May 12, 2016
Kamloops: A trip down memory hill
I survived the night in the tunnel, although I wasn't scared enough by it to get up at first light. It got light at five, which is really very early, and so I got up at seven. It was a cold morning and I cycled on the highway towards Kamloops, which is a large town, a small city, or an out-of-control village, depending on how you want to look at things. It is also a place with a special meaning for me, because of events that unfolded back in 2011, and I approached it once more now with something akin to trepidation.
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I'd spent three months working as a tree-planter during my last stay in Canada, and it was Kamloops that had been our urban base. We'd been camping in the woods most of the time, but two days out of seven we'd head back to Kamloops for some rest. So I knew the place well enough and I enjoyed going back to the information centre at the top of the hill on the way into town. Plenty of people spoke to me here and asked me where I was going and what I was doing. And then I went to Real Canadian Superstore, a giant supermarket that perhaps constituted my happiest memories from Kamloops. I went inside and was so excited to be back that I spent $40 and almost couldn't fit everything on the bike.
But then it was time to really roll down memory lane, or memory hill as it were, seeing as Kamloops is situated in a big valley. It was that hill, which took me past that bus stop and that motel, until I was drawn almost magnetically to turn down that road to that creek. I walked, as I so often had, on pretty much every day-off, along a trail beside the creek on which you could almost leave the city behind. It was a nice place, with trees and birds and nature. It looked the same as I remembered. It even smelled the same. It almost began to feel the same. But it didn't. I could remember the feelings I'd had here, but I looked upon them now with a fresh perspective. This was where I had suffered heartache. A broken heart. At the hands... of a girl. And this was where I had come every week of that intense summer seeking refuge and recovery. How strange it was to be back, after all these years, and remember those emotions. And how it also really made me appreciate what I have now with Dea. And so I went to the library to find wifi, and I told her so.
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I left Kamloops behind once and for all, on a different road than that which I'd taken before. The last time I'd headed east out of the city I had done so on the highway on the south of the river. I now realised that the me of five years ago really was a fool, because on the north bank was a much nicer minor road with almost no traffic. And what was more it took me past rock formations that would have not looked out of place in Cappodica. These were impressive enough by themselves, but to make it even more amazing I soon spotted a herd of bighorn sheep grazing beneath them. Bighorn sheep had been one of the few animals I'd missed out on seeing the last time I'd been here, so I was especially pleased to spy them now.
The road continued to be wonderful and just got less and less busy until eventually I was pretty much the only vehicle. It had also turned to gravel, but I didn't mind that much. I was travelling through farmland, mostly used for cattle grazing, near to the river and my only problem was finding a place to sleep, what with all the fences. I found somewhere eventually though, as I always do, where a section of fence was missing and I could get down near the river. And with it being all farmed around here I didn't even need to worry about bears (or terrifying Iranians) and I slept soundly.
Today's ride: 91 km (57 miles)
Total: 49,162 km (30,530 miles)
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