Hey Dear Reader!
This will be one of the last posts of the blog due to Thomas arriving in B.C. today after riding the train from L.A. to Seattle and taking the Clipper ferry to Victoria. I am hot on his heels after arriving in Seattle myself this evening. I am checked into the Green Tortoise Hostel and was given a free spaghetti and meatball dinner. A welcome surprise after nearly twenty-one hours of train travel.
To pick up where I left off last, I went skiing with Chris and Courtnie Tuesday morning after nearly a foot of snow fell on Mammoth Lakes through the night. He works at Mammoth Sporting Goods, where I met him, and had no problems grabbing a pair of rental ski's, boots and poles to prepare me for a short bootpack up one of his favorite runs on the unopened Mammoth mountain. I had not forgotten how to ski and cranked some delightful turns in the thin layer of powder. An awesome way to share some of the stoke felt by the locals. I packed up the next day and was pleasantly surprised to see the snow was only sticking in the high elevation town. At soon as I hit the highway the ground was bare and cycling was comfortable in the cool air with warm sunshine on my back.
Leaving Mammoth I rode to Bridgeport; infamous for its uniquely cold climate. The valley somehow creates a cold trap and this town is often the coldest in the country. I met Joanne the bartender that evening, at the Sportsmens bar while quenching my thirst after a good day of riding. Upon asking her about good places to camp she was able to find two locals, Ryan and James, who were willing hosts for a couchsurfer. They thought I was unprepared for the cold and were kind enough to offer their home to me in the hopes that I wouldn't be uncomfortable in the great outdoors. After being accommodated for two nights in Mammoth I was again lucky to be put up by these nice guys. It was certainly cold enough to warrant going to a new acquaintance's home to sleep by a woodstove.
Even better was going to the nearby Travertine hotsprings in the morning. It was undeveloped and therefore free and virtually empty of anyone else. With an assortment of small pools it was wonderful to get away from anyone else and take in the mountain views while soaking.
Onwards from Bridgeport I visited another hotsprings, Walley's, near the community of Minden. This was of the developed kind but was well worth the admission due to the cold of eastern California near Lake Tahoe. Camping that night was quite tolerable in comparison with Bridgeport's overnight lows, but frosty.
I had heard that Reno, only a day's ride north, had a train service going to Sacramento, meaning that I could skip a gruelling climb up the Kingsbury grade to begin crossing the Sierra Nevada range without having to ride it. If you saw the Kingsbury grade I have no doubt you would have done the same. That was a no-fun uphill.
Back in Nevada again, I visited Reno, a city much like Las Vegas. Reno is a smaller, down-sized version of Las Vegas, but it has the same glittering repulsion that will keep me away from Nevada for a very long time. Casinos require sunglasses, always.
After my hotel stay in Reno I was up early and ready to go for a train ride. Of course the train was an hour late, so I opted to jump on the bus, due to it being cheaper, departing earlier and taking less time to cross the same distance. Time warp, thousands of pedal strokes flashed before my eyes and 'whump!', the warm air of Sacramento hit me with a humidity I hadn't felt in a long time. Visions of high passes covered in snow melted from memory as I broke into a sweat, off with the thermal layers!
Sitting by the Sacramento river I contemplated a convoluted array of emotions. I realized that I was homesick but not in the common interpretation of the word. I was sick of being leered at by Americans due to my accent and longed to be in Canada, where I don't speak self-consciously. Long over-stressed vowels seem to have become an American stereotype of Canadians. I still can't even hear the difference.
So it is not home that I crave, to the point is that I don't want to spend more time in the U.S.A.
