I am staying with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Henriette in Campbell River for the weekend and today, after breakfast, Bob asked if I would like to go to Mount Washington on Mandy the baby blue BMW RT 1100. What? Ride all the way there (about 45 minutes) on a motorcycle? I have never been on a motorcycle before. I considered it for about 30 seconds. If the helmet fit, I was going.
The weather was perfect for a ride. I was outfitted in a black jacket with padded shoulders and elbows…gloves and a helmet that fit like a glove. We were on our way. I found the back seat very comfortable, although I couldn’t imagine the wife of that bus driver I met in Whitehorse who was scheduled to start her first ride across Canada on a motorcycle today. I rode for just over an hour and thought that I would want to do some serious training before hitting the road on a bike.
The sun was shining, Broom blooms lined the road in yellow and purple Lupins were everywhere. I was worried that I might get motion sick because I couldn’t see the road ahead of me with Bob’s helmet in the way but I relaxed and enjoyed the view off to the sides. I saw a deer, an eagle and a herd of domesticated bison. The road was steep and my ears popped all the way up and then again all the way back down. As the altitude changed, I could feel the air getting colder. When we got there, snow was still hiding in all of the crevasses. In Campbell River it was almost 30 degrees. It was hard to imagine snow still existing up there.
I hoped to get on a chair lift and go to the top of the mountain but we were told that it was closed and wouldn’t be open for rides til mid June. Too bad about that. In the end we just tramped around the resort area and then headed back down to the house where we cracked open a Kokanee beer to celebrate the first day of summer.
And the Motorcycle ride? Wow! I don’t know why I didn’t think of getting myself a bike. It runs on very little gas and the country side would have seemed just a bit closer from the seat of a beautiful motorcycle. I am not sure if Sue would have come with me if we had needed to weather the prairie storms that way…but it is a great fantasy for another time.
I am going to Cortes and Quadra Islands for the next few days. Not sure if I will have Internet access but you will hear from me soon.
Mount Washington View
Damn Vicki I would have loved to see a picture of you all out-fitted and sitting on that motorcycle! Hopefully you got one and just didn’t post it.
Sounds liek a great ride.
Have a great time not being attached to the electronic world for a few day!
Janice
Oh….no….the worst disappointment. I was not able to get a picture so you will have to use your imagination. Vicki
Your first ride on a motorcycle triggered a long-ago memory of my first ride. My friend Joanne and I had met some neat guys in Rome (we were 17 so this goes back a long way) The fellow I was ‘with’ had a shiny green motor-scooter which suited me fine whereas Joanne’s date had some huge hog that roared down the road at hair-whitening speed. We agreed to go to the beach with them on their cycles. The scooter would start out, put-putting down the road like a respectable dowager, with me quite happy to hold on and looking at the scenery passing by. Then, from a tiny speck in the distance, the hog would appear, and pass us in a blur of noise and exhaust fumes. I can still see Joanne, her arms wrapped around the driver’s torso, grinning back at me as she was hurled ahead to a vanishing point. We would continue at our sedate pace and eventually catch up to them, resting and waiting on the side of the road. The tag-team game contunued all the way to the beach.