Morning with Gilbert, Maverick and the Austrian

The Austrian is the new KTM 690 Enduro I bought yesterday at Holeshot in Langley.  The bike needs a name and that will have to do for now.  The salesman Derek Vanderkooy really knew his motorcycles. He was incredibly helpful with my trading my Honda Pioneer 500 Side by Side Quad ATV for the KTM 690 Enduro.  I liked that at Holeshot I could sit on and compare the KTM, Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda machines.

It was a truly a whirlwind day. A call from Belinda, the office manager, saying the clinic had computer problems so the afternoon was cancelled.  Belinda’s husband has the KTM Adventure.   When I was asking around and comparing motorcycles I told her, “I think your husband’s right about the KTM being the best off road on road motorcycle today. Besides a man who picks a good woman is likely able to pick a good motorcycle.”  Belinda laughed. She’s amazing managing all the doctors and patients and the constant flow of data and people. Now she would have IT  there all afternoon.  What a nightmare!  I felt sorry for the patients but a sunny day and a motorcycle waiting. Well I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Thank you Jesus.

I finished my morning clinic and made a quick run with Gilbert to the storage locker to pick up old motorcycle gear.  I’ll likely need to get new luggage and such fitted for the KTM but wanted to see if the old stuff fit before giving it to Paul. He has a big Triumph and it looks like my old Harley Roadster soft luggage and leather will serve him better than me now.  Part of the trading in the Pioneer was lightening up.  It sat in storage all last year only being used a couple of times for hunting.  Only a 1000 km.  If the Quad’s could be street legal like they are in Europe I’d get a lot more use out of them. That’s the beauty of the KTM 690 Enduro. I can use it as a commuter in the city and off road hunting and just having fun.  

Gilbert used to hunt with me in the side seat of the Pioneer but now he’s blind he’ll only come along in the truck.  

The girls at Holeshot were really efficient and friendly handling the finance and licensing.  As always there’s some extra to pay but the convenience and savings from a tax point of view for a trade makes the whole thing better than my trying to sell the Pioneer first and then buy the KTM with the extra money I’d make eventually. Dave, the big bearded, laughing, father of Gilbert’s buddy, Emory,  was glad to offer his help.  He’s  got a Harley and an ATV and has been doing this for years so is a terrific source of information .I even got to discussed it with Mack, the father of Max, Gilbert’s neighbour. They bark together when ever anything new comes round.  My neighbourhood friendship network is defined by dogs and vehicles.

The KTM 690 Enduro has won all the really tough races over the last few years.  The UTube videos of these crazy guys on their variety of machines going over huge rocks, straight up little trails and across desert has been a staple in recent years, not that I plan to imitate these nut bars but it’s amazing to see what the Bikes can do.  Evil Kneevils of the motorcross.  

When I was in Saipan my friend Frank and his son did motorcross like this.  I’dwatch them together, father and son, going around the course and think Frank was crazy.  

I loved reading the Bikehedonia Grace MacDonalds Wordpress  blog this beautiful young Australian girl, travelling through Malaysia alone on her KTM 690 , something about beautiful women with their own bikes makes the tale so appealing. I confess too that I’m always dreaming of such adventures , whether it’s sailing across the Atlantic in my sailboat or driving down to South America with the motorcycle. I’ve got the truck and camper now so anything is possible.

After buying the bike at Holeshot I had to load it on the hitch carrier I’d bought at Princess Auto and put together myself with wrench and ratchet.  It sure helped to have Derek pushing the bike up the ramp and steadying it while I strapped it down.  Mostly I appreciated his reassurance that he figured it wouldn’t fall off.  And it didn’t.

I drove out to Chilliwack, to the RV storage, where I unloaded the KTM so I could load the Palomino Maverick Camper. I’d never done this on my own. Laura had previously stood at the back guiding me.  So here I was loading and off loading a 300 lb motorcycle then loading the camper. It’s all a matter of lining it up and gingerly backing up with my heart in my throat.  It just seems like it would be so easy to knock the thing over as it stands so talk and vulnerable on it’s struts.  

The owner’s son came by to let me know they were locking up.  Tall handsome bright young man with a fair resemblance of his father. We were putting together the hitch coupler, the hitch being 2 1/2 inch so needed a sleeve to change dimension to the 2 inch carrier.  It was a challenge to line up the holes and connect the pieces “If your dad were here he’d know the trick to coupling these things.”  “He would at that,” he said.

Nonetheless we got the bike strapped in behind the camper and found that the extender even left room to get into the camper with the bike out back. It’s awkward so I’m still considering a hitch at the front so I can carry the bike out front to balance weight and leave the camper easily accessible.

9 pm and I was just leaving Chilliwack. I’d wanted to get to Princeton where I could camp on the river and ride the logging trails I know up there.  I picked up food at the Superstore and thought for sure I saw the incredible Surgeon and Artist I’d worked with in Saipan.  He was with family and I wasn’t quite sure and I was on a mission. I loaded up and drank a Red Bull knowing I’d regret it when I was ready to sleep. But it was past my bed time already.  The full moon was beautiful in the night sky. Gilbert was sleeping on the seat beside me. I felt pretty good with my accomplishments, getting the bike loaded and off loaded and the camper loaded and the camper water tank filled, gassed up and rolling down the highway.

That’s how I ended up here , camped by this stream off a logging road this side of Princeton.  I just love being able to pull off the road and get into bed.  Gilbert liked the walk at night.  The KTM 690 looked great on the back of the white Maverick camper in the light of the full moon alongside the stream, pine trees all around, the air so fresh.  

