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Send Off "Friends have all things in common."
Fumbling with our stove the next morning (trying to not light the picnic table on fire again - a skill taking more time to master than one might first expect), a woman hurried over. Perhaps she had heard of the previous evening's near call to the fire department? "Hi!" she called from her side of the fence. "Mark told me about you two before he left for work this morning. I'm his mother, Luella. I'll bet a hot chocolate would taste pretty good right about now, eh?" Having no feeling in my fingers again, I found it difficult not to agree wholeheartedly. "Come on over," she invited. "The kettle's on." Sharon and I packed our sopping tent, our sopping fly, our sopping.... I wrung my socks with gusto. Why does it always rain on me? I wondered while securing the sodden mess beneath equally sodden bungees. Humming, we pushed our bikes over to the neighbour's. Free as birds, we were content to let our days unfold as they may - even if they weren't all sunny blue skies. Inside Luella's warm home, the hot chocolate transformed into toast and jam, as well. We tucked in while Luella busied herself at the kitchen counter buttering more toast. "Would you like some pancakes?" she suddenly asked. Sharon and I exchanged glances, not quite believing our good luck. We waffled too long, however; Luella interpreted our slow response as meaning we didn't think it a good idea. "Oh, dear, no," she said. "That would be too heavy for the road, wouldn't it?" Before we could protest that it would not be too heavy at all, she waltzed over with another golden tower of buttered toast, accompanied by peanut butter and gooseberry jam. "Ah, this is the life!" I said, toppling the leaning tower. Already forgetting the pancakes, I imagined the only thing better might be a hot shower. Luella read my mind. "I'll bet a hot shower would feel good right about now," she bubbled. We scarcely believed our ears, but this time we were quick to accept. We didn't intend to let the offer slip away like the flapjacks. While Sharon enjoyed a second mug of hot chocolate, Luella steered me toward fresh towels. Emerging a short time later, I felt (and smelt) like a new man. Even the sensation in my toes had returned! Sharon floated off to her own few minutes of bliss. "Forget the 15 minutes of fame," she sighed upon her return. "Just give me an equal allotment of hot water." Jeannette arrived for morning coffee. After rehashing more cycling tales, we exchanged addresses. "I can hardly wait for you guys to finish your trip so we can share your adventures," Jeannette said. She even offered addresses for family members in Ontario. "But I don't have their phone numbers with me," she said. "We'll have to go to my place to get them." Sharon and I jumped into Luella's little car with Jeannette and we roared off down the country lane like Mario Andretti. We arrived in short order at Jeannette's renovated farmhouse. Plenty of warm wood and sparkling glass greeted us along with the smell of just-baked cookies. Jeannette gave us a quick tour. Every nook and cranny held a surprise from a bygone era. But my favourite room was a snug library loft, chockablock with all manners of just-begging-to-be-read books - a superb place to curl up for a month or two. Sharon's favourite was a sunroom resplendent in old glass. "I love old, paned glass," she said. "Looks like a pain to wash," I muttered. After polishing off half a dozen cookies, we headed back to Luella's, and arrived just in time for lunch. "I'll bet some homemade vegetable soup would taste pretty good right about now," Luella said, continuing her winning ways. After more good food and conversation, we said goodbye to our new friends. How were we ever going to cycle around the world if we couldn't even get out of our own home province? "I'll bet it would be fun to ride with you a ways," Luella said. We paraded out to the front yard at the same moment Jeannette's brother-in-law, Philip, arrived from Calgary for a visit. Hey, no problem; Phil would join us as well. Luella liberated three clunkers from her shed. We all set off down the road. Pedalling along, laughing and joking, like kids without a care in the world, we felt as if we were old friends who had known each other for years. After ten easy kilometres, our new old friends decided it was time they headed back. Goodbye hugs all around. They turned their bikes and pedalled off, wobbling and laughing and shouting and waving. Sharon flashed a wide smile. "That's the reason I wanted to leave from our back door," she said. "I didn't want to travel around the world without getting to know a bit of our own country first." Maybe we didn't have to journey to far off corners of the globe to find caring and generous folks. They existed right in our own backyards if only we took the time to look. |
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