Day 1. Tues Apr 24, 2001. Distance 87 km (10 rapid transit, 35 car, 42 cycled). Chilliwack.
Here we go....

Today is the day (finally!). The past week I've had some pretty wild emotional shifts. One minute (usually at work) I'd be so eager to just be up and gone. Then in quieter moments, part of me would start thinking 'Are you out of your mind? You aren't doing yourself any favors by chucking everything for a few months.' That part of me has been pretty loud lately, which is as good a reason as any for going, I suppose.

Still, I'm a bit daunted. And I've already put off starting a few times. I originally planned on leaving last Friday, but I figured I might as well wait until Sunday to pick up my last paycheck and tips from work, and leave Monday (I worked at Me-n-Ed's Pizza Parlor, and it was working there that pretty much financed this trip. Thanks Mel, for a job when I really needed one). Then Monday was raining, so I put it off again. If my Mom is reading this, she's probably nodding her head about now; she knows it's not easy for me to make the big jumps. Probably because they require a leap of faith, and I don't trust faith much.

It's funny, but it's not my physical ability to do this that I have doubts about--I know physical ability can be improved with effort. Rather, it's a question of will. Do I have the will to make that effort? To keep going even when it gets difficult? To even begin?

Well, I've begun.

I had a fairly ambitious goal today, to make it to Chilliwack where my cousin John and his family live, but it didn't quite work out like I intended. Right off the bat I cheated a little--with the transit strike in Vancouver, there's no one to stop you from taking bikes on the Skytrain, so I figured I'd cut 10 km by riding to King George Station instead of crossing the Patullo Bridge and climbing that big hill out of the Fraser River floodplain. Then I was planning to follow the Fraser Hwy all the way to Abbotsford. I was suppposed to meet my Dad there for lunch, but he wanted me to call beforehand to confirm that the trip was on. As I passed into Langley, I stopped to do that. I guess he didn't have too much time, because he offered to come pick me up in his van, and I thought, 'What the heck?' So I got another free 35 km. And lunch!

From Abbotsford, I took Sumas Way (rt 11) south to Vye Rd, then turned east. Ran into gravel eventually, so started taking 'steps,' north, then east, then north, to get to my cousin's place. It's not actually Chilliwack, but a town called Yarrow, which doesn't even exist on my map except as a street. At 2:07 I got my first whiff of cow! These country roads are great! Level, quiet and they go on forever. The mild drizzle had stopped, I raced a dog (won) and a tractor (lost) and got to John's around 3. I was met at the door by his wife Mel, holding a brand new kitten they had just gotten.

John and Mel have four kids, two boys, two girls. No one in my immediate family has kids, nor probably will anytime soon, so I really feel attached to these four. It's like being an uncle; they bring out my paternal side. I don't get to see them often though--the two boys are both taller than me now. They're both into sports, and Branden (the oldest) was just mentioned in the local paper for his pitching on a local team. I did a few magic tricks for Stacey and Chandehl and a neighbor girl, and we played with the kitten a lot.

12:00 -- I am so glad I didn't listen to the weather reports that promised scattered showers and cloud all week. The drizzle of yesterday is gone, and it's as gorgeous a day as you could want. It's noon now and I'm sitting at a rest stop just short of Hope. Today is like the first real day, no rides, no shortcuts, just cycling. I've covered 60 km already, and think I might have a shot of making 100.

After saying goodbye and seeing everybody off to school, I worked my way east to Vedder Crossing, then the Trans-Canada. Flat with 6 ft shoulder until it veers north along the mountains, then gentle rolling hills. Not too bad, short ups, long downs, and if I'm gaining any elevation, I'm not aware of it. John gave me some granola bars and trailmix yesterday, which should tide me over.

7:30 -- As you can see, I made the hundred, but I doubt I'll do it tomorrow. Cache Creek is about 160 km or so; I think I'll try to split that over two days.

The rest of the way to Hope was no problem. Just past it was a huge hill that I just said 'screw it' and walked up. I wonder if that hill will still seem as big in the next few weeks to come! Rolling hills after that. Got to Yale around 4, then just hung out in front of the general store, bought a newspaper, did the crosswords. Then the most amazing thing happened. A woman with a dog and a toddler walked past, I said hello, and we started talking. I told her about my trip, asked where she was heading. "New Westminster," she said. "Really? I'm from New Westminster," I said. She looked at me really strangely for a moment, then asked "Are you Steve Vanden-Eykel?"