I didn’t sleep easy thanks to Red Bull.  I forgot to turn off my iPhone weekday alarm too. So 7 am the alarm sounded and Gilbert began barking and oh well, I did have to pee. What a beautiful morning, sun rising over the dark green forest. This incredible motorcycle hanging off the back of the truck and camper.  Paradise.  

I’ve made myself stove top espresso with canned milk and honey.  The heater is making me hot water for a shower.  I’m thinking I’ll continue on to Princeton and the campground I’d planned to say at. I’ve got two full days.  I could stay here but I like going with the plan where possible.  Today’s big event is riding the KTM. Ready to Race. I won’t be racing but I’m sure going to enjoy exploring the back country.  I’ll also be able to drive into town leaving the camper on the truck.  By fall hunting season I may even have most of the kinks out of the system so that I can actually focus on shooting a deer with my bow or rifle. So much of the fun is the preparation and planning. I was as successful hunting when I had a Broncho II and a pup tent, rose before dawn and stalked the woods or lay in ambush.  Now I’m outfitted for an expedition. It’s not more fun. It’s less productive from a hunting perspective but it’s sure a lot of fun in so many ways.  

Winter Christian in Summertime

I’m feeling a tad guilty.  Sunday morning really is Church going time for me. It’s a good habit of quality living. A lot of my life I’ve enjoyed attending a church, first with my family, later alone, and later with friends. The music really appeals to me. I like the thought provoking sermons about matters we’re actually told not to talk about, God, death, morality, ethics.

Yet here I am with dog, Gilbert, and cat George, and I just woke late. I watched the movie Majestic Seven with Denzil Washington, Ethan Hawks, Chris Pratt,and Haley Bennet.  An evil outlaw baron kills farmers in their town and church to take over the valley for his slave mining operation.  Haley Bennet plays Emma Cullen and recruits the magnificent seven, a group of bad ass men of varying character but retaining a shred of humanity and willing to come to the town’s aid.  Matt Bomer plays Mathew Cullen who has been gunned down by the Bartholomew, the evil industrialists,  villainously played by Peter Sasgaard.  Mathew Cullen had been verbally defending the town pastor who Bartholomew had dragged from the church and was having  being beaten to death by his gang.  Obviously the church plays centrally in this movie, burnt by Bartholomew and later as the steeple sniper tower for Ethan Hawks and Lee Byung-hun. I’d seen the movie , this one and the even earlier version.  Despite Hollywood’s  cultural Marxism propaganda, it’s ignorance of Christianity and it’s twisted Jewish revenge motif it’s actually a very good pagan proto Christian movie. Besides all western’s are Godly along with space movies which are really glorified westerns.  Actually any movie with horses is good and even better if there’s a dog.  It ran past midnight.  I like movies where there are guns and things that blow up. 

I slept in.  Gilbert even joined me on the bed using his dog ramp and lying down beside my face to lick it and let me know what time we get up usually during the week. He really needs to learn days of the week.

He’s just bored.  The cat puts him up to it too because I feed them both when I get up. Gilbert wants to play ball but the cat really wants to ensure he’s got his food for the day. Once I’m up they go back to sleep

I start my day, after the toilet, where I read the inspiration for the day as well as do the “other”, unnamed,like politics and religions , which could well be construed as number one and two, simplify the teaching of children.  

Then I meditate. I’m not very good at it. I began doing it in adolescence and have trained with the greatest and practiced ever since but really it doesn’t come naturally.  I come and go with it too. I was doing it sitting in chairs for a long time, back straight.  But then I got back to cross legged which hurt my knees to get down there but now is working out pretty good. I feel good about myself physically.  My mind still wanders but I figure it’s a clear invitation for God, Holy Spirt, peace, higher power, Jesus, Holy of Holy, to come in. Look no thoughts, come Holy Spirit come!
Meditation is listening to God. Prayer is talking to God. So I do the mindfulness meditation focus on breathing, sometimes the mantra meditation ,Herbert Benson MD,  focus on a word or phrase, sometimes both, and observe the monkey mind. “Creatures of thought and thinking’ that aren’t ‘myself’ but ‘constructs’ and relax and wait.  It’s waiting for Godot and today I was mostly interested in the fan in the refrigerator.

Gilbert, my sensei, realized I was useless at this and much more useful playing with him. So my meditation session stopped when he climbed in front of me and put both paws on my shoulders and licked my face.  Hard to ignore. The cat had been behind me rubbing his back against my back.  

I played with them both, scratching George’s back, and rolling Gilbert over to scratch his belly. We’ve played ball some, pretty good for a blind dog, and I’ve had my coffee.

If making and drinking coffee were a sacrament I’d be holy.  I’m really an adept at making coffee, stove top espresso machine, honey and milk , nice blend and a favourite heavy solid mug.  I may well get to heaven and find that God was coffee or manna from heaven in the OT was coffee.  More likely God is chocolate or ice cream.  Skip the comparisons of the Song of Songs,  food analogies work better for me than sex analogies.  

I’m in a long t shirt. I picked it up in San Francisco knowing it was kind of sexy girlish and yet it was a ‘night shirt’ in the old medieval sleep wear manly sort of thing. I’m ambivalent about my bisexuality.  I’ve enjoyed men and women sexually and admitted it to get out of the victim role. Indeed I’ve been working on a spiritual exercise of embracing all that has occurred in my past believing that God is good and all that has occurred in my life is God.  It’s all that caterpillar butterfly thing.  Even loving the ex wives and sometimes forgiving the government but rarely getting that far. At best I pray for the forgiveness to forgive this government. 

