And Finally, Day 3- The Return

Davan and I slept in on Friday a bit, not getting up until around 8:00.  We wanted to rent bikes to ride around Stanley Park.  I wanted to do this, but I was also feeling a little nervous about time.  Davan had been really looking forward to it.  I decided to go for it.

We had breakfast - mostly satsumas - showed, packed up and checked out before finding a rental place and heading out.  It was 9:50 when we started riding and the dude (yeah, 'cause he was kind of a dude) at the bike shop said it took most people an hour and a half to do the loop.  I was hoping it wouldn't take that long, as I'd wanted to be getting on the road around 11:00.

I wouldn't have worried about exactly what time we made it home on Friday except that Davan needed to be here for a gig she was doing with the Zig Zags.  Her instructors had already been kind enough to not freak out about her missing practice the evening before the gig and I really didn't want to let them down.

Things didn't start off overly well.  Davan had a hard time adjusting to the upright hybrid type bike we rented, being used to her road bike, and was very tense.  Plus, it was more than a little cold out and we didn't have gloves.  Yeah, not overly clever, I know.  Actually, I had a pair, but didn't wear them because Davan didn't have a pair.  In retrospect, I'd have given her my gloves, as I was able to put up with the cold better than she.

Stopping and starting was likely to produce tears at first.  Stops were begged for for hand warming purposes.  This from the person who was so looking forward to doing this activity.  She did get more comfortable on the bike eventually and I finally told her that cold hands or not, we needed to enjoy the scenery as we rode because our time wasn't open ended and she'd better stop ruining the ride for me, by golly.

It was a very pretty morning and, even with the roughness, I think we ended up both more enjoying it than not.

It'd certainly an activity I'd recommend to a Vancouver visitor.  But remember your gloves.  Unless, of course, it's summer, then warm gloves might be overkill and, in fact, make it less pleasant. 

We got done just before 11:00, turned the bikes in and headed back to Whole Foods for a bite to eat on the way out of town.  I only ate a little there because I was anxious to get going.  We were headed out of town by 11:20.  I was wishing we'd made it a little earlier, but was feeling okay about things until I saw the sign for the boarder crossing which indicated a wait of nearly an hour.  Crap.

The line was, indeed, long at the boarder.  We took the majority of that hour to cross.  At the last minute, I started panicking thinking there might be an issue with the parking ticket, too, but, thankfully, that didn't happen.

At this point, I was thinking, okay, so there won't be time to go home.  No problem.  We'll just go straight to the gig.  That was prior to Seattle.

We hit rush hour Seattle traffic just north of Seattle at 2:00.  2:00!!!!  It was tortuous crawling through Seattle and it's environs.  We were south of Ft Lewis before we really started moving again and I was in a panic pretty much the whole time, but trying my darnedest to hide it from Davan because we really didn't need her freaking out and me reacting to that, as well.

I kept repeating to myself in my mind, "She doesn't need to know anything is up until at least 5:00."  She was supposed to arrive at 5:45 with stage time for working on the group opening at 6:00.

We made it until 4:45 before Davan really realized that we might be in trouble time-wise.  I got her to eat and change in the car.  I pushed my luck by going about 10 over the speed limit whenever possible.  Thank the traffic gods that I didn't get a ticket on top of everything else.  And we got Davan to the gig at 5:55, dressed and not starved, but still in need of some dinner.  Whew.

I went and got her food and took it back, then came home to see Anthony and Ranger.  We opted not to leave Ranger alone for the evening, after she'd had to spend the day at doggie day care, not to mention that we were both pretty beat, and just chilled out for the evening before going to pick up Davan and a friend and collapsing into bed.

Truly, the trip was fun over all.  Davan and I had a lot of good bonding time and her audition seemed to go well.  But it was also really stressful in several different ways!

We were glad to have the weekend to recover...well, mostly.  There was that audition video to put together!