan to Peterborough was cutting it rather tight. It would mean that I could not afford to get stuck anywhere. I always get stuck somewhere for at least a night. I have always said that hitchhiking is a great way to travel if you are not in a rush. Leaving at the last possible date - would make me incredibly anxious and in the language of the road - send out bad vibes that would scare off potential drivers. Also by leaving a few days earlier than planned , perhaps I would have fewer days to be sad. So I babysat my two grand kids while their parents went out for an anniversary dinner, hung around for another day and got ready to leave on Wednesday. That would give me two extra days to get home. Once again I would be on the road.

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.