Whoa! It turned out to be Yvonne, a girl I went to high school with, and lived on the same street with for years! I thought she looked familiar! The moral of the story? Apparently I know enough people!

Then it was time to scout a camp. I was looking at a school playground at first, but then a local woman told me there were lots of good places by the river. I found one, next to an abandoned railbed.

In hindsight, it might have been better to sit out the afternoon in Hope. It got pretty hot on the road to Yale, and while I did have the foresight to put on sunscreen, I don't think I was early enough -- my forearms are a bit red. My right knee is also a bit sore, and my palms too, which I was worried about even before I left because I'd taken a fall about a month ago and they'd been tender ever since (especially if I tried to stretch them open). My gloves helped a lot though. Made a collect call to my sister Lisa to tell her about meeting Yvonne. Lytton tommorrow?

I'm starting to wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew. First, it was a very bad night. I didn't get a lot of sleep because it was so chilly, and I know it's just gonna be worse in the Rockies. Surprisingly, not too sore in the morning, despite how my legs were burning last night. My right knee and hip were still complaining, and I favored them as much as possible. At least they're not getting worse. My tent was covered with slugs this morning. I had a chat with a lady at the gas station before heading out, got her address so I can send her a postcard. Weatherwise, today was a repeat of yesterday. It was so nice and cool in the morning, with a little cloud cover, but the afternoon was blazingly hot and sunny. Did I say I would take it easier today? Great plan, except for one thing: the serious climbing has begun! The first 20 km weren't so bad. Then, right after crossing the Alexandra Bridge, the first big one came. There were four big ascents between Yale and Lytton, and also four big descents. That first one ended just short of Hell's Gate, and right at the top is a restaurant called Grandma's Tunnels Cafe that I would like to do a bad turn to. They don't let you use the restroom (even just to fill bottles) unless you buy something. Well, I didn't buy anything. Seems to me that that's a form of extortion.

Quick aside on that topic: One of my favorite authors, James Morrow, has a scene in one of this books (Blameless in Abaddon) where a man gets a creative revenge against a restaurant with the same policy. He pays to use the toilet, then dumps the turd on the counter and says "There you go, can I have my security deposit back now?" Heh heh.

That first descent took me past Hell's Gate to Boston Bar, where I treated myself to a big lunch. Had a GREAT burger, with bacon and eggs right on it. I think the name of the restaurant was Charles Hotel Cafe. I suppose it says something about human nature that the name of the bad restaurant sticks in my mind, while I'm unsure of the good one.

I'm now halfway to Lytton, but the hardest part is still ahead. The sun is brutal, and I'm listening to the CBC saying 'overcast in Kamloops, overcast in Castlegar, overcast in Cache Creek.' As the poet said, shit. My bike is doing great, a total trooper. But I'm unsure about my odometer. I've been checking it against highway markers, and every speed, every distance, seems a little high. I think it may be calibrated for a 27 inch tire instead of a 26. I'll have to check it tonight. I'm also worried about my handlebar bag; one of the parts that holds it in place snapped before I even left, and while it is still solid (don't ask me how), I think that it's not a question of if, but rather when, it will fail. At least it came with a shoulder strap.

With all the climbs, I probably spent more time walking than riding . I'm worried about having to get new shoes at some point.

By the way, I should explain that I have no particular obsession with cycling every inch of the way. I have no ego on that score; I'm not on this trip to kill myself. I've already learned that working too hard makes it easy to get discouraged, and I have to often remind myself that I am not Superman, I'm not an Olympic athelete, and I'm not Micheal Shermer testing the limits of sleep deprivation while serving as unwitting guinea pig for some flake's PhD. In short, pace yourself. I do want to get to Cache Creek tomorrow, but after that, I'll probably slow it down a notch. Unless the roads are flat (snort).

Funny, but people who drive just aren't very good judges of what a road is like. After the first climb, the guy at Hell's Gate said that the road was leveller from then on. Wrong.

