Reunion #2

After two months of planning and anticipation our long-awaited road trip began at about 3:00 o'clock yesterday afternoon.  The weather was quite good with partially cloudy skies and warm temperatures.  We hit the Inland Highway and turned those 96 cubic inches of Harley-Davidson awesomeness loose quickly reaching our cruising speed of 120 kph all the way to Parksville where the speed limit drops to a paltry 90 kph pretty much all the way to Victoria. 

The skies which had looked so beautiful a mere hour and a half before now became a solid threatening mass of dark grey clouds with a corresponding drop in the temperature.  Riding with the threat of rain is not a pleasant experience but we carried on to Duncan, having covered the 200+ kilometres in a few minutes over two hours.  After refueling we again headed south trying to make it over the Malahat to Victoria before the rains began.

Just north of Victoria Garry and I parted ways; he, heading to his brother-in-law's place in Victoria, and me, to Sooke where I was to spend the evening with Jim Knight and our friend Kerry Hill who was also doing the trip with us.  I stopped in Sooke to change into my 'Captain Canada' jacket and surprisingly, it still fit.  It was my expectation to make a real entrance wearing one of the last remaining physical vestiges of our 1973 cross-Canada trek.  I cruised down the street in my old jacket, hair flowing in the wind to...NOTHING! Making the turn into Jim's driveway I expected a welcoming committee.  But no one was there so I simply rode my bike into the garage, shut it down & got off, only to see Jim & Kerry strolling down the driveway.  The whole thing was quite anticlimactic.  Not the ending for the scene that I had envisioned.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Kerry, Jim, and I rode our motorcycles from eastern Ontario to Alberta and British Columbia in 1973. The last time we rode together again was in  the summer of 1994 on a long weekend ride to Kamloops.  It was a great ride and I wonder why it has taken us twenty years to do it again.

After scarfing down Pizza and reminiscing about the trip all three of us at one point or other during the evening had the same question of at least one of the others: 'What trip were you on that summer?'  I suppose memory does fade but we all agreed on some parts of the story so at this point we're allowed some artistic license in the remembering and retelling the tale of an adventure which has been a pivotal point in all of our lives.

But onward.  This morning we awoke to a sunny skies with spotted with fluffy white clouds and warm temperature.  The ride into Sooke from Victoria was a real treat because the road twists and turns and rides and dips for most of the way.  Traffic was light in Highway 1 so we had time for me to swing by and see my daughter Rachel and drop off her Income Tax refund, then it was on to the Black Ball Ferry terminal where we met Garry.

Jim getting ready to roll.

The 'herd' lined up in Jim's driveway.

I took more than an hour and half to go through Immigration, wait, get onto the ferry, and then wait while all the cages were loaded on but we left at 10:30.  The weather was sunny and warm and as we left the harbour we saw a huge cruise ship, the Celebrity Century, docked at Ogden Point.  Slightly later we met the Norwegian Pearl headed for Victoria as well.

Kerry, Garry, and Jim at the Blackball Ferry terminal.  Note the half acre of forehead!

The Celebrity Century at Ogden Point, Victoria, BC

Norwegian Pearl approaching Victoria.

Jim, Kerry and Garry on the Coho going to Port Angeles.

As we approached Port Angeles we descended to the car deck where we waited to dock.  When the opened the doors, we were greeted by a solid wall of grey clouds.  In fifteen minutes our sun had disappeared!  This was a harbinger of things to come. 

A note of explanation. The first blog started yesterday and finished when we arrived in Port Angeles.  Even though it covers the afternoon and evening, tomorrow's blog will have enough to make up for the brevity of today's post.