update Aug 17, 2010

Alright, here it is, finally. My Blog. I have been agonizing over this for long enough. (since November 2009, actually) and it is time to set pen to paper, so to speak. So many people ask me about my blog and where it is that it has become embarrassing now to say that I’ve been planning on starting it for nigh on to 9 months now. I could have had a baby in that time, for crying out loud! Well, maybe not. So here goes a shot at catching everybody up on what I’ve been up to since I started my trip on November 24, 2009. As Sergeant Joe Friday on the TV show Dragnet used to say: “Just the facts, m’aam, just the facts.”


Sometime in 2008, my good neighbour Bill loaned me his copy of Long Way Round, the documentary of Charlie Boorman and Ewan MacGregor traveling around the world on their motorcycles. It totally inspired me. Especially the final episode where they reviewed the highlights of their journey. It brought tears to my eyes to see the experiences they had and the people they met along the way. I got to talking to my good friend Sig about adventure motorcycling and he loaned me a couple of great books on the subject: Adventure Motorcycling Handbook by Chris Scott and Gregory Frazier’s Riding the World. Then we planned a six-week trial run down the Baja peninsula and back up the Mexican mainland which was an absolute blast of a time. The trip took place in Feb-Mar of 2009. The hot springs at Santiago, the whales at Guerrero Negro, the beautiful seaside towns, the remoteness of Batopilas, were all highlights of a very memorable trip. And I found out I liked adventure motorcycling. So I decided to return to Calgary to get ready for a year and a half trip to Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of Argentina.

Before setting off on my trip in November 2009, I set some intentions… One was that I wanted to do some kind of community service work on my trip. Another was that I visualized working on outboard motors in a small seaport as a way to make money on my trip. I also wanted to experience and participate in the culture of whatever place I was visiting along the way. And have some fun while doing it!

My first challenge was getting across the Rocky Mountains in late November from Calgary to Vancouver. I knew that once I got to the west coast it would be wet and cold, but at least I could ride my motorcycle as there wouldn’t be any snow on the roads. I placed an ad on Kijiji (like Craigslist) for a shared ride to Vancouver, and a young man from Kitchener, Ontario gave me a lift in the back of his pickup truck. We stopped and had an amazing day at the hot springs of Nakusp near Revelstoke, BC, and met some beautiful young people from the hostel in Revelstoke. Over pizza and beers, the young man we had just met at the hot springs gave me a ten dollar Australian bill as an incentive for me to go and visit that country during my travels. It is still nestled in my wallet and I take it out occasionally and dream.

In Vancouver I hooked up with a man from my men’s team who offered to let me use his garage for a little bit of maintenance on my motorcycle. When I found out that the city was on his case because his yard was a mess, I realized that this man who offered to help me actually needed my help more. So I stuck around for a month and helped him get his place fixed up. It was my opportunity to do some community service. Bob took me sailing on his boat in English Bay and it was very exciting. There are some pictures of Bob’s place and the sailing.

I flew to Calgary for 2 weeks at Christmas and had a wonderful holiday at Fernie skiing with my family. Then I flew back to Vancouver on Jan 4 and on Jan 6, 2010 I made it to the hostel in Seattle. A fellow I was chatting with at a rest stop in Washington state was asking me if I had a heated vest and heated handgrips on my motorcycle. I replied: “Nah, that’s for wusses…” And he laughed very heartily. It was 48 degrees Fahrenheit out, and I had to stop every hour and warm my feet in the sinks of the rest stops along the way. Thank God for hot water at the Interstate rest stops!

South of Seattle I made my way to the Oregon coast at Astoria and I traveled along the coast highway all the way down through Oregon and into California. I stayed at hostels mostly, and they weren’t very busy. The people I met were very friendly, and the best one was in Klamath, CA where we had a magical evening of singing, guitar playing, and storytelling. The redwood forests were awesome as well. I’ve now touched some the oldest living things on the planet. My welcome into California was an earthquake which happened while I was riding and I didn’t feel a thing. People at the hostel said things had actually fallen off the shelves. I also liked al the tsunami warning signs I passed on the coast highway. I wanted adventure, and I was getting it full bore.

I visited with my aunt in Santa Cruz, a friend in Scott’s Valley, another one in Richmond near San Francisco, and then I headed to the Harbin Hot Springs resort for some R and R after a long ride south. It felt good to be where it was finally getting warm! It was a pretty wet and cold ride down the Oregon coast, but with very austere, wild and beautiful scenery. Big Sur in California was an exceptionally beautiful piece of highway.

