Weekend 2: Victoria, British Columbia

Half way across South Dakota on my way out to Washington (about the time my car was about to kick me in the face), I received a call from a good buddy of mine, D.K. (Danny Karbassiyoon). He was aware of my plans to head out to Seattle, and he informed me that he would be doing some scouting work at the FIFA U-20 World Cup held in Victoria, BC within a week of my arrival in Seattle. Excited, we immediately decided to meet up.

When Saturday rolled around, I threw some wrong transmission fluid (heavy oil) into the Goblin, started her up, and rolled the dice. I drove from my house in U-district north to Edmonds, ferried across to Kingston, drove 60 miles to Port Angeles, and hopped on another ferry (this time abandoning the car but keeping the bike) and arrived in Victoria just an hour and a half later.

5 hours from U-District Seattle to Victoria, BC. Have I mentioned how money the NW is?

I spent the remainder of the day exploring places on the bike and talking to nosey locals. I made the mistake of wearing a VT shirt while riding around town, and whenever I stopped there was always a line of people nearly peeing their pants in desperation to ask intrusive questions.

"So, are you a student at Virginia Tech?"

"Like, THE Virginia Tech?"

"Oh, you are???!!! Wow............."

"So, were you there for all that..."

"That's just awful. Awful. I'll never understand it. Never."

Don't get me wrong, the people were incredibly friendly after they peed. It was just... you know... the peeing that made me uncomfortable. I ended up speaking with two fella's for about 4 hours, just hanging out in front of Starbucks (of course). They gave some pointers about where to meet the knock-out girls in town and grab cheap beer/food.

I've got to interject here, in my own story, to mention that there are more beautiful, mid-twenties, single girls in Victoria than any place I have ever been in my life. Of course, this makes no difference to me because: beautiful or not, mid-twenties or not, single or not (recognizing the pattern?)... it makes no difference. I am a baby-girl, with no game, no guts, and certainly no glory.

Back to the story:

No, wait, another interruption: they have these taxes in Canada called "Sin Taxes". In essence, they tax the living HELL out of Alcohol, Cigarettes, and any other "Devil" product, apparently in order to make them suitable for Christian consumption... great. The downside to this? Everything is morbidly expensive. I came to Victoria a rich man ($100 Canadian) and left a hobo (the clothes on my back and a sewing machine that I found on the side of the street... no really, I found a really sweet sewing machine). Seven dollar pints break your neck.

After leaving the dirty-old-Starbucks-men, I headed back into the downtown area to find the places they had suggested for a "true fish and chips dinner that'll take you straight back to the 30's" and some "hotties". Of course, I got crazy mixed up in the streets, far overshot the area I needed to be on (my bike is wicked fast) and ended up asking various people for directions.

Apparently, people in Victoria do not know their own city. The complicated Grid-work ties up their neurons to such an extent that after asking the question of "Excuse me, do you know where _____ street is?" 3 of the first 4 citizens I asked just started to drool, leaving me wishing that I had a camera, and with the lingering question I wonder how long I should wait here for an answer?

Three of the four, I said. That leaves number four. This guy... was a winner.

When I am out to find directions, I don't care who I ask. Old, young, man, woman, toddler, as long as I someone can point me in the right direction, I'm happy. Well, the first few respectable looking people I asked for directions had short circuited, so I rolled up to the most ridiculous looking human being I have ever seen.

Incredibly fat.

Piss-Poor tattoos covering all exposed skin.

Spikey hair.

Leather, leather, everywhere.

Biker right? Kinda. He was riding one of those "Next" bikes you can buy at Wal-Mart (FULL suspension, baby!), slurrrrping down a Starbucks (of course) Frappe, and absolutely JAMMING to Bon Jovi (I know this because he told me no less than 3 times).

"Excuse me. Do you know where ______ street is?"
"What?"
"Do you know where ______ street is?"
"Oh yeah, man, but why the hell do you want to go there??"
"I'm trying to get to _____ to get some real fish and chips and a taste of the 30's."
"That place is still open? Shit man, I thought that place closed down years ago."
"I think it is still open... can you give me some directions."
"Oh man, I'll just take you there."

Annnnd, here we go. We start walking up the street, allowing him to slurp down the 600 calorie "coffee" milkshake. He's huffing and puffing. I'm growing impatient.

