Once More

Wheel bearing issues forced a late start out of Siacamous. Talking the cart apart at Enderby for the paddle down the Shuswap and over Marla Lake, I noticed that a bearing in the opposite wheel to the one I jury-rigged in Armstrong had completely given up the ghost. Perhaps it was feeling left out it neglected. Seeing as there was nothing I could do about it at that moment, U choose to ignore it for the present and let the universe take care of it. By that I mean hope and pray now for a solution later.

Stumping around Sicamous proved fruitless. In the end, I decided the extra bearing I bought in Armstrong minus sleeve would have to do. It was, in fact, an easy decision considering it was my only real option if I wanted to be on the road before 1pm.

Rounding a gentle left-hand turn on an even gentler downslope, the Rocky Mountains made a glorious, glacier-clad entrance in brilliant blue sky. My heart sank and my spirits with it.

I had a brief, fleeting glimpse into what it must have felt like for our forefathers to know that yet again a seemingly impenetrable wall of rock, snow and ice loomed ahead. What way now? What way over, through, or around? What possible way?

Tired, sore, sweat-streaked I bent my head a fraction lower and thought of the hills and climbs ahead. Of the surveyor Rogers and his namesake Pass. How his heart must have leapt knowing he had found a way.

‘Once more boys. Once more into the breach…’ I whispered to the traffic that roared past me effortlessly, feeling nothing of the rises and drips that rule my days.