Eatonville to Toledo, Washington Saturday, May 4, 2024.
I was thinking more about mountains that were named for people that never saw them. George Washington never saw Mount Washington in New Hampshire, which was called Agiocochook by the native peoples. The very first entries in this blog where about the beginning of my journey to climb Washington from the ocean, I still need to go back and fill the rest of that story in, but here is the money shot.
August 1, 2020
Of course, Nutty George (that’s what my dad called him, after a Bob Newhart routine https://youtu.be/_Tk76aLOH0M?si=EVhdhZlhXB4sKuWy, see 1:50 and 4:27) never saw the state that was named for him either, it didn’t exist yet. Still, you can’t escape his profile, it’s on every state highway sign.
Seeing it so frequently struck a chord with me. Washington DC is my hometown, George Washington University was my medical school, and he was my first president. Most of the portraits of him make him look like my grandmother, but Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wildly popular musical Hamilton really brings him to life.
I listened to the whole soundtrack today, some sections were so poignant I almost choked up. I needed a distraction on this soggy day. The rain was back, the hills and headwinds unrelenting. My high-tech Gore-Tex gear eventually got soaked to the bone, although I was warm as long as I kept moving. The checkout clerk at the grocery store was very patient with me las I fished out my credit card without taking off my sodden gloves. My bare bones B&B had no laundry, so I draped my stinky clothes next to the space heater. Charming.
My destination was Toledo Washington. Not the beautiful city in Spain, nor the much maligned one in Ohio. It brought to mind one of the most memorable bits from Saturday Night Live. “We’re Mr. and Mrs. WHINE-er. We come from To-LEE-do, and we have diverticu-LIE-tis.”
Ohio was also evoked because of the date. The Kent State massacre was 54 years ago today, I also noted it in my blog of 5/4/21. So relevant now, with the recent campus unrest about Gaza. My hometown paper, the Washington Post, has an excellent long form article today, but restrictions keep me from posting the link here.
Instead, I’ll repost Neil Young’s thumping lyrics.
Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming We’re finally on our own This summer I hear the drumming Four dead in Ohio
Distance 67 miles, 413 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 3108 feet
Eatonville to Paradise and back. Thursday to Friday May 2-3, 2024.
Mount Rainier, it turns out, was named by Captain Vancouver, the first to explore Puget Sound, in honor of his friend Peter Rainier, a British rear admiral who fought against the Americans in the revolution. He never saw the mountain. Just like William McKinley never saw Mount McKinley, before the name was changed back to Denali. I don’t believe Sir George Everest ever saw Mount Everest either.
Fortunately the weather was good. Left my bags at the motel, got an early start, and with the help of 4 cups of coffee
I needed it Wish I’d known about this place, wasn’t listed online. I always wanted to stay in a caboose.
made it to the national park entrance by mid afternoon.
but the steep part of the climb was yet to come. 3000 feet in 11 miles, I had to stop frequently, at one scenic area I met Jacob and Zephaniah, classmates at Bible school, who gave me a blessing.
They had their own view of Paradise, but for me, the destination was embodied in three songs of that name. John Prine talked about a favorite haunt from his youth, until Mr. Peabody’s coal train hauled it away. https://youtu.be/DEy6EuZp9IY?si=qXJdN53o6ujz8wk4
Finally, The Boss himself wrote the most haunting version of Paradise. You had to listen carefully to realize it was about 9/11, a suicide bomber, and a Pentagon widow. https://youtu.be/rcWF7se6EfA?si=BgUds5oZm579t8sV
These songs sustained me as I ground up those last few miles, suddenly surprised to see I was surrounded by high snowbanks. It was 6PM when I reached Paradise, the snowiest place in the continental US, and there were still over 10 feet on the ground. It was hard to recognize the iconic Inn and guide service headquarters where I’d began my climb 30 years ago.
Flashback: it was August 1994, and I was stuck in a boring conference in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. On a whim I called Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (RMI), the main guide service on the mountain, started by Jim Whittaker, the first American to climb Everest. Their trips were booked six months in advance. But they had a cancellation!
