The bear froze. It was now about fifteen feet to the side and slightly in front of us, and it looked taller and wider than I’d ever imagined a bear could grow. It lifted its head and strained to peer through the sheets of water that separated it from us, and I suddenly realized that it hadn’t been coming after us—it had only been trying to get across the highway before a car came by. Since we didn’t have any headlights or noisy engines, it hadn’t noticed us coming up the road.
The beast made out our outlines almost instantly, and the sigh of us—bizarre creatures, half human and half machine—was enough to send its five hundred pounds into the air. While airborne, the body turned one hundred eighty degrees and landed facing the forest. Its legs were running even before they contacted the ground, and the moment they did, the animal barreled off into the forest at full speed. Over the downpour we could hear it crashing into the trees.
Fifty minutes later, drenched and unable to steady our shivering bodies, Larry and I crept into McBride. We knew the local campground would be flooded, so we pulled ourselves and our bikes through the front door of the aging Hotel McBride. There was no one in the lobby, but I could hear people talking in the dining room as I peeled off my rain jacket and watched a giant puddle form around my feet.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure. It’s the worst storm I’ve ever seen,” said one of the voices from the dining room. “Even old man Evans says it’s the worst.”
“Has to be. Didn’t you hear the news? It’s flooded our Edmonton. They’re in a real mess over there.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Well it better quit pretty soon or there’s gonna be real trouble here too. My yard’s already under more than a foot of water.”
The manager appeared at the front desk. He took a quick survey of us and our bikes, then shook his head.
“Caught you on the road did she? Looks like you two took quite a beatin’ out there. Don’t know how you survived it. Myself, I’ve never seen a rain worse’n this one. I’d a’ thought she’d a’ washed you two right off the pavement. You’re in luck though. I got one room left and it’s all yours. Room 20. The bath’s across the hall.”
We hoisted our bikes onto our shoulders and carried them up the creaking stairway to our room on the second floor, pulled out some dry, clean clothes, and walked across the hall to the bathroom.
I’ll never forget the bathtub in the Hotel McBride. It was deep and long enough to swallow up the two of us. I filled it to within a foot from the top with steaming water; then slower, ever so slowly, we eased our frozen bodies in. My feet and hands felt as if they’d crack when they hit the water.
“Heaven,” Larry moaned.
The hot water and steam soothed our strained muscles, stiff joints, and aching behinds. And after five or ten minutes, we stopped shivering. It felt wonderful to be warm again. Larry and I sat smiling dreamily at each other while the dirt, sweat, mud, and chain grease melted off our bodies, turning the water a grayish brown. It was the greatest bath of my life.
By morning, although most of the streets and sidewalks in town were still under water, the rain had stopped. We headed to the local laundry to wash and dry our clothes. Afterward, we picked up a two-day’s supply of food at the grocery store to see us through to Jasper, 104 miles away. Just as we finished packing the supplies into our panniers, Chris came splashing into town. It was obvious that he and his cocoon had been exposed to the full force of the storm, and it made my stomach queasy to look at him.
“D-Don’t ask m-me about l-last night,” he chattered. “I d-don’t w-want to discuss it. OK? I’ll just t-tell you t-that I slept in m-my cocoon on a p-picnic t-table in a r-rest stop.”
Chris did mention that a couple in a van had pulled into the rest stop shortly before the deluge began and tossed him a few joints to help him get through the night.
“I t-think I’ll c-climb into a d-dryer and stay t-there for t-the rest of t-the d-day,” he stuttered as he waded off in the direction of the laundromat. Larry wished him luck.
TRAVELING BY BICYCLE, LARRY AND I often found ourselves bouncing between super highs and rock-bottom lows. While we were battling the storm, I was convinced that bicycle touring had to be the ultimate in masochistic travel. But the next day, when we climbed into the Rockies and were greeted by the awesome sight of Mount Robson, the tallest point in the Canadian Rockies, I was ecstatic. And, except for the day we cycled to the Columbia ice field, I remained that way for the next week and a half, while we camped amid the glaciers, elk, moose, marmots, and chipmunks of the Canadian Rockies. We did some steep climbing in the Rockies, but our muscles were strong enough then that we could cover our usual sixty to eighty miles each day even with two or three passes along the way.
It was July 14 when we came into Jasper, a date that marked both our fifth wedding anniversary and the start of the third month of our journey. To celebrate, we splurged and stayed the night in a motel. Our room came with a complete kitchen, and as soon as we checked-in in the afternoon, we went out and bought the fixings for a steak dinner—something we’d dreamed about the whole way across British Columbia while we survived on peanut butter and macaroni and cheese. On our way into town, we ran into Chris. He looked like he’d fully recovered from his night under water.
“Hey, I didn’t think you two were in Jasper. I couldn’t find you in the free camping area outside of town. Where you camping out?” he asked.
“It’s our wedding anniversary, so we’re splurging. We’re staying in a motel,” Larry answered, without giving the name of the motel.
“Oh, I see. Yeah, OK. Well, I’ll be seeing you around. I’m sticking around here for a few days to do some hiking. You too?”
“We’ll probably pedal south a ways to hike. Jasper’s too crowded,” I said.
“Yeah. Well, maybe I’ll catch up with you down south. I’m going as far as Banff before I turn east.”
It had been three days since Larry and I bathed, and as soon as we got back to our room, we soaked ourselves in the bathtub. I built a fire in the fireplace, and we stretched out in front of it on the soft thick carpeting and opened a bottle of wine. Lying next to the fire, we talked for a long time, mostly about how we’d been drawing closer together since the beginning of the journey.
“Sure, we get mad at each other sometimes,” Larry said, “especially when we get irritable when it rains—it seems like we always yell at each other when it rains, or when we’re tired or hungry. But what couple wouldn’t? But you know, it seems like the more experiences I share with you and the more hardships we overcome together, the closer I feel toward you, and the more I respect you. Like the night we pedaled into McBride. After we’d gone through that storm together, bear and all, I could feel the bond between us tightening. And we’re learning to support each other, too. We complement one another now: your strengths compensate for my weaknesses, and my strengths help make up for your weaknesses.”
Larry and I talked and made love through the afternoon. In the evening we prepared our feast of steak, baked potatoes, tossed green salad, and chocolate pudding. It had been so long since we’d last eaten these kinds of foods that I almost forgot what they tasted like. Larry spread out the meal on the carpet in front of the fireplace, and just as we nestled onto a cushion together, someone knocked on the door. I opened it, and there stood Chris.
My first thoughts were that someone had stolen his bike or all his money, and he’d searched us out for help. It’s gotta be something really bad, I figured. Why else would he have gone to all the trouble of checking through the dozens of hotels and motels in Jasper to find us? And besides, he wouldn’t be bothering us unless it was something important. He knew that today was our anniversary, that we wanted to be alone. I stepped aside to let him in and waited for the terrible news.
“Nice place,” Chris mumbled as he walked through the room and sat down in the chair next to the fireplace and our meal.
I