Thursday 27 May 2010

Defying Logic

A gentleman traveller on his way to London comes to a fork in the road and doesn’t know which way to go. In the middle of the fork is a house where two identical twin sisters live. One always tells the truth and one always lies, but he does not know which is which. Our traveller can only ask one question to one sister to find out which way to go. What does he ask?

OK, so you’ve probably heard it before. He asks either of them “Which way would your sister tell me to go?” He sees which road the sister points to, and then takes the other one. Logical. Well, this story reminds us of the behaviour of Audrey & Margaret, our beloved Gamines, on our 67-mile ride today from Vancouver BC over the Canada-US border and down into Bellingham WA. Whichever way they told us to go, we had to take the other road/the opposite direction to follow the route map. Heaven only knows what was wrong with them, but it was so ridiculous, it was almost comical. The worst bit was trying to get onto a huge suspension bridge across the Fraser River. We went round in circles for a good 30 minutes before finally finding the route onto the sidewalk of the bridge. Duh…

Still, we were overjoyed to be back on the bikes for a good, honest ride of decent mileage and not a ferry in sight. Indeed, we rocketed along, despite moderate side and headwinds, and made excellent time today, happy with the roads, and breathing in the beautiful scenery as we went.

We were also secretly pleased from a budgeting perspective, to be back in the US. Canada was lovely, but expensive. If it moves, they tax it, and tax it good. Tonight, back in the US of A, we checked into a spotlessly clean, quiet and very reasonably priced motel. We ate in a fabulous Thai restaurant just across the road, washing down some seriously tasty food with a delicious bottle of WA Riesling and coming in well under budget. It’s funny the things that make us happy…

Ooo! We nearly forgot. As we got out of the lift/elevator and into the foyer of our very chic hotel this morning, who was standing there with a big clock hanging off a chain around his neck and a gorgeous 22-year old blond doing the same? None other than Flavor Flav. What was he doing Vancouver? Anthony spent a while chatting with him but opted not to take a picture, because that wouldn’t have been cool!

Us x

2 comments:

  1. You ran into a typical Bellingham area welcome. People around here HATE outsiders, which is anyone other than themselves. Truly, these people are the most xenophobic I have ever met. I moved here for the good things, and I realize now after three years that nobody could have adequately described the attitude of the locals. I am considering starting a petition to rename the place "Schadenfreude", which more accurately describes the spirituality of the area and would possibly help in discouraging the "outsiders"
    My advice; Do NOT, unless you are very rich and travel a lot, EVER consider moving here. Don't say you weren't warned.

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  2. Wandering child. Thanks for your comment, all are welcome. It’s a shame to hear about your experience in Bellingham, we actually had a great time and met some wonderful people and apologise if the blog gave the wrong impression. Audrey and Margaret are the names we have given to our Garmin GPS devices which on occasion send us all around the houses …very irritating!

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