So I walked in the pitch dark pouring down rain from the bus to the Hostel where I had booked me some lodging in Prince Rupert. My trusty GPS for some unfathomable reason thought the address in my contacts list was in Guadalajara Mexico and kept trying to send me south, 2,568 miles south. I knew better. As it was I had a good sweat going by the time I got there and checked in.To a hotbed of passive-aggressive hostility.
Which started on the phone when I made my rezzies, no warmth from the hostess Christy, I dunno, she just wasn't into it.
Then the brouhaha with the closed road that reopened but not until I had another dose of the Christyfreeze, and yet a third when it reopened. However her boyfriend w at the desk when I got there, and checked me in, at first denying my debit card with a tone of voice that said he expected no less. I checked online and there was plenty of money in there and it went through and good comfy bed and hot shower and shave and shampoo and crash to be awakened immediately with total screaming muscle cramps it feet, legs calves, and unidentifiable leg parts that scared the bejesus out of me. The smooth flat wood floor helped, and staggering downstairs I stole a banana and heaped up a handful of table salt and took a advil and a pill and got 9 hours of sleep and was damn glad for it, waking up with gut cramps and the fear of god and of colitis in a panic in my heart.
The chick behind the counter was neither Christy nor Sebastian but a young Quebecoise who lost no time in shaming my poor attempts at French, then ignored e to keep up a conversation with some lithe unshaven 20something of a real Frenchman. That's unfair in a way to say that because I did succeed in making conversation later in the morning. She was nice enough, but I had the feeling she was holding a knife the whole time, or at least checking constantly for turds on the carpet.
The Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht club had at one time elaborate security locks on the gates to the dockside ramps, but they are gone and replaced with a bungee cord, I dunno, hard times I guess. Aluminum and plenty of it, Charter boats and a big Ketch of raw metal, nicely setup and hell for stout. No marina is complete without two or three mossy neglected sailboats mouldering at chafe worn lines, even here.
This guy Lyle has a garage studio open to the sidewalk down to Cow Bay where I looked at boats, Lyle does amazing and thorough native style carvings and paintings. His little helper Duane, a chubby 19 year old Native American with ponytail and pack of Marlboro Reds complete, was in the middle of weaving a traditional no-shit Tlingit conical Rain Hat out of cedar bark stripe precisely cut and flexed and perfectly woven to exact symmetry. Nice stuff.
)EDITORIAL ADDENDUM( Actually not Tlingit. Haida...Just words to me, white girl that I am, but to those concerned it might be a matter of life and death. It amazes me how often I drop the ball. I was there, I'm interested in the weaving techniques of these guys, the Native Americans, but I didn't even talk to the kid that was weaving. He was on a break, too. I don't know why I do that and I would like to know, too.
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The Hostel nearly redeemed itself on my return in the late afternoon, there was a kid, Devon, I think, kind of a road warrior type, shared his delicious Spaghetti with meat sauce and little chopped nut garnish and fresh basil and good Parmesan and a chat and a real road connect. Good looking too. And a Sailor. He was in Prince Rupert by mistake, got on a coal freightcar running empty in Vancouver, thinking it would stop in Jasper which it did not so 6 more freezing ass hours to Prince Rupert. Not broke, not bumming, just wild and young and amazingly tough.
I had me a 4 hour nap and got up and got the fuck out of there. It wasn't bad vibes, just not good ones, no vibes at all.
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