"I'm Devon, by the way. I appreciate you taking your time to..."
"WHAT??! Bon Jovi man! You know Bon Jovi?!"
"Yeah, definitely."

"Oh, they rock, man! I mean, not as good as they used to, before I was in prison."

Lovely.

"Oh, you were in prison? That... sucks."
"Yeah, I really missed my old lady. The names Luch (pronounced LOOCH), by the way."
"Oh, I'm Devon. Good to meet you.l"

We carry on for 20 or so minutes, weaving this way and that. He gives me the tour of the bad neighborhood that I should avoid in the dark. He shows me his old high school and reflects on his short time spent there. He advises me to finish high school. I tell him that I will.

We arrive at the Fish and Chips place... it is closed. HUGE Bummer. Luch offers to take me to the bar I had been told about. I agree think that would be a good idea.

We roll along carrying on broken conversation... Luch loves his Bon Jovi, and singing in the middle of his monologues is not uncommon. We arrive, shake hands and say our goodbyes. I walk away, patting each of my pockets to make sure my wallet, cell, keys, etc... are still with me. Of course they were... The reformed Luch would never do that to me. Never, never.

Arriving at the bar, I quickly begin filling my empty stomach with some local micro-brew. Delicious. After a few, I walk into the back room where a band is jamming, and a bunch of people are wearing name tags. I walk in, sit down, and enjoy the show.

Something is wrong though. People keep looking at me in one of two ways:

1.) I am famous. This can't be, because I know me, and I am not famous.
2.) They think they know me, but they are not sure.

Finally, a guy comes up to me, sits down and introduces himself.

"Hi, I'm Mike."
"Hi, I'm Devon."
"So, did you go to Victoria High?"

Ohhh... I get it. I am crashing a high school reunion party.

"Nah man, I'm from the States. I'm just here for the music."
"Oh, great. We were so worried. Everyone here has been wondering who you were, no one could recognize you, and we just didn't want to leave you out. Come over and sit down anyway, if you like."

See what I mean? Truly nice folks, those Victorians.

The rest of the evening and weekend was relatively typical of any vacation to a new place. Danny and I met up at the ultra-posh (based solely on its horrendously snotty, stuck up employees and guests) Marriott Hotel late on Saturday night, crashed, and woke up the next morning to some stellar views of the Olympic range to our south across the water. While he was busy at work, I hopped on the bike and explored the city and dwindling rural sights of Victoria, the best of which was the top of Mt. Douglas that I climbed on the bike and snapped pictures at the top.

Interestingly enough, Canada has a tradition of warming everyone up for the the United States' Independence Day. "Canada Day" takes place on July 1st, and luckily for me and Danny, we were there to celebrate. After raiding the concierge lounge at the hotel, we headed down into the masses of raving-mad Canadians sporting painted faces, Canadian Flags as super-man capes, and beer breath. There we enjoyed quite a fireworks show followed by an obsidian black stout to wrap up the evening.

I left for home the following day after a ridiculous lunch at the noodle bucket. After for saying goodbye to Danny, I picked up my bike and sewing machine and headed over to the ferry. The trip back was chilly and breezy, but unlike the trip over, the clouds had abandoned the Olympic peaks. All that remained was a serrated ridge line backed by a New Mexico-esque blue sky; blindingly blue.

So there it is... Weekend 2: Victoria, British Columbia. It was a quick trip, but it sparked my interest in returning to BC, next time to Vancouver, to see more of the land.

For the record, I had ordered my camera, a Canon S3-IS, earlier in the week, and it wasn't scheduled to arrive until Monday. Therefore, I used disposable cameras to snap pictures when I wasn't using Danny's digital. Well, if you know anything about my relationship with disposable cameras, you know that I tend to fill them with pictures and never get them developed. In this case, I'll do all that is in my power to overcome this procrastination, but for the time being, the pictures from Danny's camera will have to do.... That is, once I actually retrieve them from Danny. So if you've made it this far in the post, first off, congrats, and second, check back later for some shots of my Victoria weekend. They'll be up soon.

For all trips following this weekend, I had a digital camera and a 2 gig memory card, so I hope to give your eyes a rest from reading and just let you see the sites. They're more interesting anyway.

Hasta.

Weekend 1: Tour de Seattle.

What better way to get acquainted with a new city than to hop on a bike and ride around it?

