Prince George, British Columbia
Distance: 7 miles
Climb: 700 feet
We’re still friends!
The ride today is only 6 miles, but I have little choice. There is simply not a hotel room, guest room, bed and breakfast, cot, tent, cabin, teepee, or anything that passes for accommodations between Prince George and Vanderhoof tonight. The westernmost room is at the Bon Voyage Hotel at the edge of town. So, I will spend the night there and get up and leave around 6 am on a mammoth journey for me: a 1900-foot climb across 55 brutal miles.
In my best shape over the past five years, I do not think I could have made it. Some 18 months ago, I rode 64 flat miles on my first day in Arizona and was exhausted at 40. It took me 10 or so hours, and I wanted to give up many, many times. The last ten miles or so, I would rest standing straddle Lucy, pedal a mile, stop and straddle Lucy for three minutes, then pedal some more. Every three or so miles, I would stop and get off and sit, trying to convince my legs that they were stronger than I imagined, but once I got back on, those Gumby-figure legs would wobble for one mile until I had to stop again.
So, here I am, 65 years old, equally out of shape, attempting a much harder ride. I figure my options are limited. I could pay someone to take me 20 miles and then ride and push from there—which is a helluva disappointing way to launch an R4P, wouldn’t you think?
I could arrange for someone to pick me up that last 20, which is only slightly less embarrassing. Or I can go until my body will not take me any further, and then stop and try to flag down a good Canadian to carry me the rest of the way.
The first 35 miles will cover about a 1250-foot climb. That is a darn good full day’s ride for me. I know other more fit men and women can do that in a half day. But not me.
The last 20 miles is only about a 350-foot incline. I am planning to psych myself up, take plenty of water and snacks—there are only two gas stations for the full stretch, best I can tell—and make lots of rest stops. Take at least one nap. And just test myself. See how far I can go before I tap out.
At 9:30 am, Matthew Hillier of The Prince George Citizen called for the interview. And three hours later, the article was out.
I struggled to get my eSIM internet functioning for about an hour to no avail. The AI told me at one point that Canada and other countries were suffering an outage. So around 11 am, I left the hotel en route to Bon Voyage. It was chilly, maybe 55 degrees, and overcast, threatening to rain.
My camera had reset itself, so the voice activation was not working. (Darn, we are spoiled.) And my GPS was not working because of the internet outage. And traffic was crazy. And it started to rain just as I hit the first and only hill. It was a monster that lasted about 3.5 miles and rose 700 feet, but because it was gradual and it was early in my ride, I pedaled the whole thing.
I got pretty wet, but not drenched. And arrived at the Bon Voyage Inn about 12:30, I think. That is where I met Elke, a very hospitable German manager who has lived in Canada with her husband for about 25 years. My room wasn’t ready, so I told Elke that I would just sit and wait.
“No, just wait a minute,” she said. “Let’s see if we can find you something on the ground floor that is ready.” She and Kelli, her colleague, searched the computer, checking and disregarding option after option until finally she found one.
This rarely happens to me. Typically, managers try to charge you an early check-in fee. Some will not go out of their way at all.
Elke doesn’t need PeaceBridge to initiate any goodwill. She is brimming with it.
“We had a high influx of Americans coming through here lately,” she said. “Bus groups, like the tour groups, have cancelled for this year… but individuals are coming through here, mostly on their way to Alaska… One group was fantastic. They came here during a thunderstorm.” Elke’s team gave them refuge for themselves and their vehicles under the covered entry.
They told her, “Oh my God! You’re so nice to us.”
“And why not? You’re still our friends,” she said. “Politics change, right? You’re still our friends.”
She went on to say that this same group of Americans “experienced being accosted at restaurants and bars because of being Americans.”
It is hard for most Canadians to accept statements like, “We want you to be our 51st state,” she explained. This type of rhetoric did what no Canadian politician could: “Unified Canada.”
When I asked her what she could do and what I could do to promote peace, she said, “Treat people with respect.”