2.6.10 Vancouver, Canada

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Oof! I forgot to mention that Yosemite National Park is AWE-OID. For future reference, some of it remains closed (i.e. snowbound) until sometime in May, but if you have to pawn your teeth to see it before the awful black silence of the universe engulfs you - do it.
The Grand Canyon - a large thing which I've forgotten to mention altogether - is also quite good.

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The Oregon coast is absolutely bloody extraordinary, even in the relentless grey dribble of a Pacific North-West springtime.

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*NB - heavy-handed Doctor Who reference ahead*
Her Maj urges me onward, twin headlamps ablaze, through Redwood forests and silver-slicked coastal towns, unaware of the impending horror of the Parting Of The Ways, and the possibility that she's going to be stranded in a parallel world (Vancouver to be exact) while I travel back to "reality" (Britain) in the Tardis (an Airbus A300).

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The cost of flying a motorcycle - however ethereally fabulous it might be - from The 'Couv to London is so crushingly immense that I'm forced to think the unthinkable, and (without telling her, obviously) pimp the old gal out on a couple of internet forums. Shady types begin to sniff around. My sense of shame twitches, but I chew back the tears and harden my heart until it's a scarlet biscuit. Business is business - though, right now, I can't look 'er in the eye.

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Just to hammer the point home, imagine you're driving your terminally-ill but morphined-up labrador to the vet, 300 miles away. The beloved pooch, dog-drugged into a living paradise, sticks its head out of the window and coughs with rapture, unaware that the next stop is its last, the vet's needle and the incinerator await, and that The Master - food-giver, stick-thrower, partner in adventure and Best Friend - will be travelling home alone, sick at heart and barely able to see through the windscreen through the veil of tears. Excuse me - I've got something in my eye. *sniff*
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A massive quantity of weather, encroaching from the pewter-coloured unknowable that is the Pacific, forces us inland north of Lincoln City to Portland, where bizarre deja-vu action takes place.
I spent quite a lot of the early-to-mid-Noughties playing Grand Theft Auto III. It's a game that's close to perfect on many levels - thrills, music, sheer size, "Daily Mail"-baiting amorality - and so playable that you get to the end and immediately want to revisit levels, to mow down more pedestrians in stolen ambulances, shag, kill and rob more hookers, bazooka more police helicopters out of the sky; or just go for a Sunday drive and appreciate the scenery.
We arrive in Portland and find ourselves in Chinatown, and suddenly the mental rug is pulled from under my brains. Oh now! I've been here before! It's too weird - and then I remember that some of GTA3 is based on Portland, Oregon. Suddenly I love that bloody game even more. There's a slight urge to hijack a taxi and flip it into the river, having packed it with screaming customers, but that passes as the need to find a motel increases.

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The threat of weather becomes reality, and we're stuck in the arse of Portland like an awkwardly fallen-on shampoo bottle for a few days. Luckily Phil's Old Time Pub is a short hop over the road.

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The rain slows down on the chosen morning and we hit it hard towards Seattle, about which facts have already been supplied. Grey skies bully us all the way to Ferndale; the Last Town In The US. Like all good bullies they don't follow through and we arrive dry and thankful.

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Someone, in every country on every continent in the world, will warn you, when you tell 'em you're heading for the next country, that it's "a nightmare", and that "you'll definitely get killed". You'd think - wouldn't you - that the exception would be Canada, coming from the USA. But still I get "watch out up there! Canada's a disaster!" from a person I later imagine to be quite badly mentally disabled.

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In Vancouver I'm to be billeted with my old chum Neil - a Sheffield boy, ex-vegetarian and ladies man, dismisser of God myths, "Withnail" lover, Joy Division fan (with a willingness to download "Moving Pictures" when I start hyperventilating while trying to explain the appeal of Rush), sitcom junkie and Vancouver Ambassador.
I'm looking forward to it - it's the finish line, which is bad, but several nights of rib-stressing hilarity will most certainly be on the cards. Bittersweet, as these remarkable images will show:

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(At this point, I want to mention Neil's current euphemism for sexual intercourse. It's based on a mis-heard line in a movie, and I love it, and want to spread it far and wide:
"I punched her apron".
Glorious! Apron! It's slightly unsettling, while being utterly innocuous.)

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So there it is. Her Maj and I arrive in The 'Couv and it pisses with rain for five days. A damp visit to the racecourse - money is lost, laughs are had - characterises the first night. A superb party ensues at Neil's house. On the next night, we "do" a pub crawl. 3am arrives, and we stumble out into a brightening city centre.
Look over there though! Two lovely gals! It's been a long night, and I decide to employ the Vic Reeves thigh-rub method of flirtation, in order to get to know N (22 yrs old) a little better.

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What do you know! It works!

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Lovely N joins us in the taxi home, and, after a certain amount of flip-flopping, Canadian dessert is served. (NB - "N" and Neil are two different people. Honest.)

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My whole five-day stay in Vancouver is hilarious, comfortable and eye-opening, where it could be sad (end of trip), grim (some awful motel) and depressing (grey skies and constant rain). We drink when it's appropriate and watch "Black Books" when it isn't. A very very good holiday indeed.

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It becomes apparent that the gentleman who was going to pay me money to "own" Her Majesty - an indecent proposal if ever I sensed one - can't do it, because of Canadian import laws. Financially, it's bad. Emotionally, it's brilliant.

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A long time ago, in Patagonia, I looked her in the eye and said "sorry about the wind old girl, but I did tell you we were going on an adventure."
She took it on board, we went on an adventure - and now she's coming home; and there's no amount of money anyone could offer me now to separate us. Below £4500.

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The finish line
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