*** continued from previous post ***
”Wait a second," Donny said, shaking his head, "ya rode a big-ass touring bike up here?" He glanced around at the ladies. "Pah-don my French girls."
I nod in the affirmative and turn back to Stacy. "It would have been cool any other time, but as you know it was getting dark and the darn thing just wouldn't move, and I don't think it would have been so nerve-wracking, but we'd just had the encounter with the bear . . ."
"You rode a touring bike up here in this weather from Highway 40?", Donny asked, with a bit on incredulity in his voice. "Where did ya stat out this morning?" Calgary?"
I turned back to him, and answered, "Highway 40, is that the one that comes from Carnack? Oh, and we had a pretty long day. We left this morning from Galaway's Bay."
"What bear?" asked the woman that had greeted us originally, whose name we would later discover to be Leeza - not 'Lisa', but 'Leeeeeezzaaa'.
"Well, we were coming up the hill and all of a sudden this huge, and I don't mean to exaggerate, but I do mean HUGE bear came out of the woods onto the road --- "
"Let me get this straight," Donny interrupted, "ya rode a Goldwing sized bike up the Carnack side?" As he said this his voice crept several octaves above the normal register. I took a quick glance to see if perhaps Donny had a 'boy-zone' incident of his own. He hadn't, but he was clearly impressed with our mad riding skills.
"Well . . . Yeah.", I answered.
"And you ran into one of the grizzlies?", asked Stacy, fear tinging her voice.
"Yes," Mom added, beginning to pick up on the vibe that had suddenly taken hold of our small welcoming party, "and another one that . . . kind of followed us along the tree-line for a while."
Mom smiled, looking for reassurance that this was a normal daily event in the cavalcade of fun that was Hidden Valley.
Mom’s description of the 2nd bear brought silence and quickly exchanged looks of panic from the staff.
One of the other people, I have no idea who, piped in. "You rode up from Carnack? In the dark?"
"Where the hell is Galaway's Bay?", Donny asked Stacy.
"It's in BC," I answered, "just across the US border. Above the northwest corner of Washington." I smiled reassuringly at the crowd. "Long day. I guess we did about 600 KM."
Other people, some guests, some staff, wandered in to hear what all the excitement was about. Now the small foyer was bursting with Canadians, and we were in the middle. If this were a Tootsie-Pop, we were the chewy-chocolaty center. There were hushed whispers as people brought the new arrivals up to speed on what all the fuss was about.
"And a moose blocked the road?" Leeza added, as if she were trying to make sense of our story.
"Yeah. For a bit. Which, wouldn't have been too bad, but like I said, it hadn't been that long since we'd seen the bear so I wasn't sure how far behind us . . .", I let my voice trail off. There was really nothing more to add.
Fear bathed the room like cheap perfume at the penny-slots in a failing Casino. Hasty looks were exchanged, but without a history with these people I had no idea of the subtext. I couldn't tell if they were afraid FOR us or OF us.
"Jesus," Donny said and excused himself, "I gotta take a look at this bike," and bolted out of the door into the night.
Silence. Curtains rustled on a night breeze. Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled. I could hear the steady patter of water as it dripped off our clothes onto the slate floor.
I had to break the silence, for it was beginning to creep me out. "You guys have a lot of bear up here I take it. Lot of moose. So, this is like normal. Right?"
They stared at us. We stared at them. An old man coughed.
*** the journey continues ***
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