As you can see, my trip ended officially in Winnipeg. And it's about time that I return to this page to 'sum-up' with a final report.

One thing in particular needs to be said first. I received a lot of email from people who seemed quite worried about me, who thought that I ended my trip because I was too dispirited, unhappy, or just plain miserable to continue. I was surprised at this, since looking back on my trip a year later, I have almost entirely good memories. To put it simply, I had an awesome time, and only wish it could have lasted longer! And then I started re-reading my log entries, and I have to admit, I can't entirely blame people for being concerned; a lot of those reports DID come across as rather...bleak. I was a bit taken aback by this, since I really was having a good time.

What caused this, I'm not sure. Maybe I was just particularly irritable after a hard day's riding, but I don't think so. Fact is, once I'd nailed down where I would be staying the night, and got my camp set up, that was when I'd be most relaxed and cheerful. I suspect that it was simply one of those quirks of human psychology: if you have a great day, except for one bad thing happening, guess what will get the most focus when you talk or write about it? It's the same principle that makes newspapers report mostly bad news. Negative things get more attention precisely because they're more unusual.

I just wanted to get that cleared up. And to everyone who wrote, I just want to reassure you, I didn't quit because I didn't have the heart to continue. Far from it. I'll admit that I was getting pretty worn down by the heat, the humidity and the bugs, and I knew that all three would only be worse in Ontario, but I'd have been more than happy to keep on going. What stopped me?

In a word, money.

My savings were almost completely eaten up by my stay in Regina, and the loss of my first bike, and by Winnipeg I was already pretty much living on my Visa card. Simple mathematics told me that I wouldn't be able to make it all the way across. So, I had a decision to make. Keep going as far as I could until forced to stop, or quit while I still had relatively little debt. I chose to quit.

So How'd It All End? The Last Tour Report

For all that Winnipeg was a dreadful city for cyclists, the Guest House hostel was great. Didn't quite compare to the Turgeon hostel in Regina, but close. Both are heritage homes converted into hostels, but where Turgeon looked like it had been renovated by professionals with money behind them, the Guest House looked more like it had been done by teenagers scrounging parts from wherever they could find them. Every room had a different style of doorknob, doors were sticky, one bathroom had only a hook for a lock, and another actually (I swear) had a chunk cut out of the door so that it could clear the sink. Turgeon, in comparison, had dorm-style bathrooms with multiple stalls and sinks.

On the other hand, the Guest House had full cable TV. Come to papa!

Anyway, there was one more factor affecting my decision to quit. I had endless bike trouble in just the few days that I was in Winnipeg. I never really 'took' to the new bike like I did to my old one. It felt like riding a sway-backed horse, although I can't put my finger any closer to it than that. It even looked sway-backed. And for some reason, once I got to Winnipeg, I had not one, not two, but THREE flat tires, within a few days of each other. The third one was on a shopping trip, in which I went quite a ways farther afield, so if it weren't for the kindness of a busdriver letting me take a bike on board his bus, I'd have had one very long walk.

Still, something good came of that trip. Since BC, I've been stopping in every major bookstore I came across, looking for two books. The Borderlands of Science, by Michael Shermer, and The Wizard's Dilemma by Diane Duane. No one had them, not even the Chapters in Regina. Well, the Chapters in Winnipeg had both. Way to go, Winnipeg Chapters! Now at least I'd have something to read on the bus. (Quick aside...Had the strangest moment of deja vu at that Chapters. It was part of a small shopping center which was virtually IDENTICAL to the one holding the Regina Chapters. Both had a SportMart, both had a Mavericks, both even looked the same. Like it had been plucked up and planted there. Wierd).

Anyway, I'd decided to go home. Actually, I at first decided to go back to Regina, since I liked it so much the first time, and maybe get a job, stay a year, continue the trip next summer. I got my Greyhound ticket, boxed and shipped my bike, was originally supposed to leave on Monday, but noticed that no date was actually on the ticket, realized it was open-ended, and figured I'd stay one more day. So, Tuesday morning, I hauled an awful lot of luggage ten blocks to the bus station.

I've decided that I don't like bus travel very much. It combines the worst of two worlds: the confinement of a plane with the duration of a train. I've crossed the country by train before, and it makes a lot of difference to be able to wander around, visit a lounge, buy food, etc. The trip back to Regina was rather dull, and it was made worse by a guy in the back who insisted on taking out his guitar and singing. And he was an excellent player, which only made it worse, since it made it harder to feel justified in being annoyed. I mean, if he'd sucked, I could at least have traded meaningful expressions with the other passengers, but it's not easy to be annoyed alone. Fortunately, there were also some high spots.

First, there was the fascinating experience of reliving my trip in reverse, seeing landmarks I recognized going by, one after the other. But it was a bit disorienting, seeing things that I thought of as being hours, or even days, apart, going by so quickly. It screws with your sense of distance.

