So, yesterday, hills. Check. Today, as I open my eyes, rain, lots of it. Check. I'm on the TCH, busy with cars and trucks roaring by just feet away. Check that, too. Now the wind (check!) has picked up. The rain smacking the hood of my rain jacket sounds in my head like bullets hitting home. I’m either in first gear climbing the endless hills or screaming down the other side on the wet pavement. My expensive gore tex jacket isn’t doing much for me, I’m soaked by rain on the outside and sweat on the inside. I climb until I’m above the tree line. The land I pass through is like a cold, hostile Mordor. Grim, black clouds hang just feet over a desolate land of bogs and rock. I’m grateful for this thin strip of highway though. Out there on this land I wouldn’t last long; rain and rocks don’t care if you live or die. On the long downhills my wet hands go numb from the cold, when I stop I can’t pry them off my handlebars. Oh, check that box, too.

Some four hours into this miserable ride, I come to the first place where I can get out of the rain and cold. It’s the Big Stop at Goobies - gas, convenience store, and restaurant. I need a hot meal but there’s a lineup waiting for a table. The place is air conditioned, my wet clothes provide no warmth, I am shivering head to toe. I can’t stay. I learn there is a motel a few kilometres up the road; I buy a loaf of ‘homemade’ raisin bread and head back out into the rain.

The motel is basic and a mess with renovations. There are blood stains on my pillow. I take the room without asking what it costs, the topic never comes up. It’s a family run affair, a white woman, her Mexican husband, two kids, and four or five Mexican in-laws. They all live in the motel. The lady, I never learned her name, orders one of her brothers-in-law to take my clothes and toss them in the drier. She asks if I would like to borrow some warmer clothes to put on. There is no restaurant and I face the prospect of heading back out into the weather to go to the restaurant at the Big Stop. No need, says the lady, you’ll have supper with us. It’s lasagna and a coleslaw with crunched up dried instant noodles in it. It sounds odd but it’s delicious. I get my clothes back neatly folded. The room is only $80 and she refuses any payment for the food. The next morning I’m up and gone before anyone is awake. As I head out, I find a note under my door. The handwriting is that of a six-year-old but on it is their phone number and the invitation to call should I ever run into trouble on my trip.