At the top of the third summit, I met a guy driving a CBC van at a rest stop. His name was John Henderson, and he expressed interest in my trip, hinting at the possibility of an interview, so I gave him one of the cards I had printed up with my name and web address. The last climb before Lytton, I passed some sort of memorial, with crosses, photos wrapped in plastic, and flowers. Found out later that it was for the mother and kids who had crashed for no apparent reason into the rock face. I think I remember hearing about it when it happened.

Around 5:30, I made it to Lytton. Since I found out yesterday that camping isn't as fun as I thought, I decided I would try The Knock (see Trevor's site for explanation). The first place I tried, the guy I spoke to didn't actually live there, but was just doing work on the house. He asked a neighbor woman who just pulled up, and together the two of them (Ray and Peggy) threw themselves into the question with energy above and beyond. It came down to the churchyard, or a policeman across the street who lived in a house supplied by the RCMP. His name was John VandenBorn, and I just can't resist a good Dutch name like that. They also told me that the local legion hall had a television where I could watch Survivor.

When I introduced myself to John, he said no problem. He even let me take a shower, which felt so good. I didn't push their hospitality though, because I got a bad vibe from the way he and his son were arguing, and I just spent the rest of the evening at the legion hall. Very nice lady behind the bar, gave me a cup of coffee and some bandaids for my blister, and we watched the show. About 8:30, several ladies, including Peggy, showed up to practise linedancing. She offered to let me use the Internet terminal at her office tomorrow, but I'll just stay long enough to check my mail rather than post any reports. I also watched Politically Incorrect, which was on at nine instead of twelve, because the channel was out of New York, or somewhere. 11:00 -- I passed through seven tunnels today, and I want to see if I remember their names and order: Yale, Saddle Rock, Sailor Bar, Alexandra, Hell's Gate and Ferrabee together, and China Bar. They suck for cycling, by the way. There is a sidewalk, but it's divided by a guardrail so it's too narrow to ride, and barely wide enough to push. And if you ride on the road it's not much better; when those trucks enter, the echoes make a sound like the end of the world rushing towards you. Not fun.

Oh well, I'm still alive. It seems warmer tonight, a crescent moon is shining through tufts of cloud, and I can see the new moon in the old moon's arms, despite the lateness of the hour.

My odometer WAS miscalibrated. That means that every distance is a few kms high. Damn. I have no idea how to adjust them. As far as I'm concerned, they can stand as they are. Fixed the setting, but I'm still not sure how accurate it is. Slept better last night. I'm not sure if that's because it was warmer, or because I wore the fleece inserts to my gloves to bed, but it was almost comfortable. Very windy though, and it kept up all day, blowing me around pretty good on the descents. Said good morning to John as I was packing up; he was going next door to work. Then I dropped by the Visitor's Center to take Peggy up on her offer. I checked my mail, then we had a great chat. She told me about the Jelly Roll, which I had already seen on the side of one of the buildings; it's a curled up formation of glacial silt, about six feet in diameter, taken from the side of the cliff when they were building the highway. She's a great lady. Reminded me a bit of Jan Hooks from the old Saturday Night Live shows, when she was made up as Nancy Reagan. Don't know how flattering that is. -g-

For once, I got an accurate report of the road ahead. Ray had told me that it was still hilly, but at least you weren't going over any mountains. There was just one big hill before Cache Creek. That's basically right. Nothing like as bad as yesterday; the big hill (about 30 km from Cache Creek) was the only one I had to get off and push.

The Fraser Canyon so far hasn't been anywhere near as narrow or dangerous as I'd been led to believe (except those hell-begotten tunnels), but it got a little narrower now. Had more cloud to keep it cool, and even a little drizzle.

I haven't talked about the scenery much, partly because it's so familiar, partly because there's really not much to say -- the mountains all look pretty much the same. I took geology in college, and it's been fun to look for fossils in the shale and slate (as I go whirring by). But the scenery got more interesting today. By Spences Bridge you could definitely see the mountains giving way. There were still some pretty big hills around me, but the sort of hills you could hike to the top of if you had a few hours to kill. You could also see the land getting drier and the cultivated fields appearing as the valley floor widened.

