The license plates here read, “Beautiful British Columbia” and “The Best Place on Earth.”
48 hours since arriving, I am beginning to think they are right. This is the most beautiful and sane city I have ever encountered (at first glance anyway. Admittedly, it’s high summer and any relatively well-off city is pretty joyful place). It’s like a bizzaro America where the fast food and Starbucks are few and far between whilst an infinite variety of local ethnic food, including tons of vegetarian options, litter the commercial district.
Right in the middle of East Vancouver, across the street from where I am staying, is beautiful Trout Lake surrounded by an equally beautiful park. This is place where people of all ages, races, and backgrounds come to enjoy. The runners run, the dog-owners hang at the north end, the ducks splash in the lake, the kids swim in the south end, the young people smoke weed on the secluded boardwalks and make out on the benches. The college kids play hackysack and throw discs. The west end of the park houses a giant athletic center with an ice skating rink, outdoor basketball courts, and more. And then there’s the grass… lots of grass! There’s even a farmer’s market in the lot on Saturdays. Together with all the shops, offices, and markets you could need within walking distance, this is a weirdly utopian urban neighborhood in my mind.
The house where I am staying has four levels including the finished attic and basement and a large backyard with a cherry tree and garden.
My favorite experience of all was lying around at the clothing optional hippie beach (where it was actually warm enough to swim in the Pacific! Yay!) and having random nude men with backpacks wander by shilling cold beer and pot under their breath like they were selling molly in the lot of a Phish show. Naked.
I feel blessed to have made it here. Fate played her ever inscrutable games with me when it came to Olympia. For days before arriving there, I was looking for a host unsuccessfully, only to end up at the last minute with a graduating Evergreen student, as per my last post. The moment I arrived I was pretty beat and told him I would like to take it easy, “No, we’re going to a party tonight, he said.” The debauchery that followed was as epicly entertaining as it was completely gross.
I won’t go into all the details here but there were two nights of partying followed by a sort of recovery day with swimming in a river, all while these kids were working furiously on their final projects. Their energy and resilience was amazing, and far superior to my own.
Most of you know by now that I got horribly sick the evening after I wrote my last post. A fever arose, white and red stuff covered the back of my throat, and I was laid out. I stayed two days with an awkward, inexperienced couchsurfing couple who were sweet but it wasn’t the situation for me. I ended up with an old family friend I had never met in Dupont, WA, a pretty serious military town. She gave me the guest room and free reign in her awesome large house, almost a century old.
There I bathed repeatedly, did crazy natural remedies, and gradually nursed myself back to health over 4 or 5 days. It’s a good thing I recovered when I did because she (a registered nurse) was starting to make noises about doctors and antibiotics. I really did not want to get into how my insurance has a giant deductable and that at this point I would tend not to take a suppressive therapy unless somebody’s life or limb was on the line.
The craziness and week-long detour somehow led up to a perfecly lovely visit in Vancouver that I am cherishing every moment of. I could not have made it if not for the lovely Spanish/Mexican couple who kindly picked me up from downtown Seattle and drove me to downtown Vancouver without a second thought. I even got to play with their 1-year-old in the back seat most of the way! I had been a bit nervous about doing the border crossing as a borderline vagrant because I had read that they give hitchhikers and broke people a hard time, even detaining folks for a short bit and telling their rides to go on without the rider. I came prepared with documents explaining my travels but that turned out to be unecessary. We vaguely mentioned meeting in Seattle and them giving me a ride and I think the custom’s lady got the picture but she was too overwhelmed trying to figure out the couple’s complicated story and paperwork to give me any lip.
So as the bank account ever-approaches rock bottom and I claw my way even deeper, trying to secure a loan for my VTI retreat, I find myself increasingly euphoric and pleased with life.
It is a strange and thrilling thing to be freed of the tyranny of having money to spend. Everything changes. Soon enough I plan to even pawn my laptop in order to fund my debts for the next couple months and to lighten my load the little bit extra that’s needed for me to be fully mobile with all my gear. At that point I will be free to hitch, dumpster, and stealth camp to my heart’s delight without horrible back aches and worrying about anything terribly important being stolen.
Things are looking up, and ever stranger.
Much love to you all.