I’m old now. I can honestly recommend that young people aim for the straight and narrow. Mainstream is tried and true.  I ended up off in the rough looking for my golf balls a whole lot of times on my course of life.

But it’s not a race and I don’t really believe in a loving God and heaven and hell in that ‘concrete’ piagetian developmental delayed way. I’ve studied Hebrew enough to know the mistranslations of phrase and time. If we do the best recommendations of good parents and a good society then we will be mainly in the ‘church tradition’, not the ‘letter of the law’ but the essence of James in the New Testament.

I love that the 12 step programs grew out of the reading and interpretation and life of the Oxford movement. There’s so much hope and inspiration there.  I’m abstract.  I”m a scientist. I love the Celtic Christian understanding of the truth of nature with it’s DNA and fractals and all that good stuff whicheaetheists rejects. I love God of the Big Bang. I like the Dance of Love, the Dancing David and the Jesus who likes little babies and his fishermen friends.  

Over the years I’ve cross dressed.  In theatre, in dance, in kilts, with long hair and earrings and even attending annual balls where the girls wore tuxes and the guys wore gowns. I loved wearing a klush gown and  having my hair and nails done. I miss the theatre.

I’ll forever remember the day I bought my first ‘stretchy material’ blue jeans.  As a kid I read science fiction novels where the men and women had unisex spac suits which fit their bodies adjusting naturally to hot and cold and were protected from the elements in every way. I’ve been ‘functional’. I wear ‘suits’ to work and that whole ‘masculine leader’ role is a burden.  I have open toed sandals and close toed sandals and feel better at work with the latter. Yet when I come home I’m down to men’s shorts and a tshirt. When I sailed in the tropics I lived in my shorts.  Clothing is functional in my books and for comfort these days. I don’t even like the constraint of waistbands and in the tropics was satisfied with the wrap.  I don’t think any of that has to do with masculine or feminist.  There is a part of me that envies the women their obvious clothing for sexuality which of course the perverted lying feminists deny.  So much of female garb is relational and art whereas men’s wear is functional and work.  

So a lot of my staying at home is unwillingness to get dressed. To go to church I would have had to walk the dog, and showered and shaved and then I’d be obliged to dress like I do for work.  Shirt and slacks. It’s not at all demanding like the 19th ventury and even the 50’s. I do miss the tie. I liked having all these groovy ties and could make a statement “I’ve dressed up for this occasion’ simply by the choice of tie. I wore jeans and plain shirts and added the accessory tie and that was good. I love jeans , mostly for motorcycles and falling down and using wrenches and grease and stuff and black shirts. I love black shirts.

I see white pants and white shorts and white shirts as distinctly feminine.  I can’t have a Burger or a hotdog without mustard jumping on tto my shirt.  So every once in a while I do the zen like awareness of my body and clothing and focus on my space and environment like dance but I could never do this and get any of the things done that society associates truly with manliness and work. Those these days all the girls are doing the manly things and getting praise and downplaying the achievements of men unless done by women and I sew and cook and do all the traditional female things but with no support from a society reveling in the destructiveness of Marxist chauvinism and cultural communism.  A man is praised for pushing the baby cart while the woman is praised not for using a wrench but for her ‘superiority’ , the whole feminist thing is only about control and power.
I enjoyed using a wrench yesterday with all the importance of the tool manipulating monkey and loved the movements muscles and the activity and held it like a violinist holds a violin bow.  Men appreciated their ‘crafts’ and celebrated the ‘craft’ and once women did too.  But feminists are heartless aberrations of humans totally caught up in dominance control and power.  So seeing a man pushing a baby cart isn’t about shared parenthood but rather about freeing the woman for the board room. Because that’s where the feminist wants to be and would never understand the billions of men who love their ‘work’. Narcissus and Goldmund the great tale of the 30’s is beyond the feminist mind.

I want to carry less burden, fight less and stop having to push back when bullies of all sorts especially those in administration burn down the church and throw their weight around. I want to do my ‘craft’ and my ‘purpose’ and my ‘calling’ and my ‘duty’ and I could do it nude if it weren’t for the bullies who have me wearing jeans so I’m always ready to get down dirty with those fuckers. Because they play war in the board room and wear white shirts and grow their fingernails long to show they don’t have to work.  But I like my hands knowing work.

If I was in church I’d be hearing about peace and turning over my cares to Jesus.  I’d leave my burden and confess and together pray for a good week.  I’d have to get dressed though.

I’m here whining and moaning and reflecting on not writing the great Canadian novel and how I could get up and walk the dog and go to the hot tub. I’ve  aches and pains and lay in bed enjoying the freedom from bodily awareness.  Cycling yesterday did it.  Exercise leaves me the next morning hurting. I don’t know if it’s good pain or not.  When I was young all pain fo exercise was good pain.  Now I can’t tell the difference between pain and strain.  

God is this creation ,this dream this holograph and existence I’m in. It’s all the culmination of the ‘collective consciousness’.  Owen Barfield one of the C.S. Lewis crowd wrote of this and how God was the ground. The potter and the clay. The individual as co creator. I’m responsible for my life and the blend of fear and love that coexist day to day. I see the church as a safe place. I may make the 4 pm service or compline later today.  I’ve missed the first call to church but it doesn’t mean I can’t make a later one.

I feel better if I get out. I will shower now. Cleanliness is next to godliness.  Shaving is good. I’ve been more conscientious regarding shaving since my beard became grey and white.  Neither Bruce Willis or I unshaven today look like the young guys with their sexy stubble. 