Ecstatic, I had Jane FedEx my stuff to Paradise, and drove the 350 miles there the next day. My first view of the mountain was so dramatic I almost drove the car off the road. It looked like the Emerald City.
RMI has the climb down to a science. The first day is an outdoor classroom, where you learn how to handle crampons, ice axe, and a rope. They drive you pretty hard that first day, and if you seem to be flagging, they warn you to drop out now, and get a partial refund. Once you start the climb, you’re liable for the full fee, even if they pull you.
I befriended two vivacious ER nurses, Renée and Linda. They would work double shifts and every few weeks have the money to take major expeditions like this. Linda confided to me that she had just found out she was pregnant; too late to cancel the climb, she was going to try anyway.
It’s almost like a cattle drive. 36 clients roped together in six groups of six, with a guide at the head of each. That second day is just a grind, 4500 feet up to Camp Muir, via a deep snowfield. The Camp is a bare bones cabin with bunk beds stacked four high. We were supposed to bring our own food, but on the short notice, all I had was peanut butter crackers. No matter, everyone else had packed too much, and were happy to let me eat their leftovers. Otherwise, they’d have to pack them back down. It occurred to me that you could mooch your way up any big mountain, and have people be grateful to you.
Bedtime was 6 PM, but nobody slept very well. They wake you up at midnight, get all your equipment sorted out, rope you up in those groups of six, and you’re off with your headlamps. Every thousand feet of vertical climb, they stop you by a group of tents, stuffed with sleeping bags. There the guides cull the stragglers in the herd. They say “you, you, you, you’re out.” You have to wait in the tents, warmed by the sleeping bags, until a total of six have been pulled, spread over the various stopping places. When six are out a guide can be peeled off to take them back down. Linda tried her best, but got yanked at the second stopping place.
The rest of us crossed the glaciers in the dark, then clambered up the stony Disappointment Cleaver, it was quite a sight to see all the crampons kicking up sparks on the rocks. The Cleaver got its name because it didn’t take you all the way to the top, it ended with 1500 more feet to go. The sun rose as the guides continued to push us, we had to be on the summit by 7:30. The snow gets too soft later in the day, and avalanches and rock slides are common.
Mount Rainier is a volcano, and sure enough there is a small summit crater. It turns out the true highpoint, Columbia Crest, is on the far side, about a 20 minute walk. It’s not part of the regular itinerary. I was told I had to convince five other people to come with me, to justify peeling off a guide to take us. After some cajoling, I got Renée and four others to come along. Everybody else, cold, exhausted and anxious to go down, gave us the stink eye.
It had been almost 90° that previous morning at Paradise, but Rainier often develops a cloud cap, a yarmulke of sorts, with nasty weather underneath. It was 20°, complete whiteout, and blowing on top. Nevertheless, the six of us were delighted to cross the crater and celebrate at the highpoint marker. (The few pictures I have of the climb are buried in our files, I’ll try to scan them in later.)
Going down was a plodding, painful affair, and we were reminded why we had to get started so early. One glacier we had to cross was called the Bowling Alley, and sure enough every minute to so a rock would come bouncing down. It was almost like waiting at a crosswalk for traffic, still roped together we would dash across between boulders. The guides admonished us not to look triumphant when we joined up with the stragglers heading down. We got back to Paradise, then as now, around 6PM. Long day.
Here I was, 30 years later, reminiscing about all this, but soaked in sweat and getting chilled. Really chilled heading back down at 35 miles an hour, but whooping for joy. Every bend of the road seemed to have a drop-dead view of the mountain.
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
The pictures, foreshortened this close up, don’t really do it justice. With the possible exception of the Grand Teton, I think it’s the most beautiful mountain in the lower 48. And I climbed it. I climbed all of it. As goofy as my two-stage process sounds, I was delighted beyond words.
