On the Road Again 2016 #1

On the road again 2016 #1
On the train somewhere around Kamloops just after sunrise.

This trip feels awkward.  Normally when I am travelling I am either going towards my summer home on the west coast or I am returning to my permanent home in Ontario. However this time I am travelling east to go to a temporary home in Sudbury - a new city for me to spend an extended amount of time in. Things feel somewhat backwards. My internal travel clock wonders why I am going east at the beginning of May. It is as if somehow my moving to Vancouver Island has made every thing topsy-turvy .

This trip has felt somewhat..... I am not too sure what the right word is. I am certainly looking forward to seeing my daughter and grandkids,. It will be fun spend time with them, to cheer them on in their activities, to help my daughter plant some flowers and to spend some time alone exploring the city. I am looking forward to everything. But it just feels more than a bit weird. And I am not too sure why. It could be as simple as I have just started to feel at home at the trailer park/mobile home community and I was not quite ready to leave.

Yesterday was a long day. I was on the bus to Nanaimo and the ferry terminal by 9:00. By 10:30 I was on the water crossing over to the mainland. ( on the ferry I saw a number of people carrying bouquets of flowers. Over hearing a few conversations - I realized that people were  travelling to see their mothers. Quite a trip - both in terms of time and cost .) A few hours later I was in downtown Vancouver reacquainting myself with the transit system. My two and half hour journey took me through quite a dramatic change from sleepy Duncan with its rather magnificent (and generally untamed looking) flowering trees and bushes to downtown Vancouver that even on a Sunday had traffic jams and crowded sidewalks.Vancouver has never been my favourite city to visit. I am sure it is a wonderful place and perhaps one day I will take the time to learn the transit system well enough to get to know it properly.

I certainly had the time yesterday and it hindsight I am not too sure why I didn't. I could have, for example gone to the beach or visited Stanley Park, but I didn't. I think I was so focused on my trip and in particular not missing the train that I did not think of what else I could do for six hours. So I walked. I walked around Chinatown with its  hundreds of shops, selling what looked to me to be the same selection of vegetables and dried shrimp, fish and beans. I walked up East Hasting street - perhaps the most depressing street in Canada - home to those who have run out of choices and options and who now live on the street with their addictions. I walked through a large flea market just off of Hastings that was really just a number of people spreading,out on the ground, their findings from the left-overs of a much more affluent society that lives and plays just a few short city blocks away. There was nothing there that I wanted or needed.

I had a nap in the park with a number of other older men - none of them looked significantly better or worse than me. As I laid there in the grass, people walked around me, talked over me, ignored me. Which was fine by me. I am content to be thought of as near homeless. Better that than to be thought of as one who lives  a rich life, dropping my discards behind me so that others can pick them up and try to sell them to others whose needs are as great as their own.

The train left on time. While there were two economy car, only one is being used and it is half empty. Apparently there are quite a few getting on at Jasper - which surprises me. Who gets on at Jasper in May and heads east?. As well Via Rail have offered free seats for anyone from Fort Mac. The train could be really crowded after Edmonton. In the meantime it is wonderfully quiet in my car. Time for a nap?