So much for dry pavement. Something quite bizarre happens inside my helmet when the skies open up and wail on me and Henk making rivers flow across the slippery mountain passes and blinding me but for six broken lines ahead of Henk's front tire: the soundtrack to a Himalayan epic emerges from deep within my throat and fills my little padded fiberglass capsule with fascinatingly strange and foreign music. I have tried Tuvan throat singing in the shower or walking down the street and can't ever quite get there, but on Henk, in biblical rain, somehow two and even sometimes three tones at once erupt in David Hykes-esque meditation to the delight of my ears. It serves the purpose of calming me down, easing me into the corners, and erasing fear.

Ron called exactly one minute before I headed out from Christina Lake. At the sound of his voice, my own broke, and I realised in an instant how much I miss him and our shared life. I haven't had a good belly laugh since before leaving Toronto when Ron, feigning sadness at my imminent departure and imitating our local Korean convenience store owners told me, "You so smaaahht. I stu-pit wi-out you. I no get crosswuur puzzo wi-out you." It's our own silly in-joke that started when he was shocked(and secretly pleased)to learn that my IQ was higher than his. He has the ability to have me doubled over at the waist in convulsive laughter like nobody else. We played well together.

The mountain pass from Princeton to Hope two days ago was shrouded in heavy cloud and rain and what would, on a dry and sunny day, be a spectacular twisty ride, became dark and dangerous. I'm not in any kind of a hurry to be heading into a corner too fast and I took my time, slowing to the posted speed limit, and for a stretch on the way into Hope where I entered the cloud cover and could see nothing but white mist, I crawled along, braking intermittently to alert anyone who may have been speeding up behind me.

When I finally arrived in Harrison Hot Springs, greatly anticipating the HOT SPRINGS to soothe my aching shoulders and warm my bones, I was disappointed to discover that their hot springs consist of a pathetic little indoor public pool in the center of town swarming with hyperactive kids and pot-bellied parents.

I rented a little motel room and had a hot shower. The owner was kind enough to let me into his laundry room to use his industrial dryer for all my clothes which were soaked through. I unfurled my tent and sleeping bag and everything else from my bags and cranked the heat in my room up to 90 degrees to dry out and warm up. So much for camping.

I had coffee in the morning in front of spectacular Harrison Lake where artisans were setting up their booths for the Harrison Art Festival. A white-bearded guy making copper bracelets with a pair of needle-nosed pliers asked about my bike. "He's a Buell," I told him. "Oh, kinda like a Triumph," he responded. "No, kinda like a Buell, with a Harley engine," I corrected, then asked him if he was getting ready for the festival. "No, I'm creating some healing energy for this young lady here," he replied, while both he and the young lady sucked on Player's Lights. "Um, do you think the smoking might have anything to do with her need for 'healing energy?'" I asked. Well, in my head, anyway.

All fuelled up and caffeined up, and the rain subsided, I hit the damp pavement for Vancouver. After I cleared the mountains, the ride through the valley was sunny, dry, and beautiful until I hit Mission and the black cloud looming ominous over Maple Ridge. It's just not fun riding in the rain. Water finds a way in everywhere, through collars, wrists, the hole in my left boot, and down Henk's seat through the seam in my crotch. I met a guy on a Harley at a red light. "You're about to get really wet," he yelled over at me. "Hmm, you think?" "I'm gonna throw on my chaps," he said, turning into a parking lot. I followed just because it was more interesting than riding straight into a wall of water. I parked under a tree and he invited me into the A&W for a coffee. His name was Jim and he told me some motorbike horror stories, including one where his wife was on the back of a bike that hit a deer and she went flying, braced the fall with her left hand and shattered both bones in her forearm. Just the kind of delightful road story I want to hear when stopped in a rainstorm. When the sky seemed to be lightening, we shook hands and went our separate ways.

The sun came out ten minutes down the road and I pulled into Trev Deely's Harley Davidson dealership in Vancouver thinking there might be a very slim chance they could give Henk a spur of the moment tune-up. They were having motorbike test runs and the parking lot was aroar with exploding V-twin engines, middle-aged Harley riders snarfing hamburgers and showing off their bikes, and biker wannabes lining up to test drive a 2005 model.

I watched a guy on a 2005 Buell X1 Lightning jump the curb and land on his back while attempting to turn onto the road with a group of test riders. The guy was about a foot from a big tree when he ditched. His lucky day, I suppose, although at first I thought he might have done some damage to his spine as he sprawled on the grass on his back for several minutes before moving. Turns out only his ego was bruised and the bike was quickly checked for damage, then put right back into the fleet of test rides.

I must have been a generous mechanic in a past life or something because they refused to charge me when Henk came out of the shop purring like my kitty. Perhaps Henk and I, all loaded up and road hungry, inspired a spark of adventure in the guys. I've been told many times by Harley technicians that Henk, with his over 65,000 kilometers on the odometer is an anomaly. A lot of Harley owners use their bikes to bar hop or cruise up and down a city strip or polish on Sunday afternoon in their driveway to impress the neighbors.

I met my brother at the bar where he serves drinks to hotel patrons and sea wall strollers. We had a couple of beers and stayed up past midnight catching up with each others lives. We'd seen each other only three weeks ago at a family reunion, but in the chaos of nieces and nephews and in-laws and siblings and parents, we'd hardly talked. He's a sweet and gentle soul with incredible proportions of brilliance and magic and the ability to change the world if he would just get out of the way for it to come through. The same can probably be said for everyone not quite living up to their potential. If I only knew my potential, maybe I'd see the road there more clearly... Instead, I try and follow the perfection of the road unmapped and hold fast to the truth that no matter where I am, I am here.