I often wonder if the desire for a sex change is just a desire for youth again. I don’t think any one except youthful idiots wants to be old, to have the problems of geriatrics.  Oh dear, let’s have sex change to an old lady and worry about pissing yourself when you sneeze.  That’s not the marketing ploy that the gender surgeons use. Neither is the idea of getting prostate disease and incontinence or erectile failure what motivates women to be men.  So much of the attraction for those older is the idea of ‘youth’.  To be a young and fit anything is appealing to the over 50 and over 60 crowd.  I think the Hindus with the hope of reincarnation have a more positive outlook.  I’m likely coming back as a dog and that’s okay.  I’ve watch my blind dog adapt to blindness whereas I’m still bitching about my knee.

I see the Hollywood movies promoting the young men and young women sexually.  50 years for the women and there’s  the movie REDS with the old ladies and old men of spy days and they’re sexy but still we’d want candlelight and incense especially for the bald guys.  Thirty year olds have a fairly universal appeal. And the 40’s are delightful but 50 is the over the hill on the sexy scale for men and women functionally or just to look at. Generally stripped naked men and women stop looking great older. If we can add character with an expression as a photographer might the 60 year old nude has appeal. But not in a police mug shot lighting of the whole body. A 25 year old yes, she or he can look sexy in that flat lighting we associated with the morgue. But not old people with worn out parts and wrinkled skin and stretches and spots.

I love the old. I can see the beauty ‘in’ the old but not the superficial way that Hollywood does.  So a 60 year old offered a ‘sex change’ or a ‘youth change’ might well take the latter rather than the change of genitalia.

Such considerations are like religion and politics not to be discussed. 1 or 2. I did know several bisexuals who thought that they’d be more ‘popular’ if they expressed their sexuality in the other way only to find that regardless of their orientation they were not liked.  I was interested that in therapy they found a way out of their ‘unlikeableness’ and a specific ‘line of development’ and this had a specific ‘efffect’ on their sexual orientation.  There are those hard wired heterosexuals and hardwired homosexuals though the latter would argue all homosexuals are hard wired and the hardwired heterosexuals would too but it’s in nature as spectrum and in cultural history often opportunistic.  Right now there is a ‘halo’ effect around certain ‘choices’ or ‘alternatives’ and without that ‘halo’ effect the distributions would change.  Just as the threat of aids turned many off to gay experimentation and use of needles. Multiple factors affect behaviour despite the propaganda.  In science we are always learning in comparison to politics where there are those who insist they know it all.

I think I’ll go get showered.  I’ve got to find clean clothes. I don’t know where the ‘fat shorts’ are, probably in the laundry’.  I find it easy to get into the fat shorts a t shirt and the open toed keens sandals and walk the dog. He likes that.  That’s a plan.  I did have toast and jam so don’t need food. I don’t know what I’ll do after that. I like the freedom of a Sunday like this without plans, my weeks and work are highly regimented, whereas church would galvanize me and I’d have a more productive day but really what’s productive at my age.

I’m in God’s waiting room. I’m waiting for death in some ways. So many I know have died ‘relatively naturally’.  I could be growing death right now. I would not be too greatly mourned. Yes I ‘d like another 20 years but it’s not like when a 30 year old dies.  I’ve lived a good life. I don’t have to ‘hustle’ .  I can get a sex change anytime. I don’t have to write the great Canadian novel to day. I don’t have to sign up for foreign missionary service.

I could pray and meditate more but I don’t think it’s going to ‘speed’ anything up.  It’s coming for me. I’m old enough to slow down and accept both the hound of heaven and the grim reaper.  

Thank you Friday

Thank you Friday for your arbitrary division between the demands of the week and the rewards of the weekend. Thank you for the sunshine and summer. Thank you for the activities. Thank you for the friends and family. Thank you for the pets. Thank you for the home and carpets and paintings. Thank you for the fellowship. Thank you for calendars and clocks. Thank you for order. Thank you for this day. Thank you.  :Lord God of Creation. Lord of dreams. Dreamer of dreams. Creation.  Sentience and ground .Being of being.  Profundity.  That which true is.  First mover.  The idea of you is love.  Love is all. Thank you God.  Love and relationship and the glue that keeps up from flying apart. Gravity and matrix and energy and the touch of a child. The smile of an animal. The glance of recognition. The peek and boo of spirituality. Remind me ever and ever again that we are here and I am you and you are me and who knows what about walrus and things .  It’s another day. Make it all it can be. Thy will be done. Not my will.  May I serve you and heal and inspire and encourage and be positive. May I be a light and give to others all that has been given to me.  Thank you for the love I’ve known. Thank you for the intelligence I’ve been shown. Thank you for the learning.  Thank you for the coffee and the shower I’m about to take. And Irish spring soap.  Thank you. 

Sunday morning, Hope, Maverick Camper

I love the truck camper mattress, 5 inches of foam comfort.  It’s a Queen.  Laura and I fit well together. Gilbert has a barrier to joining us. He can’t jump up so at best he harrumphs at the foot of the bed wanting up. I put a ramp in my home but here I just shshshsh him till he stops or lift him up on the bed so he can squirmy lick Laura.  

Today when he fussed I just got out of bed , used the head, then dressed and took him for a walk. Quiet 8 am morning RV tenting activities.  There was a young woman, shorts and t shirt,  climbing out of her tent, balancing to stand.  Another young woman stood  by in a grey tube dress looking at her iPhone.  A hairy man bare chested in shorts and boots carrying his shirt, fresh from the group shower, said ‘hi’ as he passed.  Gilbert pooped. I pick it up in a blue doggie bag.  The green mountains and wide green blue stream full of whirlpools rushing by was a lovely view.

Now I’m waiting for coffee to boil.  I’ve ground the Kona nuts.  Pacific canned milk.  Squeeze container of  golden honey.  God that tastes good. 

