December 13, 2023
Day 1: Cobble Hill to overnight flight to Cancun
Three degrees this morning, well below our threshold for comfortable cycling. I'm kind of glad to see it, because sunny days of 10 degrees lately make me wonder (just a little) why we would want to fly South at such great expense. Not that even a heat wave (or Pineapple Express as it is sometimes called) could change things now. Not ony are our bags packed and we're ready to go, but the plane is booked, and so are a long list of hotels.
A while back we joined our friends Sue and Jim Price in Chemainus, which lies midway between where we live and their place in Nanaimo. At our favourite Willow Street Cafe, we were lamenting the difficulty of getting from home to any local airport or ferry terminal. They are all far away, and they do not really have long term parking, at least not at anything like a reasonable cost. The Price's, bless them, responded by offering to drop us at the ferry, this time anyway, and then to collect us again after the trip. What's more, they wrote us a couple of days ago, to make sure we still remembered the arrangement. Did we remember the arrangement? Getting to and from the starting line is almost the most memorable part of these trips!
The Price's arrived at our place ten minutes before the appointed hour - which means spot on, German time. True to her heritage, Dodie operates on German time, so great!
We got a goodbye wave from our neighbours, including little James.
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Sue had spotted a bakery/restaurant that is on the way to the ferry. It's one we have often passed when cycling around the area, but we never stopped in.
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It turned out to have some nice looking baking, and also decent sandwiches. On the list was a Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich. Sue said later she was cautious about that, because it literally never is "the real thing", no matter what they say on the menu. But I am the always optimistic sucker that buys Eclairs in Portugal, Pastel de Nata in Montreal, and probably Nanaimo Bars in Gimli, Manitoba, so in I dove.
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I am not saying the Smoked Meat sandwich was bad. In fact the meat itself was loosely equivalent to a second or third tier effort that you might find in Montreal. But there were some clues, even within the menu, that would predict what this was going to be. There was cheese in there, and sauerkraut, and aioli? We all agreed that what came out was a decento
When leaving our Island it's not only the current cycle-ability that we are attuned to, but also the beauty that always surrounds us. Each and every time, boringly so by now, we snap some photos of those surroundings and muse about why would we leave. So here is our current crop of snaps:
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Sue and Jim efficiently delivered us to the ferry, and there we could also have a traditional "kiss and cry":
Dragging the two heavy bike cases and the two heavy duffles was a bit of a chore, along the long corridors of the ferry terminal, onto the bus to the Skytrain, onto the Skytrain, and finally on the skybridge into the airport. At the airport I also traditionally remark on the Indigenous carvings, which I have sometimes described as unwelcoming (whether intentionally or not). But this time we ran into one that was rather cute, maybe even welcoming!:
This now gave us about 7 or 8 hours to hang out waiting for our flight. This put me in mind of the skit by the Holderness family about different styles of getting ready for a flight.
In the skit the question is raised about who would wait until arriving at the airport to buy luggage. Don't know, but they sure are ready for them here!
See you in Playa!
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