Rather than go back 45 miles to my motel, I stayed at the National Park Lodge near the entrance, even though it meant paying for two rooms that night. People at the lodge had seen me on the road, were congratulating me and I wanted to chat, but the dining room was about to close. When I got to my room at 9 PM, sweaty, stinky, and ready for a shower, I discovered the room hadn’t been made up. I didn’t care. Housekeeping had left for the day.
The next day was an easy ride back to my original motel. But maybe I should’ve pushed on. Rain is predicted for the next three days.
At the time, Rainier was my 22nd highpoint. I’m still at 37 total, but now I can say I’ve climbed 20 of them from sea level. Cool. Turned that pin gold.
Distance 88 miles, 346 total. Time 14 hours with stops. Elevation gain 6000 feet
Sumner to Eatonville, Washington. Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are three levels of weird here.
First of all, highpointing is peculiar, there’s no getting around it. You can see wanting to get to the big mountains, but come on—Florida? Delaware? That funny one in Connecticut where the top isn’t even a mountain, but just where the state line crosses the slope of a higher mountain? What’s up with that?
But OK, let’s say you can see that highpointing is a thing. After all, they have a club, a magazine, an annual convention where a bunch of mountain nerds get together and pat each other on the back. Almost 400 people have done all 50. But I’m not content to stop there. I have to insist that they all be climbed from sea level, entirely under one’s own power. Nobody’s done that. Nobody’s even thought of that. Who cares?
And to that I am adding a third level of weird. I’ve climbed most of the hard ones, but always from a trailhead, a parking lot, not from the sea. I’ll post this map again, only the ones with gold pins have been climbed from sea level.
You need to zoom in to see the pins
Since retirement, I’ve been working to turn all the pins to gold. I reclimbed all the ones in the northeast, and did the ones in the Midwest for the first time that way. Actually, I climbed South Dakota and Nebraska anew. Now I’m on the final leg of this journey, starting in the northwest, aiming to finish all the ones I haven’t done and to claim that I have climbed those hard ones from sea level. Being an old man, I can’t climb them again. That ship has sailed. But if I bike now to those prior parking lots, wouldn’t that count? Sea to summit in two stages, after the fact? Huh? Wouldn’t it?
Casting weirdness aside, that’s what I’m trying to do. And the first one is Rainier. The Paradise Inn, where I began my climb in 1994, is at 5400 feet, and only 115 miles from Annie‘s house in Seattle. I had allowed myself four days, seemingly plenty of time. But poor sleep, distractions, and delayed starts have put me behind schedule. I’m two days in, but I’ve only done about 70 of those miles, with most of the climb still ahead of me. There is only one more day of good weather. After that, they’re talking about inches of rain and I don’t want to be on a high mountain road in that.
Today’s ride was typical. Most of it was flat or on good bike trails, but there was one stretch of gravel so bad I had to backtrack and plan out a bypass on busy roads with no shoulders and lots of semi trucks. One of them almost ran me off the road. I was so sleep deprived I felt like I was running on fumes. That last 6% grade hill into Eatonville was only half a mile, but I had to stop three times.
Once there, spotted in automotive garage that didn’t look too busy, and thought oh good, I can get my seat checked out. Right as I was starting in Vancouver, I heard an alarming snap in my saddle as I sat on it, but a cursory inspection didn’t show anything wrong. It was raining, the seat was covered, but it seemed OK, as it did on further inspections. Still, I noted a disconcerting thunk from time to time as I pedaled. I have the parts and tools I need for a repair, but I also need some heavy tools that only a garage would have. Here was my chance. I’m always sheepish, bugging garage mechanics, but Blake was pleasant and seemed happy to help. For the first time, I took my seat completely off and was horrified: one of the main rails that support the seat had fractured completely.
On top of everything else, this felt like a devastating blow. This has happened once or twice before, perhaps a design flaw in the other otherwise perfect Brooks Saddle, perhaps because I’m overweight, but in those cases I sent it back to the North American service Center, and they repaired it, charging me only postage. Still, it took about two weeks. I felt like the whole trip was over.
But Blake was nonplussed. He said oh, I think we have somebody here who can weld it for you. And sure enough, Aaron did just that.