Second, they showed movies! On little tv screens that flipped down from the ceiling. I knew airplanes did this nowadays, so I guess there's no reason why buses shouldn't either, but it had never occurred to me before. Call it a pleasant little 'hey, neat' moment. (For the curious, they showed Jumanji and Absolute Power, with Clint Eastwood).

Third, on the last leg before Regina, we drove through a duststorm. Pretty darn neat, although I'd probably feel differently if I'd been 'out there,' and not 'in here.' The top picture on the left was taken then, and shows the unsettled weather.

Around four in the afternoon we pulled into Regina, I picked up my bike from the luggage center, assembled it, and wheeled everything over to the hostel again (I couldn't ride because I wanted to keep the bike box). And immediately, I found out about another good reason to have chosen the Guest House over the Ivey when in Winnipeg. I learned at the front desk that they were turning away people who had stayed at the Ivey because they had had an outbreak of bedbugs there.

Being back in Regina was quite nice, but I only ended up staying another week. As I said, I had thoughts of getting a job and staying the winter, and I applied at several places, but then, during an interview, I was talking about my trip and the guy asked why I didn't just go home. For the life of me, I couldn't think of a good answer (winter in Regina?). And I realized that I wanted to be home.

That was basically it. Box up bike again, get on bus again. Got a trip that left at 6 PM, because I wanted to pass through the Rockies during daylight. Found that sleeping on a bus is next to impossible, but if you do, try to sleep with your head down on the seat next to you. Don't fall asleep sitting up, because you'll wake up with someone leaning on you.

Here's something strange I noticed about those little cafeterias that stay open 24 hours at bus stations. Under normal circumstances, I almost never eat egg salad sandwiches. Just wouldn't occur to me. Not because I don't like them or anything (I do), but I'd never order them in a restaurant, I'd never go to the trouble of making them for myself, and I'd never buy them pre-wrapped at the local corner store. But when you roll into 'Middle-of-Nowhere: Population You' at 2AM, they gain an almost mystic attraction. Nothing tastes better, except perhaps the same sandwich stuffed into a coat pocket to be eaten later on the bus.

Had to switch buses in Calgary, and since the bus station there isn't really close to anything, there was really nothing to do but wait around. The time to the next bus departing was the perfectly wrong length; too short to do anything, too long to comfortably wait out. And, unfortunately for me, since I couldn't sleep much during the night, I ended up falling asleep in the Rockies, missing a lot of the scenery. Ah well...

And so, it all started coming to an end as we entered the Fraser Valley. I'd hoped to get in fairly early, but delays kept us from Vancouver until about 10 o'clock at night. And I had one last little scheme in mind....

Instead of going straight home, I planned to spend the night in the hostel by the bus station, and surprise my family in the morning by just showing up. I had to call my sister to get everyone together, without arousing suspicion. Even now, snags kept popping up; it was pouring rain, and I kept walking up and down four blocks of Main Street, but couldn't find the hostel. And when I finally did see the little well-disguised door, it turned out they were full. So I went across the street to the Ivanhoe Hotel instead, and was pleasantly surprised. I'd always thought of that place as a flophouse, but it seems to have been recently renovated into another hostel. And, I might add, a nicer one than the one that turned me out. I shared a room with three other guys on the top floor. And, as usual when I have a night's lodging settled, I relaxed and went to have some fun. And what I did was to indulge in something I haven't had for months, a pizza at Me-n-Ed's, the best pizza in the world (just ask Michael J. Fox)!

There's little left to tell. Assembling my bike the next morning, I found the tire had actually gone flat in the box (dammit). I fixed it, and made an attempt at sneaking onto Skytrain with my bike and gear, but couldn't manage it, so I rode the length of Kingsway, from Vancouver to New Westminster. About twenty kilos; not a lot by comparison, but frustrating when home is so close. And when I got there, I actually managed to open the door, get in and sneak up the stairs to tap my mother on the shoulder. You should have seen the look on her face!

So What's Next?

In the months since then, some interesting things have happened. I returned to work at the restaurant, and I'm currently training as a manager. My bike, believe it or not, got ripped off again! Or, rather, part of it. I left it for two hours at the New Westminster Skytrain station, and when I got back, someone had removed the entire front assembly: fork, handlebars, wheel. They simply cut the cables where necessary, and took everything that wasn't locked to the rack. Maybe some people just weren't meant to have bikes. Oh well, I didn't like that annoying thing anyway. But what I did do, after some lessons at Langara College, was go out and buy a motorcycle instead!

