Fellow Rovers

“Jeremy, get up. There’s something big out there.” 

Not exactly the words you want to wake up to in the middle of the night. My dad’s typically upbeat voice was tense. I shot upright and peered through the mesh of the tent, my eyes heavy as they struggled to adjust to the midnight sky. Nothing but silence. The camp ranger told us there was a cougar sighted in this campground the previous night. Would we be the ones to tell him to reset that clock? 

Just as this thought passed my mind, the silence broke: Snap. The distinct sound of a branch breaking, its source indiscernible in the undergrowth behind my dad’s tent. He wasn’t playing a trick on me; there was, in fact, something big out there. We each stayed still, listening for any signs of movement. I slowly unzipped my sleeping bag, grabbed my bear spray, and unclipped the safety pin. Then I heard it again, this time louder and more discernible: Snap.

Whatever it was, it was now in the undergrowth near the front of my tent. I fumbled around for my headlamp and turned it on, panning slowly around our campsite. Only the moonlit trees and the outline of our food bag hanging in the distance were reflected in the narrow beam of light. Snap.

• 
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We held our breath, straining to hear anything that would hint at which direction it might be headed. Amid our silence, my light swept past two silvery reflections looking my way between the brush. Eyes. I couldn’t make out what it was, and just as soon as I registered that I was being watched, it disappeared. Snap.

Whatever it was disappeared into the brush, off to forage or spook other unsuspecting campers. I remained upright a few minutes longer, shivering, waiting for another noise that never came. Soon, though, my heartbeat slowed and my desire to sleep overtook the primal urge to stay away. I lay my head down, bear spray still nearby, and clicked off my headlamp. Several feet away, my dad’s steady snoring reminded me that I wasn’t alone.

That night in the tent was one of many reasons I was glad to have my dad along for the journey. The months leading up to our trip were stressful for my family, as we juggled our own lives while also caring for our grandparents and the challenges that come with old age and lives well-lived. Falls, broken bones, surgeries, skilled nursing facilities, antibiotics, physical therapy, loneliness, counseling, memory loss, talks of palliative care and hospice–all within a short timeframe. We told one another that this was all just part of life, but that didn’t make it feel any easier. We found ourselves mourning the loss of who our grandparents once were, just as our grandparents mourned the loss of their independence and autonomy. 

• 
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I planned my ride up Vancouver Island as a solo venture, a chance to reset after helping my family and finishing another year working in special education. The idea of rambling along remote logging roads and ferrying up the Inside Passage was just what my mind needed. But as the school year wrapped up and departure neared, I found myself feeling increasingly anxious about setting out on my own. Being so close to my family over the past few months made me hesitant to leave the sense of security that came with having them nearby at a moment’s notice. What if I got hurt? Who would be there to help? What if something visited me in the middle of the night? 

A week before I was slated to leave, I voiced these concerns to my parents as we prepped my mom’s classroom for the upcoming school year. She chimed in, “What if dad joined?” The answer to her question was easy, at least for me. “Let’s do it!” My dad, however, wasn’t as quick with his response. He was worried about slowing me down and holding me back, about injuring himself, and about taking time away from caring for his dad. 

Watching my dad care for my grandpa over the past few months made me think about what stories we will have to share when I find myself in the shoes in which my dad found himself. How could I convince him not to feel daunted by the mileage and elevation profiles and logistics and all of his other worries? I thought for a moment and then told him to ask himself, “How much longer do we have to do something like this?” He was 61, after all, and the climbs on Vancouver Island wouldn’t be getting less steep anytime soon. He paused. I’m sure he was thinking of his own dad. “I’ll think about it,” he said. 

My dad had always lived vicariously through my previous biking trips, reading my blog entries and calling me up to chat about my day’s ride as I curled up in my sleeping bag. Even though he doubted his ability to do the trip, I knew that with the right motivation and last-minute planning, he too could be part of the stories I had to tell. Sure enough, later that night, with the clock ticking, he acquiesced. We booked his flights and ferry tickets and took stock of his bike, intent on readying ourselves for whatever this trip would have in store for us.

* * *

“Punchy might be my new least-favorite adjective,” my dad huffed as we made our way up yet another logging road, surrounded by doghair thicket damp from passing rain clouds. Clearly, my description of our next climb did not excite him as much as it did me. We’d covered a fair distance by this point, and he was finding his stride. He was becoming attuned to the unhurried nature of bike travel, a nice change from the fast-paced lives we typically live in Southern California. We found ourselves discussing what tire pressure to run on different road surfaces, why we should take a detour from the GPS route, and which candy bar gave us the most bang for our buck. We settled on Snickers, with PayDay a close second.    

• 
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“It’s Type II fun,” I exclaimed through my own labored breathing. The kind of fun that sucks in the moment but makes for a good story later on. He laughed and wiped the sweat from his brow.

I thought back to the days we’d already spent riding and the stories we had to tell. There was the afternoon we rode a singletrack trail outside of Comox that was so dense with greenery that we half-expected to see a rogue Ewok waiting to ambush us around the next corner. Or the stretch of logging road near Woss Lake that was so littered with bear scat, and our laughter when we understood why the children’s character was named Winnie-the-Pooh. And then there was the first day of our trip as we made our way along a bayshore trail to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal. I rode past my dad, wind at my back and sun in my eyes, and he remarked, “This is one of the happiest days of my life.” And we’d only just begun. Were these the tales we would reminisce on in 31 years when I was my dad’s age, taking care of him? 

At the top of the climb, we took a break to catch our breath and snack on our stash of black licorice and Cliff Bars. It had rained all night and much of the morning, but the skies were beginning to clear, and the sun’s rays started to evaporate the water that had soaked through our bags. Through parting clouds, we could see the road wind ahead through a long, low valley. I double-checked my GPS as we packed away our trash and mounted back up. We were on the right path. 

We rode parallel to one another for the rest of the day, dodging potholes, chatting about the day, and scanning the scenery ahead just as we had been doing for the past six days. We’d seen only one car in the past 35 miles of riding and felt as though we had the whole island to ourselves.  

• 
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Suddenly, though, that sense of solitude came to an abrupt halt as we each slammed on our brakes and skidded to a halt. “Hey, bear!” We had felt their presence the whole trip, be it at camp or while dodging their scat along countless miles of logging roads, but this was our first time laying eyes on one. It paused along the side of the road and looked back at us. We watched one another with trepidation for several seconds before it ambled off into the thicket in search of more solitary raspberry patches. “Guess this road isn’t all shit and no bear anymore,” I remarked. My dad laughed, and we high-fived.  

Late in the afternoon, finished with the last of the day’s climbs and with no more bear sightings to be had, my dad and I rode along a quiet seaside road on our way to camp. We came across a mural painted along a retaining wall below someone’s cottage and stopped to read it. On it was written the final stanza from the poem “Sea-Fever” by John Masefield, which read:

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Our trip was soon to be over, and a quiet sleep and sweet dreams were sure to be welcomed by each of our tired bodies. But I would be lying if I said this trip hadn’t been a dream of its own. We were each other’s laughing fellow rover, and together, we embraced this vagrant life, finding joy in these shared moments before they fade into memory. 

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