December 6, 2012
Cobble Hill to Victoria, British Columbia: A season of calm, we hope.
My father explained to me that the way to cope with the cold and dark days of Winter was to recognize that the season is Nature's resting time. So rather than fight it, or maybe get depressed, once should just gracefully rest as well.
Maybe my father would think that jumping on a bike in December and pedaling off madly in the general direction of Mexico ignores his advice. Not so, entirely. It's true enough that the world (ranging from tourists to trees) is gracefully resting right now. Our job will be to observe and appreciate this resting world. Instead of vibrant flowers such as are pictured in Art Birkmeyer's spring tour over some of the same territory, we expect to report on quiet scenes, in shades of grey.
(Nonsense, says Dodie - looking over my shoulder as I write this - using Winter as an excuse for resting is just for Wusses.)
Certainly our trip started off on a note of some gaiety, if you include last night. We had the pleasure of receiving our friends from Leipzig - Christian's parents - Jeurgen and Birgit, and Birgit's brother Stephan, his wife Pia, Christian's sister Anya, plus Christian and Melissa and Marius and Sandra. In all, of the eleven people at that table, eight were native German speakers.
This assembly made us "homesick" for Germany, with fond memories of the time we spent with some of these same folks in Passau during our summer cycle. Even better was a box they brought along with them. They had heard in Passau of my ambition to acquire a cuckoo clock, and later of the failure of that - mainly because apparently someone moved the Black Forest on us! In the box was a cuckoo clock, which had been carefully carried along from Germany and piloted through airport security. (The solid metal pine cone shaped weights seemingly could have been a threat).
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Too soon after the night's frolicking, we were wakened by the gentle yet insistent alarm of the smartphone, and soon pedaled down our driveway in the direction of Mexico. That is, South!
Our driveway is 600 feet long and actually provided the first test ride for all the new mechanical parts and packing arrangements we had pasted on the bikes. Somehow, in the weeks of preparations, a "test ride" had not occurred to us. It wasn't too bad. The magnet for my bike computer had been left on the "other" front wheel, Dodie's seat was too low, my foot was striking on the tie down for the scabbard of the (anti-dog/clic stand) trekking pole, Dodie's mirror was spinning in the wind, but actually we were able to toddle off down the highway.
The scenes that followed were familiar from other rides - the water and forest of where we live, and then the telltale stowing of the bikes on a ferry. When that happens, we clearly are escaping our island and heading off somewhere (or at least, they are.)
In this case, the ferry only took us over to the Saanich peninsula, which is still on the Island. Only tomorrow will we really leave it, and find ourselves back in the USA to boot.
For now, we noodled down the west side of the peninsula, on the Lochside Trail. Bike trails are not so well developed here, but we must admit the combination of the Lochside and the Galloping Goose, which total perhaps 70 km, is quite wonderful.
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The Lochside took us into the city of Victoria, where Dodie's sister Karyn plied us with tea and cookies. I then went off to collapse in the guest bedroom, after the exhausting 35 km Odyssey. This left Dodie poring over maps to see where our next move is to. Tomorrow is another day!
Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 35 km (22 miles)
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