I'm now convinced that there isn't.

I spent the first Saturday in Washington exploring the suburbs, parks, waterfronts and what turned out to be the biggest system of bike trails I have ever come across. In what I will now refer to as the "Tour de Seattle", I not only saw more of the city than I could ever see behind the glass of a car or bus, but I was also introduced to a New York City sized bike community exhibiting what I had only previously known as Southern Hospitality. Strange.

Oh, and I did my first century: 106.1 miles of travel in all. I've included a picture of my route, literally AROUND Seattle, below.

I've included letters on the map designating some of the more unique places I visited:

A. Home sweet home: 5611 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105. I live in the "sketchy" part of the University District where street kids abound, it is not unusual to wake up with a homeless person sleeping in your back yard, or people either ask you for your possessions (iPod, bike, car engine, etc...) or for permission to urinate in your blackberry bushes. You can't beat it!

B. Marymore Park: 640 acres of playing fields, a bicycle velodrome, a climbing wall... you name it. It is also well known smaller concert venue attracting some of the bigger names like Alison Krauss, The Fray, G. Love, and Carbonleaf.

C. Mercer Island: A beautiful ~12 mile loop. Home to Forbes Royalty like Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, this section of the ride single-handedly redefined my understanding of the word MANSION.

D. Downtown Seattle: i.e. NOT the place to bike. You are either (a.) riding up an insanely steep hill no matter which direction you turn to, (b.) riding down a one way street the wrong way in confusion, (c.) about to get hit by a car, or (d.) some combination of the above. I'll walk the next time I visit, thank you.

E. Alki Point: The westernmost point in Seattle offering post card quality views of downtown and the Puget Sound. It was also the home of the infamous nomad, David Ficke, during his brief stint in West Seattle.


F. Magnolia: Just north of downtown Seattle and Elliot Bay lies Magnolia and the discovery park... not a whole lot to write about except that three of the hills in Magnolia, all back to back and separated by just 15 feet of flat surface, literally had me screaming as I climbed them and entered my 96th mile.

F-A: Between Magnolia and the U-District lies Ballard and Fremont, my two favorite places in the Seattle area. Fremont is a bit on the Yuppie side with trendy restaurants and artsy coffee houses while Ballard is just far enough behind as Fremont's poser younger brother to still have decent supply of comfortable brew-pubs and easy chair coffee shops to strike a balance.

My 3 Day Trek From East to West.

I know this is a little known fact, but my car is a shit-can. It is ugly. It breaks down every few months for extended periods of time. And for a large fraction of the years that I have owned it, the "green-goblin" has emmited driving sounds ranging from "Fast and the Furious race car" to "large freight train engine" to "oh my god, someone is incinerating that house filled with cats."

Like I said... shit-can.

So obviously, when I stated that I would packing up and heading out west to explore the wilds of Seattle and the surrounding area (and yes, probably do some work on my Masters), you can imagine the looks and exclamations of my stupidity I received from friends and family (you, the readers). Nonetheless, I remained steadfast in my decision to subject my car to yet another cross country trip, boldly placing wagers as high as five WHOLE dollars that my '92 feat-of-German-Engineering Jetta would most certainly make it past MEMPHIS (Lay-who...suh-her) and roll into, under its own power, the north-western most reaches of the lower 48 with out so much as one single breakdown.

Errrrrrrrr. WRONG.

This is the story detailing my three day trek from Roanoke, VA to Seattle, WA. I hope you enjoy it more than I did...

__________________________________________________________

"The trip out to the east coast was pretty money for about 1.5 days, and then things kinda went to shit. First off, I have no cruise control, so my gas-pedal leg really started to hurt. Next, I have no radio, so my ears started getting sore from the iPod headphones. Combine this with the fact that I was driving about 15 hours a day, alone, and yeah... kinda shitty.

Oh, the car trouble: Around 150 miles shy of the South Dakota/Wyoming border my car started popping out of 5th gear. Now, those upper states have a marvelous speed limit of 75 miles an hour, so of course, I am cruising along at a steady 85 (yeah, I didn't know my car could go that fast either!). Anyway, when you are pedaling it at 85 and all of a sudden your shifter is thrown out of 5th gear and your rpm's shoot through the roof, it gets your attention. When it happens multiple times in a row, and you have to begin driving down the road HOLDING (and by holding I mean, pressing with high force) the shifter in gear to get anywhere, you get pissed.