A crow outside is talking crow.  St. Francis knew the language of birds. Dr. Philip Ney speaks to the birds.  I can only guess what they’re saying.It’s an educated guess, not linguistically sound, but I expect the guy outside is calling to his friends, “Caught any fish? Found any good garbage.?”

I love my little home. I love this ipad and keyboard.  I love blogging.  Journaling.  I’ve done it all my life. Since I was a child, my first diary as a 6 year old.

Only a day in the country by a stream and the negatives are gone.  I wake here and now.  The zen master says you are you and that enlightenment is to ‘shit when you are shitting’.  Here and now.  I love the shape of the green cedar leaves outside my window.  There’s a breeze coming through the screened door.

Aliens in space craft are circling somewhere above planning anal probes.  Unsuspecting experimental humans are going about their business.

I love Diana Davison’s Utube series, how she starts, ‘it’s another 2 minutes and I haven’t been raped yet.’  Mocking the falsifying of statistics by the gender studies folk.  This is the decade of media deceit and mis and dis information. 

Behind me furthest from the river is a camp of a dozen different coloured tents, young people, I think Filipino, families, some organization, likely church based. The church does so much and so little is credited them.  Growing up I went camping with church groups and with the Boy Scouts. But the Boy Scouts met in the basement of the church. Men and women of the church volunteering to supervise a gaggle of children or teens .  Every year we’d be camping with family but also there would be a camping weekend with the church and also with the scouts.  Campfires, marshmallows, hikes, swimming, canoeing, group meals, sharing tents, flashlights at night, so much laughter and giggling. 

Church attendance is down and instead the kids have game boys.  Isolation and alienation abounds.  So little belonging.  I’m thankful for the memories of those times.  

Laura and I are planning this year on going to the Salt Spring Island Rally 2018. We’ve gone about a dozen times over the years, sometimes motorcycle camping in tents, sometimes sailing over and staying on the sailboat, other times renting bed and breakfasts.  Camping out in the field has been best.  Looking forward to bringing this Maverick camper, hoping Brian is there. So often he’s come in his big and beautiful camper.  Maybe meet up with Murray who rides his Harley there.  Great meetings.  Evening dance.  It’s spiritual, not a ‘church’ but the folks are all volunteering to make it work each year.  I love the Kiwanis breakfast. 

Not everyone is looking at their game boy.  Yesterday I rode the electric bike through Princeton and saw people before a stage listening to folk music.  Camp outs and music festivals are the new variation on the old gospel revival weekends. Somewhere those continue on too.  The tribe coming together.  Opportunities for romance and sharing.  

Our neighbours, grandparents have the children for the summer and are RV’ing around the province. The kids stay in a tent beside the RV.  More community.  Good humor.  Happy times.  My face is red from all the sun yesterday.  

I saw a woman sitting in her car this morning, beside her tent. She’d been barbecuing last night when Gilbert and I walked by.  I remember getting up in the morning and sitting in the car with a coffee rather than sitting outside.  Tenting days.  I’ve done all the variations around us and have arrived near  the apex camper ‘predator’ position.  

I’ve slept on the ground in just a bed roll, under the stars in the Sierras, climbing with a back pack. That was so beautiful, the endless Milky Way swath of sky and stars.  I did worry all night snakes would crawl into the sleeping bag for warmth.  I’ve been in Quincy and Igoos, making them myself in the arctic.  Loving the fires in the morning, cherishing the coffee drunk with gloves and parka, made the old way with  percolator kettle.  I’m still motorcycle camping with a pup tent beside the road.  Then I like just throwing the tent and sleeping bag into a pack so I can ride on down to a diner for a coffee and hearty breakfast.  

With Dad and mom we camped in early days with a brown canvas tent with a wood Center pole and four metal poles for the ceiling. We graduated to a 6 man tent with a screened in front where Mom had a picnic table and we could eat meals without being bothered by flies or mosquitoes. Then we moved up to the tent that erected from the trailer. After we left home Mom and Dad moved onto the motorhomes.  

We had the trailer and  we left it at Boston Bar.  Laura would hang out in it while I’d take the quad and roamed the back woods all day with a rifle, not getting anything but so enjoying the riding about and target practicing.  Moose hunting the guys enjoyed that trailer too, slept 4, great for communal meals.  I loved setting up the sump pump connected to the generator, the hose running between  the lake and  the trailer to refill the water tank with ease. I had a solar panel along with the generator to keep the batteries up.  I even had a satellite phone which made me feel like the explorers in the Creighton Congo book. No electric fence to keep critters out but lots of guns. 

Here I’ve got my own refrigerator, toilet, shower, stove and running water and had the air conditioning on last night. In the RV park we connect up to water and electricity.  Last time out I had the heater on. There’s a tv and DVD but I didn’t use those this trip.  Too busy riding about on the electric bike.  It’s all so compact and dense with useful consideration of space. NASA intense.  Microwave.  Slide. Home a way from home. Elegant, blond wood,  I really feel like I’ve arrived but know that it’s been years of acquiring skills and experiences. Steep learning curves.  It’s one thing to have these things but a whole other matter of maintenance and trouble shooting. I finally figured out the fridge wasn’t working yesterday because the main power had been tripped which I only figured out because the lights were dim suggesting they were running on batteries and not shore power. I learned from Ron yersterday where the ignition was on this model of refrigerator. Years of sailing and living on a sail boat taught me a lot of these systems. At least the truck with it’s engine is a whole other generator. 