The blue arrow marks Aaron’s weld
He apologized, said he couldn’t weld it all around for fear of damaging the leather, but it looked pretty solid to me. Blake leant me the tools I needed to complete the repair. I was so grateful I was almost in tears, and gave them a huge tip. A perfect example of a couple of trail angels.
Aaron and Blake
Time will tell. I’ve asked Jane to send me another saddle off another bike from home, but that will take more than a week (a pretty big ask, today is her 68th birthday). I’ll just have to hope for the best. The repair burned up another couple of hours, so I decided just to stay in Eatonville.
Why not just buy another saddle? Because once you’ve broken in a Brooks Saddle (they’ve been made in England since 1868), nothing else will do. It takes about 1000 painful miles to break it in, but once you do, pure heaven. I’m totally spoiled. But I suppose I could get another one if I have to.
So here I am, with 44 miles and 6000 feet of climbing to do an a single day. Almost 90 miles round-trip. I’ve got this motel room for two days, so I will keep all my heavy bags here, turning my 115 pound rig into 35 pounds. I’m getting to bed early, have decided to break my xanthine abstinence and use performing enhancing substances (caffeine). I’ve got this one chance.
Hey yo, I’m just like my country I’m old, scrappy and hungry And I’m not throwing away my shot
Distance 35 miles, 248’ total. Time 7 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1332 feet
Seattle to Sumner, Washington. Tuesday, April 30, 2024.
Catholics have St. Peters. Turks have the Hagia Sophia. Christian Scientists have the Mother Church in Boston. I have the REI flagship store in Seattle. An outdoor store so huge and comprehensive, I never visit Seattle without making a pilgrimage. No picture can do it justice. I needed a few supplies, and wound up spending too much time there.
Emblematic of my last day in Seattle. I was so sorry to leave this wonderful city, I spent too much time everywhere. Too much time saying goodbye to Annie, lingering over a sumptuous breakfast and more great reminiscing.
Her goodbye photo
I could’ve easily bypassed downtown Seattle, but had to snake through the streets to immerse myself in the chaotic, iconic Pike Place Market
go by the original Starbucks, and get a view of the Space Needle.
Hier ist die Nadel.
All this put me way behind schedule. Luckily, the bike paths out of town were smooth, flat, and straight; the sun was out, there was a gentle tailwind, and I made the almost 40 miles to my motel before dark.
Distance 39 miles, 213 total. Time 5 hours with stops. Elevation gain 619 feet
This was one of those days that was so delightful, so full of fun, that there’s not much time to blog about it. After a great breakfast and more conversation with Bob and Carolyn, it was just a quick ride over to Annie‘s house. I lived with Annie for my final two years of medical school in a group house, and we had so many memories to share. Annie has always worked for nonprofit organizations, she was an aide to Ralph Nader, worked with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and for most of her career was director of the Brainerd Foundation, pioneers in conservation advocacy. She shares her lovely home with her partner Steve, a projects facilitator, in the Ravenna Park section of Seattle. Steve has done much of the Camino, so we had lots to talk about as well.
Annie took me on a beautiful walk around Gas Works Park on Lake Union. We climbed a small hill that offered a sweeping view of the Seattle skyline, the Space Needle, and the rusting but oddly picturesque ruin of the Gas Works itself. We talked well into the evening after sharing a scrumptious dinner. Heaven. What more is there to say?
Distance 8 miles, 174 total. Time 2 hours with stops. Elevation gain 700 feet
Marysville to Seattle, Washington. Sunday, April 28, 2024
I can’t think of Seattle without this song coming to mind. It was the theme song for the short-lived series Here Come the Brides starring the teeny bopper heartthrob Bobby Sherman. My sisters, tweens at the time, couldn’t get enough of him, or the show.
Seattle. The very name evokes the space age. It was named for the revered Chief Seattle, leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples, but to me, it has always signified the cutting edge. The 1962 worlds fair. The space needle. Microsoft. Boeing. Starbucks. Frazier. Grunge rock. Pike Place Market. REI. The spectacular setting on Puget sound.