At Spences Bridge, I bought a spoon for Mom (she wants me to help her fill out her collection as I go) and two two-pack sandwiches. Ate two for lunch and dinner, am saving the other two for tomorrow. Surprisingly, I don't have much appetite, although in hindsight, maybe it's not that surprising -- when I was dieting, I noticed that I wasn't too hungry if I kept up the exercise. I just assumed that exercise turned the fat-burning switch to 'on' so you feel no particular need for food. I hope that's true. But I did get a little more food; at a rest stop I asked two ladies in a van if they had any water and they plied me with Pepsi, an orange, and Werther's chocolates. That was really nice of them. The orange tasted really good, I wonder if I'm getting deficient in anything I should know about.

I was able to pick up a Kamloops radio station all day (Radio NL, 140 AM). Good, I was getting pretty sick of the CBC, listening to things like a reading of "Generica." Made it to Cache Creek around 3, and I could have gone even farther I think, but my knees are a lot better and I haven't heard a peep from my palms, so I figured, 'why push my luck?'

I'll bet my sisters can all guess what I did first when I got into town. There's a tradition in our family that whenever we go through Cache Creek, we eat at a place called Herbie's. We loved their player piano. It had two happy faces, except the faces were frowning until you put in money. Unfortunately, that piano was gone. Got a camp in a yard where two teenagers were being left unsupervised for the weekend, but they seemed decent enough. I dropped off my stuff then asked if I could use the bathroom. The boy, John, let me in (the girl was out somewhere by now) and then he left me standing around in the house while he surfed the Net. Eventually I shrugged and went outside. I wonder what would have happened if I'd just lay down on one of the beds and gone to sleep?

I wandered around town a bit, bought lipbalm, checked out the local school to see if I could get online, but no luck. There's a chance of thundershowers tonight, but right now I'm sitting in my tent watching hummingbirds.

Not a very long distance today, but there were certainly some interesting reasons.

I was up before my teenage hosts, so I left a card in the door saying thanks and headed out. About 20 km out, a light rain started, so I pulled into a roadside diner to change into my rain gear. The rain by then had started to slacken, so you'd think I'd just keep going, right? Wrong! I got to talking with Berta, the owner/manager along with her husband and mother, and I noticed she had a computer in the corner. Of course I ask if she has Internet access, and she doesn't, but the conversation moves to computers. She mentions that she can't find the program for writing letters, and I tell her that if she turns it on, I could probably find it. So I did. Next, I printed up a new Pie and Coffee sign for their front window. Two hours later, I've ended up redesigning their business spreadsheets. Everything Berta knew about computers she learned from people like me just passing through. It was very flattering to have these three standing around me while I fiddle around with Word and Excel for them. "Putting the machine through its paces," Berta called it. And when I mentioned that I could use all the fluids I could get, they gave me a free milkshake, then a bottle of juice and a can of pop, and then the mother (Phyllis) threw in a box of cookies.

I felt good as I left, but that didn't last long. They told me I had a big climb to Clinton. Did I ever! Only it wasn't just the climb. I also had a monster headwind the whole way, and -get this- HAIL! I ground my way up the mountain with horizontal hail whipping me in the face, and two hours, 20 kms and 1600 ft of elevation later, limped into Clinton. By now the hail had stopped, and the clouds even started breaking up, but it was so windy and so chilly that I just couldn't face the thought of going on. A local girl named Jody didn't hold much hope for camping in town; she warned me of drunken parties and it was too cold anyway, so I broke down and got a motel room. My bike was covered with mud, but at least all the gear is waterproof as advertised. The rest of the day I spent watching TV and doing the Saturday New York Times crossword in the Sun that I had bought that morning (crosswords are one of my luxuries, but the Times puzzle is really only worth doing from Thursday on). Met a family a few doors down who are from Holland, driving from Victoria to Edmonton. Their names were Tonny, Leah, and their daughter Katinka. Katinka was pretty cute (so was Jody for that matter) but she didn't seem interested in conversation. I talked a lot more with her mom though. And just to add insult to injury, the weather the rest of the evening was beautiful.

I'm starting to think that this route through the Cariboo is a bad idea. I could be at my aunt's place in Kamloops right now; instead I've got even more climbing tomorrow. And all because I came here as a kid? Sentimentality is overrated.

Part 2