I stopped at a gas station, look under the car... COMPLETELY covered in oil and muck. I look at the transmission, and there, plain as day, is the inside exposed. Turns out, the rock I thought I had hit earlier was actually my transmission cap falling off the car and getting wrapped under the tire, into the tire well, and leaving my life forever. Over the next couple hundred miles all my transmission fluid leaked out.

The trannie was DRY.

So I call my dad, uncle, etc... Uncle knows someone in South Dakota who can help. Thank god. I meet the guy, nice old man, takes me into his garage, and we start fashioning a part to cover the gaping hole. We finish, put it in place, all is great, I'm stoked to get back on the road, so we get some fluid and go to pour it in. Well, turns out my dad did not know the correct hole to put the fluid into, so I pour it into my bell housing, IN WITH THE CLUTCH. Needless to say, I was about to throw a fit. A few drops of oil ruined my last clutch, and here I just poured a quart of oil into this brand new one I had just installed a few months ago.

We do our best to clean it out dumping cans of not so enviro-friendly degreaser in there, and about 12 that night (6 hours after I got there), I start her up and drive. It isn't slipping, things seem to be alright, so hit the road, thanking Don, eager to cross the border into Wyoming.

Ten miles later I am sleeping at a rest stop, freezing my ass off, covered only by a thin sheet and 2 bath towels. Four hours after that, I wake up at 5 in the morning to a pretty money sunrise.

So I'm awake, I am pissed that I am now completely behind schedule, and I start driving like a mad man. I drive hard through Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and make it into Washington about 15 hours later (yeah, Montana is a big BIG state). I am just outside Spokane when my car starts throwing itself out of gear again. Lovely. Only this time, it doesn't want to stay in ANY gear, and it doesn't want to go INTO any gear. I pull off, calling my dad telling him what is going on, and try to get some fluid for the transmission (I think of the course of the day it leaked out of the jerry rigged part we made the night before).

THERE ISN'T FLUID ANYWHERE. I use motor oil instead... anything is better than nothing. I fill the trannie up with oil.

I try to put the speedometer cable back in. I can't get it to seat, I cannot bolt it in.

I try to pull it and replace it a different way, but I cannot remove it.

I start to get furious.

I start to yank on it.

I pull my cable off the user interface inside the car and through the god-damn firewall.

I am about to drop a match in my gas tank.

I pull harder. SNAP. The cable comes out, but the plastic piece on the end that meshes with the transmission gears is gone.

It is stuck in the trannie.

I drive anyway. Fuck it.

I end up pulling into Seattle around 11:30 that night, car limping, and excited to be there. I averaged about 16 hours of driving a day for three days, so finally arriving was stellar." __________________________________________________________


Needless to say, it was quite the eventful trip, and mom, you were right, I can now look back and laugh at it.

I've adjusted to Seattle well. I fell in love with it that night, just driving through the I-5 tunnels that shoot beneath the downtown area.

My car is still sitting in the back yard... parked for now. I've used her a few times since arriving here, but those are stories in themselves that I will get to within the week.

Hello, and welcome to... Devon's... blog?

In an effort to keep family and friends informed of my weekly adventures in Seattle, I've started a blog... yes a blog... and yes, I am judging myself.

I apologize for the late post, the late edition of pictures, and the fact that, yes, again, I am in fact posting them in a blog, but I assume many of you have seen a fraction of my pictures already on facebook (in the every-other-day profile picture updates). Not to mention, I've spoken to many of you already, so you aren't THAT in the dark .

Long story short, I tend to get stuck in freak hail storms on mountain tops, get lost in deep horribly thick woods that I have to bush-wack through, and most recently pedal head-long into mountain bike treks involving 6500 foot mountain top-outs beginning with hellish non-stop 10 mile climbs (no really, non stop, 4000 ft. vertical gain).

Common trends? Mountains + stupidity.

In the remaining weeks of the summer, I hope to post a few stories (some of them emails that I've sent to a few of you), in hopes that I take up some of your precious time... with the slight chance that I might entertain you from time to time.


So here it goes... comments, questions, concerns... post away.

I miss you all. I do.

Love,

D -

-evon.
-eevo.
- ddddDDDDdddd.
- evonaire.
- bag.
- evil.