My mother’s birthplace, although she moved away when she was two. Back in 1980, when I was doing my residency interviews, I was dazzled by the city, even though it was pouring the whole time (the place is famous for its rain, that theme song was ironic). The University of Washington was my first choice, but as an out-of-stater, I never had much of a chance. I matched at Mount Auburn Hospital instead, and in retrospect, I was glad UW didn’t take me, I never would’ve met Jane. Still, UW endures as the one that got away.
One more reason Seattle has a warm spot in my heart, it’s the home of two of my dearest friends, Bob Kitchell and Ann Krumboltz, and I’m delighted to be able to spend a day with each. Supposedly an easier day today, just 46 miles, but I managed to turn it into a challenge anyway. A “shortcut” turned out to be a fiasco, had to cross a series of scary, rusting metal bridges across a tangle of sloughs to get into Everett. The only bike/pedestrian access was a catwalk so narrow I had to push my bike the whole way, almost a mile. Everett itself had a long, slow hill that sucked my energy until I got on the Interurban bike trail, a challenge in itself with lots of marginally-marked turns.
But it was all good. The Burke–Gilman Trail was a stunner, one of the nation’s top rail trails, going all around Lake Washington. It went right by the UW campus, and I was happy to take a steep hill detour to get a look at its signature Drumheller fountain
and the comically massive Husky Stadium. I’m always amazed how colleges can have such huge sports venues.
The final 1/10 mile to the Kitchell’s was so crazy steep I had to push my bike and stop 10 times to catch my breath. But the best things in life are worth struggling for, their house is perched on a hill with a great view of Lake Washington, and the evening with Bob and his wife Carolyn was pure gold. A lovely meal, stories and reminiscing that took me past 10 o’clock without even realizing it. They’re both doctors, Carolyn is a pathologist, Bob and I did our residency together, and we shared our medical experiences, our families, and our great adventures.
grandson Cal, Bob, Carolyn, and some random guy
Distance 46 miles, total 166. Time 8 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,768 feet
Bellingham to Marysville, Washington. Saturday, April 27, 2024
Or maybe I should say water zero. Part of this little conceit I have about the highpoints is that I want to start from sea level. So whenever I begin a new leg, I have to “zero out” at an ocean or some place contiguous with one. For instance, before climbing Mount Washington in 2020, I dipped a toe in the water at Goose Rocks Beach, one of the prettiest in Maine.
The blog post for 4/19/21 shows me zeroing out at the Hudson River at Troy, which is still tidal at that point and therefore also at sea level, before I did the 10 highpoints on that trip.
The Ingalls Avenue boat ramp in Troy.
For this trip, I had to zero out at the Pacific. I’m not sure when I’ll get another chance, I’ll be near the ocean quite a bit but often on a high bluff where accessing the beach is problematic, especially in cycling shoes. As I left Bellingham today, Andy suggested a spot in the harbor, and a couple of women were very kind to take my picture there. This is Bellingham Harbor, above Puget Sound, and therefore part of the Pacific.
It’s all uphill from here
And while we’re on this sea to summit thing, I might as well show you a helpful visual. When I retired in 2020, my resident firm (nine residents who I had precepted for three years) gave me a lovely gift, a map of the state highpoints, with little pins to stick in when I completed them—gold, silver, and bronze. This is a smallish picture, but high definition, you can zoom in if you like.
The gold pins show the highpoints I have done from sea level, 19 in all. The bronze pins (which I thought looked prettier than the silver, which look almost black) mark the big boys: major peaks like Denali, Rainier, Whitney, and others in the Rockies or Appalachians, each was a major undertaking, four of them required professional guides, but in each case I left from a trailhead or parking lot that I had driven to (or in the case of Denali, flown to an a ski plane). Therefore, I did not do these 13 from sea level. The silver/black pins mark the hall of shame, the five peaks I simply drove up.