But what you're probably wondering, is "will I ever go back and finish the trip?" I can only answer that question by saying "Definitely maybe." 'Definitely' in the sense that yes, I have every intention of doing so. 'Maybe,' meaning that right now, there are no solid plans in place. Obviously, it's not going to be this summer (2002), and I doubt that it will be next summer either, although I may take the motorcycle out for a week or two. I'd cautiously say that the summer of '04 is when it will happen. By Christmas of '03, I should be out from under my student loans, meaning that with some effort I could save up about five thousand dollars by summer, which is twice what I started with last time.

Final Thoughts

And so we come to a final look back. A few things surprised me. Stripping away all of the time spent in Regina, and rest days in a few other places, it turns out that the distance to Winnipeg was covered in only 25 actual cycling days. It felt like a lot more. Another surprise: When I planned this trip, I had the idea that I would be doing a lot of wilderness camping; basically, just pitching a tent a little ways off the road at the end of the day. In reality, I found that finding places suitable for this is not at all easy. In British Columbia, I was more comfortable in the populated areas (no way was I going to pitch a tent up on the mountain passes!), and of course, the Prairies are so domesticated you just can't find that many places that aren't someone's backyard. Only twice did I actually camp "in the raw," as it were: in the provincial park near Bridge Lake, and near the river in Yale. Both I consider borderline examples, since one was in a park and the other was in a town. All other camps were either in a yard, a hostel, or a city park (in Kenaston).

Would I do anything differently if I had it to do over? One thing I'll bet you're thinking....Stay out of Regina! But you'd be wrong. Yes, it was frustrating to be stuck there by the weather, by mechanical difficulties, and finally by the theft of my bike; and it was disappointing to lose out on the rest of Canada as a result; but if I could rewind the tape, I have to admit that I also wouldn't want to lose the time I spent there. Those two months ended up being one of the most pleasant, relaxing times of my life. No obligations, no responsibilities, nowhere in particular to go, and nothing in particular to do when I got there. Except for paying the hostel once a week, there was absolutely nothing that I HAD to do. My time was spent wandering around, seeing sights, reading books, doing simple little chores...it was like summer vacation as a kid. Even better in fact, because there were no parents around to answer to. And Regina will remain easily my favorite city on the Prairies.

HOWEVER...If I had known ahead of time that I'd be stuck there for so long, I would have been less concerned earlier in the trip about moving along so quickly. Looking back, there are so many places that I now wish I'd spent an extra day, or two, or even a week. For instance, Revelstoke. They have a highway that goes right up to the top of a mountain (I think they call it the Meadow Drive), and for a fee, there's this outfit that will drive you up to the top and let you cycle down. I would have liked to have done that, although I would have cycled it both ways. Spend a day riding up, camp overnight at the top, and then in the morning....WOOOOSH! After which, spend the rest of the day just experiencing the town.

Field would also have been worth a day or two. Lock up the bike (yeah, like it matters) and check out some hiking trails. Maybe see how close I could get to the Burgess Shale before the frogmen drop out of the sky with stun-guns. Drumheller would have been fantastic to spend more time in; both for the museum, and for the opportunity to camp out in the Badlands. I bet I'd have seen some stars then! I might even have liked Calgary better than I did if I'd taken the time to go a little farther afield. (Calgary's downtown core remains the least interesting and grungiest of any city I've ever seen)

I guess I'll also regret that I didn't continue on at least to Ontario. Thunder Bay would have been a nice stopping point, and I'd be able to say I made it halfway. But, that's the sort of thing you think when the debt's already paid off. At the time, it just didn't seem wise.

Finally, and perhaps second-most after not finishing, I'm sorry that the whole Journal idea never played out. Mostly it was due simply to the physical limitations of how much I could write with pen and paper; after some rather lengthy tour reports, writing anything more complicated was just too tiring to face. If and when I finish this trip, there's another item of equipment I plan to take -- a PDA with folding keyboard. Writing goes a lot faster and easier when I can type. And a digital camera, of course. I just got my first one, and already I don't know how I lived without it. Of course, these modern conveniences do have one huge drawback compared to pen and paper, namely batteries! I'm not sure how I'd solve that problem. It might be possible to recharge batteries on the road with a generator. I hope so. I still think I have a lot to write that would be worth reading, maybe even publishable. I've enjoyed telling this story, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. (If so, a small donation to skeptic2@hotmail via PayPal would be much appreciated. Hey, if people will send money to total strangers to pay their credit card bills, it's worth a shot!)

Perhaps I should have sought out some publicity from the media, looked for sponsors, tried to stir some interest from magazine editors, even associated myself with a cause. Come to think of it, I guess I did, with the whole atheism thing. Maybe Skeptic magazine would be interested; as I've said, Michael Shermer is a former long-distance cyclist himself. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. :)

Peace, love, and all that good stuff.

Steve Vanden-Eykel

Manitoba