In time I’ll take it for granted and it will just be a base camp for activities.  Those today are resting eating and walking the dog. In the fall I’m looking forward to bow hunting. And now we’ll be enjoying Salt Spring Island in luxury.  

When I think of Social Justice Warriors and man hating feminists I don’t think they’ve camped.  Here I see a whole evolution of living that it’s so easy to take for granted in the city because there you can forget about all the engineering and trades that go into making and maintaining the apartments that the vast majority of angry entitled people live in here. Camping is humbling.  I’m so grateful for all those who’ve gone before to create this little camper trailer that fits on the back of a truck and lets me go anywhere. I’m so thankful for all the lessons of my parents. I’m loving seeing Kevin and Anna with the god kids on Facebook, not rich by any means, a regular family, just like we were growing up, but Dad and Mom got it together to take us out into the woods camping and fishing like they’re doing. I joke often saying I go camping just to appreciate how much I have in the city.  Mostly there I have people who specialize in these systems and can fix things if they break down. Out here I’m mostly on my own though not uncommonly the men band together to come up with a jury rig of some kind.  I used duct tape to fix a breech in our anti mosquitos screen. 

Derek and Naomi with their new baby Faith will definitely be out camping when she’s older.  So many of those I love, love to do just this.  Having camping in common bonds me with so many of my friends.  Love of the Canadian outdoors is central. Cities are increasingly interchangeable but this great river out here with the crows landing in the cedar tree, that’s special. I’m blessed to be alive and enjoying this.  I’ll like having a shower later. There was a time I’d have to dive in the river with a bar of soap if I wanted to be clean.  

Hope BC , Telte Yet Campsite and the Maverick Truck Camper

I’m not going to make it to hear Andrew Scheer at Mt Lehman.  I’d wanted too but it’s not that often I get to lie in the sun by a river with a beautiful woman and a dog.

After waking and having a couple of cups of Kona coffee, and prayer and meditation, I actually got on my electric bike and road into town. It’s 32 degrees. I’ve been drinking Perrier and ginger ale and still feeling dehydrated. Walking Gilbert whose wearing a fur coat.  

In town  I picked up a book for Laura at the bookstore and some mosquito netting to fix a tear on the RV screen.  I even got the stove top toast maker.  Not wanting to cook I brought back burgers for us all from DQ.  Real tough life out here in the wilderness having to bike into town for supplies. Right now I’ve got the air conditioning on having come inside as I lobstered on the lawn chair.  Reading a novel. Gilbert spoke with the little dog next door. It’s fairly laid back.  Got my email from Adell and she’s off to London to meet up with Alan for a few days.

I’m loving the Canadian outdoors. The evergreens are beautiful.  The fast flowing broad Frazer river is a wonder. Ravens land above in the trees and talk  a bit.

On FB lots of friends are doing the same, some on beaches, some in campsites.

It’s not too original. But something so perfect doesn’t have to be original.  Each in our own way are enjoying the relaxing summer heat.  In town I passed a stage surrounded by hundreds on the grass enjoying a concert.  Another day I’d enjoy that. Now I’m just glad to be at the camper.  

Hope and the Palomino Maverick Truck Camper

The guys call the camper, “Laura’s Tent”.  I can’t argue I really do appreciate the security and luxury of the camper. It’s still a steep learning curve.  Together for the first time we tried to back it into the slot.  The battery had run down because I’d obviously left something on.  That meant the electric struts had to be manually cranked up.  This took time and significant muscle power.

“I said I needed exercise, so here’s God’s gift.” I told Laura who stood by holding onto Gilbert.  She can’t even reach the switch let alone man the handcrank.

Once I had it up, with a wind blowing, I was sure the camper was going to nose dive into the back of the truck.  It didn’t.

With the help of the black line Mac had told me his Dad had used, and I’d painted on a couple of weeks before I actually had it almost aligned first time but we hadn’t accounted for the cable which needed to be under the camper to reach. This resulted in a half dozen more tries and one bang that had both Laura and I convinced that was it, both Camper and truck were toast.

Ron, who John the kind owner of Chilliwack RV had called in to help with my refrigerator problem, was still in the park working on another RV.  I asked him if he’d mind helping.

“Sure, no problem”.

“Line her up. Crank this way. All the way over this way, Now hard left,  a bit right. A couple of inches backwards. No, too far, an inch forward.  There that’s good.” The camper was perfectly seated in the back of the truck.  We’d bumped the camper lightly and whereas Laura and I had died with the bump, Ron was nonplussed. The camper’s obviously were built tougher than we imagined not that I plan to test their tolerance.

I then remember the chains for tie down.  Wow! It would have been easy to forget those.  With the bike and the generator loaded, we were off.  We’d left Burnaby at 230 pm , a slow traffic drive and an hour in the lot, we were on our way east at 6 pm.  Not bad. It felt good.  Road trip.  

Ron had also taught me how to light the propane on the refrigerator though it still didn’t work because it didn’t ‘whoosh’ to power and because the battery had died and the slide was in covering the battery box, he’d not been able to test it.  With the truck idling while I was cranking the struts I’d been able to get enough power to move the slide in and out to get the bike in. 

We were on the road, the same rolling motion of the boat, but barrelling down the highway. I’d been hankering after more wilderness camping but with the battery needing charging and Laura wanting luxury we reverted to our ‘original’ plan to go to Hope where we’d looked at a lovely river site, Telte Yet Campsite,right beside the big Frazer river. We’d have town water, electricity and charge the battery to full and even have a chance to dump the waste at the end of the weekend.  Luxury.

The people were really pleasant and helpful There was 30 amp service sites available. People tent there too. Right beside the town so I didn’t worry about not having everything.  Laura guided me out back,tentatively. 