Then I landed in Ojai, CA thanks to nude roller-skater/bicyclist Earth-Friend Jen. My friends from Calgary were looking for a place to live for six months when they saw Jen riding her bike as they were passing through Ojai. My friend turned to his wife and exclaimed “Let’s stay here!” So they did. And when I dropped in for a visit, I was taken by the charm and pace of this little town of 8000 souls located 75 miles north of Los Angeles in the Sierra Madre mountains. It was the Shangri-La valley depicted in the 1937 movie Lost Horizons with Ronald Coleman, and it truly is an amazing place. They say the East-West configuration of the valley is conducive to occult and psychic forces. The population includes more than its fair share of food faddists, occultists, the beard and sandal set writers, actors, yoga enthusiasts, radicals, conservatives, mystics, musicians, dancers, eccentrics, etc. etc. It has at least three meditation retreat centers, and I approached one of them about doing a work exchange for my room and board. They didn’t have space for me at the time, and while in the parking lot, Colleen approached me and asked what I was up to. I opened up and told her what I was seeking. She suggested I speak to Bob at the farm at the bottom of the hill.

So I ended up at a fantastic community farm where I worked on some equipment in exchange for my room and board. Remember my intention of finding some work along the way? I had a beautiful little room with a loft and a wood-burning stove in a converted barn. I started dancing lessons five nights a week and regularly hung out the local hot springs and coffee shops. I remember being at the local theater, watching the Oscars live on the big screen, and listening to the conversations of people in the audience. These people actually knew some of the people appearing at the Oscars, taking place live in Los Angeles, only 75 miles down the road. It occurred to me at that moment that I was taking in the local culture, which here was a connection with the LA film world. Sweet.

Pictures courtesy of Chris Curtis:

 

On March 23, 2010, I flew one-way to Toronto to be present for my daughter’s graduation from the Toronto School of Dance Theater. It was fantastic to see my daughter complete such a demanding program. She was totally awesome to watch perform and I was so moved when 22 of her relatives showed up for her Saturday night performance. Priceless.

I stayed in Ontario for my business school’s 26th fishing weekend extravaganza in North Bay, Ontario on the shores of beautiful Lake Nipissing, where the water level was down in places this year. Man, the fish were biting so good this year, you had to hide behind a tree to bait your hook. Then I visited with family and friends in Toronto, Burlington, Sharon, Napanee, and Montreal, before driving my old van across Canada to Calgary. I visited with my beautiful daughter in Saskatoon, and spent the best Father’s day ever with her. Once in Calgary, I did a few odd jobs to generate some cash flow and took a trip to retrieve my lost ski from the top of Castle mountain with my friend and his six-month pregnant wife. We found it! From there it was a one-way flight to Los Angeles and a commuter bus trip up to Ojai on July 27, 2010. And back to fixing things around the farm, and dancing lessons, and preparing for the rest of the trip.

Now my plan is to leave Ojai around August 19 and head for a hostel near San Diego. Then it’s punch through the Mexican border and get down the Baja peninsula for another visit to the fabulous hot springs near Santiago. That’s as far as my event horizon goes for now. And I plan to be in Argentina around November or December, which is their summer. Then back to Canada sometime around May 2011, weather and snow permitting. Stay tuned for more installments. Namaste.



Some amusing quotes I’m rather fond of:



We shall not cease from exploration… and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the very first time.



Housework, if done properly, can kill you.



Never, in recorded history, has a man ever been shot while doing the dishes.



As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.



Marianne Williamson’s poem on our greatest fear…



Goethe’s poem on Commitment (until one is committed…)



William James’s Invictus.



I would never want to belong to a club that would be willing to have me as a member.



Shoot first. Paint the targets later.



I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.



If you are not living on the edge, then you are taking up too much space.



It is sometimes easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.



I’m just going to let that problem take care of itself.



The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.



If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drum. Let each man step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.



Live like today may be your last… and learn like you’ll live forever.



Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego.

Most of my money I spend on beer and women, the rest I waste.

Not all who wander are lost.

When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming like the passengers in his car.

It's all about serendipity, baby, serendipity.

Why do I always feel like I need a bigger boat?

Forgiveness: abandoning all hope of a better past.

The first rule to get yourself out of a hole is to stop digging. Just put the shovel down.

The principle of penpalism is reciprocity.

Love heals.

That goes down with a push.

I wonder what the poor people are doing now?

Woody Allen: "eighty percent of success is just showing up."