My overarching goal then, is to turn all of the pins gold, including the 13 I have not done. Alas I am too old to climb those western big boys again, so in the twisted rules of this game (which matter only to me) I hope to bike to the starting points from before, thereby claiming I climbed them from sea level in two stages. Lame? Convoluted? You betcha. The first such gambit I hope to do is to bike to the Paradise Inn, where I started my Rainier climb 30 years ago.
Moving from the ridiculous to the sublime, today’s ride involved two gorgeous byways, Chuckanut Drive and the Centennial Trail, hilly but dazzling. There’s nothing like a glassy smooth-rail trail to lift your spirits. The elevation profile showed that the two were linked by a nice flat stretch.
The flat stretch turned out to be the hardest part of the trip. Crossing an open plain with no trees for shelter, I was exposed to a steady 50° rain and a 20 mph headwind, that slowed me down to under 7 mph. It was manageable if I got into a full tuck, but this early in the ride, I could only maintain that for a few minutes, my thighs were kneading my gut like bread dough.
Which of course brings up the other objective of the trip, it’s a fat camp. I lost 40 pounds in 2021, despite eating all manner of indulgent foods. Now that I have celiac disease, I’m eating more carefully, so hopefully the lard will come off even faster.
Distance 60 miles, total 120. Time 8 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,914 feet
Vancouver to Bellingham, Washington. Friday, April 26, 2024
It’s Blanche DuBois all over again.
Many times in this blog I have noted the kindness of strangers, always amazed that people you’ve never met are willing to bend over backwards for you. Today was no exception.
Chris Xie is the owner of the lovely B&B where I was staying, also a mathematician and businessman. Originally from China, he was educated at Heidelberg in Germany and NYU, worked for many years developing wind power, and has written a popular book about avoiding financial pitfalls. His wife is currently away, so he is managing the B&B, one of the highest rated in Vancouver, all by himself. In other words, a very busy man.
He offered to drive me to the FedEx office to get that missing crank. Per Noreen’s suggestion, we got there just as it opened and another kind man, Michael, spent 45 minutes rummaging through the hundreds of boxes in the back to find it for me. Chris patiently waited with me, taking phone calls, I wound up tying him up for well over an hour. What a guy. A genuine Trail Angel.
A 4 ounce piece of aluminum, the cause of all the trouble
But I had my crank! I could finally hit the road. The rain and the headwind were not too bad, but it was challenging crossing the many forks of the Fraser river to get out of town. I was concerned that my route took me over some unpaved paths, but they were remarkably easy to navigate in the rain.
With all the delays, I wasn’t sure how far I could get today. A third kind soul, Tony Morris, had offered to be my Warm Showers host halfway through the route if I needed him. He had been very patient with my scheduling and rescheduling as the FedEx saga evolved. When it turned out I didn’t need him, he graciously gave me lots of advice about crossing the border.
The border. Hardly the fraught frontier we have with Mexico, but I was still apprehensive as I approached, we’ve been delayed for hours when crossing here in the past. Al Stewart’s On the Border was my soundtrack as I drew near, but I was ushered through without a hitch. I’d hoped to get a photo of the touching Peace Arch, but this was all I could get.
Ahh, back in the good old US of A. Like Agent Dale Cooper, I thought “some kind of trees you got here,” and couldn’t resist playing the whole soundtrack from Twin Peaks. The rain stopped, the clouds parted somewhat, but I didn’t get a chance to see Mount Baker, one of the awesome Cascades. Arrived in Bellingham by seven, in time for a lovely evening with my cousin in law Andy Wheeler, add his adorable dog Honey Bear. I was very sad to have missed my cousin Tilda.
Rain and headwinds predicted again for tomorrow. I shouldn’t be surprised, it rains all the time in the Pacific Northwest. But what they call rain is usually just drizzle, hopefully that will be true tomorrow.
Distance 60 miles, I guess I’ll start a new total. Time 8 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,155 feet
Well, that was foolish. Daring the punishers to keep bringing it on.
FedEx has a tracking number status page, updating you on progress towards delivery. As the morning began, things looked set: the package with my crank was in Vancouver, still expected to be delivered by noon. As I kept refreshing, the status suddenly turned red: it was held up in customs.