“I was terrified when you were backing under the camper.I thought the whole thing was going to fall over and crush Gilbert and me.”  

Now I just needed binoculars to see her in the mirror. But it really wasn’t a challenge. When we’d back up the first RV in Boston Bar when I couldn’t find a ‘drive through’ ,now that had been a trial. This was just backing up a truck. Two tries and I was positioned in the site by the picnic table and hand’t driven over the pup tent in the site beside us.

Either side were retirement age folk or people who’d lived really hard and looked retirement age but were still in their youth.  The man had three women with him. One was elegant and friendly asking us where we came from. They actually turned out to be from White Rock and like us just enjoying a different view and less city.

We’d brought more ‘stuff’ to stow and had the carpet and chairs out, water and electricity and Gilbert watered and fed in about a half hour.

Leaving Laura and Gilbert I rode my Torino electric rad bicycle with a Harley Davidson chain lock to Fields.  I have the Harley Davidson state of the art lock because more people would try to steal this bicycle than they would my Harley. At Fields I bought a $24 camo back pack.  Then at the country store I proceeded to buy more supplies than I could load in the pack sack and on the bike.  I’m
surprised at my capacity for overestimating the load but still somehow managing to carry it. This is always a conversation matter when I take the motorcycle to Costco and return with a truck load of stuff ,when I just planned to get a chicken,

I had the Little Caesars for Gilbert, a bone, cold ginger ale for us, chips, Hagen daz Vanilla ice cream, the specially made ice cream for roughing it in the wild, chocolate bars, and perrier.  I normally pedal on the bike to look athletic but with the load on I just road back on the electric bike getting waves from the Harley riders passing through town.  I manage 30 km.

Laura and Gilbert were settled in when I returned, having had more exercise. 

After I remembered where I stowed the barbecue I had it going and Laura gave me the beef whiners from Costco I’d brought. She had wiener buns from Cob’s and gourmet mustard.  The fellow next door was barbecuing steaks and commented, “You’re the chef of your outfit too, I see.” There’s as a certain whimsical cynical turn of phrase as we’d both obviously done the heavy lifting bits while the ladies all looked lovely.  Laura was sporting a new purple and white sun dress and the bracelet her friend Melody had brought from the north. 

Soon enough we were sitting in the camper with hot dogs and chips looking out the window at the passing river.

“I love the quiet.  In the city in the summer, there’s just so much noise, shouting, music, cars, banging...sometimes I like it a bit but mostly I just long to be out here in the quiet. “ she said, her apartment in Vancouver’s Westend epicentre.

I have this theory of consciousness with cities being dense nodes and the further out the more our consciousness can loosely expand. I love the lightness of being feeling sailing solo and sometimes in the wilderness I’m almost there. It’s so relaxaing.  

I didn’t sleep that well, it was hot, I could have put on the air conditioner but liked the breeze. Still I woke a few times missing my CPAP. I wondered too if it was the a bit of the notorious ‘smog’ air that sometimes settles in Hope. Still I was restless for a couple of hours, my mind not settling, worrying about patients, trying to push away the frustrations of work, falling back to sleep, only to wake at 6 am to Gilbert harrumphing at the bottom of the bed. He can’t get up on his own. I let him up and he did the squirmy licky thing. Thanks to Laura being there I only got half the attention.

A little while later I got up and walked him about the camp. It was 630 am. Only one other fellow was awake.  Peaceful. Even the town wasn’t awake.  Gilbert loved the walk and blessed the ground with 4 big offerings which I duly picked up and placed in the proper cans. It really disappoints him that I don’t appreciate the effort he places in the spot he chooses and the cultural significance this all has for his canine species.

Back in the camper I lifted him up to get his morning massage from Laura while I promptly fell back to sleep.

 I woke again at 930 am and see my neighbours leisurely coming out of their trailers to sit at picnic tables or or lawn chairs cups in hand.

I’ve got a cup of Kona coffee. I loved that islands coffee when I’d anchored my sailboat there. I ground the beans. That’s probably not something I should mention in a story about roughing it.  I Think I’ll grind another cup,though.. Laura has got up. She has a cup of the Nestle’s instant she prefers.  It’s a touch demanding schedule I can envision today.  Reading and lawn chairs. The sun is wonderful with the breeze off the river.  

Gratitude, Supercapes and Lizards

Thank you God for this Tuesday. I love waking up with the Creed playing on my iPad alarm clock. I love having the little dog lick my face. I love having the car rub against me. I love the heat. I love the bright view.  I’m so thankful for coffee. I love the stove top coffee maker. I love meditating in the morning and doing a little exercise knowing that I’ll make coffee after that. I love peanut butter.

I loved that the Thai Navy Seal rescued the team and that this was a ‘global story’. It’s nice to be a member of the human race when there’s a feelgood rescue happening. I was thankful to that the US Military took the Afghanistan ISIS stronghold.  I imagine if I was a Roman I’d be saying I was glad to hear the Israel stronghold fell to the legion. If I was a Brit in Victorian times I’d be glad to hear that the Khartoum had fallen. It’s always relative. The home team changes but the winning sends a message of stability and order.  

I’m not glad that Canada gives money way to unworthy causes and nefarious nations and unscrupulous corrupt international funds unvetted and known for corruption. Billions of dollars of Canadian sweat and tax payer dollars frittered away by the stoner teen aged Justin Trudeau whose polices continue to ruin Canadian economy and embarrass us the world over with his childish views of science and world affairs and generally silly corrupt Marxist nonsense.  I’m glad the woman came forward and reported his hypocrisy.  I don’t like any of this sex in politics that are already dirty but given all of Trudeau’s virtue signalling it’s good to see him snagged on his own petard.

I wish I could resist falling for the ‘media narratives’.  All over the world a few journalists review the daily Reuter and say lets talk about Penguins today and everyone talks about Penguins. Or Caves or Syria or Migrants or something. Its’ so reductionist and comic book. I hear people talking about the ‘news’ and they’re spouting ‘sound bites’ no different than I do. It’s a dystopia. We all have this superficial knowledge. It connects us like workers songs of the 30’s gave the proletariat a sense of belonging to something bigger all the while their local boss was raping their daughters and stealing the money from the government coffers.

I am thankful that I’m not always nihilistic and maintain hope despite the draw to despair. All day long I talk to people who can’t bring themselves to get out of bed most days. They come to see me to get a form filled out or to get medication that stops the thoughts of killing themselves and they don’t seem to have a reason to go on. It was so sad to hear the teacher on You Tube talking about the Democrat school experience, everyone passed, no longer any reason to ‘achieve’.

We really need to go to Mars, just for the heck of it. To give the world a sense of progress.I can see a cave man in China saying , ‘let’s go to Canada’ and getting his friends to walk across the Bering Bridge to avoid self destruction with Hollywood cinema in his own prehistoric land. 

I love cranes. The birds are fine but the ones above buildings are such a testament to people believing. Men are building sky scrapers still. I like Hollywood movies and the number of names at the end of a production. I wish the tv was more ‘intelligent’ but there I am watching Big Bang and NCIS. I like that the good guys get their man and that the geeks have friends.  We’re an odd bunch.  I like comparing the Big Bang to Friends and before that to the Family shows of the 50’s.  I like when I get together with friends and we talk over coffee.  Camaraderie. I like my weekly men’s meeting.  I like talking with other dog walkers

When the media is fear mongering claiming the world is dying, “give me money” , the ‘skies falling’ , ‘give me money’.  I like to remember my friends who have had babies and are in the crèche raising little ones. Someone is going to have the answer. Jesus did and we killed him so perhaps the next guy who is born Son of God will do better. I love the song ‘were you there when they crucified my lord’.  Of course i was sticking the spear in his side and condemning him and putting crowns of thorns on his head and giving him vinegar to drink, despite my wishing I was the guy who helped him carry the cross. 

I’ve getting out of my home today. My dog helps me every day. He needs to poop and pee and that gets me moving along. A shower helps. I even think shaving is part of the catapulting process to get out of the door. I hear all day about people who can’t go to work and want to go to work and I tell them go for coffee each day at 930 out of your home. IF you can do that the rest is down hill.  I’m stymied more and more by the commute. I have to get my head around the commute.  The mad drivers and the start and stop and the construction. It’s a barrier to work.  Once I get through that I need a nap before starting my day.  An hour of the second hardest part of work.  Then it’s settling in to the actual work which is often a reall pleasure .  I like helping people and being there for people, serving, and that part is so much more enjoyable than the increasing legal and administrative usurping of the doctors time to do these really awful distractions that only serve this other process, a parallel blood sucking parasitic process added to the healing moment. I’m feeling like I ‘m at the symphony and a whole group of cigarette and booze hawkers are screaming out their wares in the middle of the performance.  Healing is so irrelevant to administration today. The doctor and the patient are just an extension of the swaggering egos of the administrators completely consumered with their own self revelry.

Meanwhile I’m saddened by the daily struggle. I hardly have any time left to consider how to heal this person, how to get them off drugs, what can I do for their depression. The administration has me ticking boxes and making charts and doing things that given their meaningless parasitic existence meaning. I’m thankful at times I’m older.

I was saddened to hear how much I still owe for my truck.  I’m trying to pay off a truck and RV and it’s disheartening but like all hills it’s surmountable. Everyone I know has a mortgage, student loan or some debt and the Prime Minister is spending half my income on his dope smoke and drinking parties in the capital and the ‘party’ goes on and on.  I’m looking on as peasants always have.  But I Really just want to be out in the woods .

I’m so thankful for bicycling on the trails a couple of weeks back. It was so soul restoring to mountain bike. I was so thankful to be casting my line and fishing on the river stream. I’m reading a weatern pocket novel and enjoying the stories of cattle and farm houses and remembering Grand dad and the ranch.  The city is so much parking lot. I like to be out in nature. I work for the weekend. When did that occur.  The government forcing me with ex wives back into the city. I miss the chickens.  I loved the chickens. I was so thankful on the weekend being shown my friends herb garden and their indoor orange tree. There was a slower more important time. I’m thankful for the little fur babies.  But I remember Dad growing his cherry tomatoes on the balcony in his 90’s and know I’m too inundated with government paper and their ‘make work’ surveys and the self important computer demands. I have to meditate more, walk in the woods more, still the fears, quiet my mind. Be thankful. 

Please God Make me a Channel of your Peace.  Lord thy will be done.  Holy Spirit come.  Let me be more loving and please Lord stop the administration attacking me and hounding me and hurting me for the lies and falsehoods that are their bread and butter. Let me focus on my part. Let me heal and yes I know, help me pay off my truck.  Let me have the time to camp and fish and riding deer trails in the country.  Take me out to sea again Lord.  Help me to get through another day living under the constant condemnation of that petty grandiose beurocracy with his perfection and narrow mindedness. Thank you for allowing me to see the artwork of the transsexual and the collection of art of the old diabetic man.  Help me to think artistically. Thank you for Anil’s paintings.  Thank you for the buildings and the births. May I be creative and serve the living today. Thank you.  Thank you for the colour.