Cue the frantic calls to Customer Service. Many interactions with menus, hold music, and representatives with strong accents. It appeared that a duty needed to be paid, another $24 I charged immediately. Nothing changed, another call revealed that they didn’t need the payment after all, they needed a “power of attorney” form, authorizing myself as a shipper or booking agent. No easy task when all you have is an iPad, no printer, no fax. They suggested I take screenshots of the forms, fill them out with my Apple Pencil, and send them to the customs office. This done, the package cleared customs, but had missed the delivery truck, would have to wait until tomorrow. Instead, I could have it sent to the FedEx office by the airport, and pick it up there at the end of the day, although they close at six. If I could get the crank tonight, I could pop it on, leave first thing in the morning, and make it to Bellingham tomorrow.
Every agent did their best to be helpful, but each was picking up the thread anew. I tried to bite back my frustration that this wasn’t handled when Jane dropped off the package yesterday and was charged that exorbitant fee. Chris, the owner of the B&B, also helpfully offered to drive me to and from the FedEx office.
Perhaps you remember the ending of the movie Social Network, where Zuckerberg, having wrested control of Facebook from his friends and become fabulously wealthy, finds himself all alone. He sends a friend request to his ex-girlfriend; the final scene shows him repeatedly refreshing the page, to see if his request has been accepted.
I know the feeling. As the afternoon wore on I kept refreshing the FedEx page, hoping to find it was ready for pick up. No luck. Right at closing hour the most helpful representative, Noreen, called me back and said I should just show up there when it opens at eight tomorrow, and not leave until they give it to me. Hmm.
FedEx. When it absolutely positively has to get there overnight. Their logo is cleverly designed to contain a white arrow, hadn’t noticed it before.
Maybe not so clever
The day wasn’t a total loss. Took a 5 mile walk up that cool bike/pedestrian path to pick up some inner tubes and score some of the best sushi I’ve had in a long while. Long conversations with Jane and sister Anne, who quoted Taylor Swift and told me to shake it off.
Vancouver, British Columbia. Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Richard III got nothing on me.
The karmic punishers continue to mess with me. The flight last night finally took off two hours late; the seat had lots of legroom, but my seatmate, though perfectly pleasant, was corpulent and spilled over a bit into my space. I can never sleep on planes anyway. The luggage took forever to come, and I bobbled the Uber connection so that I wound up getting to my B&B at midnight, 3 AM my time.
Still too keyed up to sleep more than three hours, I started the tedious bike reassembly, and realized I had forgotten a crucial piece. Can you spot it?
The handdlebars are distorted in this close-up wide ankle shot.
Yep, it’s the right pedal. Actually, I have the pedal, but not the crank that attaches it to the bicycle. After spending an hour turning the room upside down, I called Jane, who was at work. Her coworkers covered for her, she ran home and searched our whole basement, turns out it was buried in the foam packaging I use.
A 4 ounce piece of aluminum, the size of a short ruler, but custom-made and not available locally. Without this “nail,” the trip would be lost. FedEx will charge me $157 to get it here by noon tomorrow.
Smooth move, Poindexter. Comeuppance for having such a fancy bike.
I was so frazzled and sleep-deprived the bike assembly took longer than the usual four hours. I was reminded of a line from Updike, “globes of ether, pure nervousness, slid down his arms and legs.” By the time I was done in the afternoon, I realized I hadn’t eaten since the plane ride 20 hours before.
I’d arrived in the dark, but was able to see through the ether, as I dragged my suitcases to the UPS store to be shipped home, that the modest Vancouver neighborhood was lovely, dotted with flowering trees.
We’ve been to Vancouver before, it’s really a spectacular city, won’t have time to see it this time. But even the neighborhoods are stunning. Had a nice meal at a Thai restaurant, admired how Vancouver bikepaths are segregated into walkers and bikers,
was surprised to see how cute my B&B looked from the outside,
rescheduled my upcoming friends/family visits, blogged, and got to bed early.
The Ends of the Earth 