Memories of spring break

Today is the end of spring break for teachers and students herein the public system. It’s been a long time since that mattered to me but this year I find myself thinking back on how much I looked forward to spring break and how the few years that we travelled to the coast to cycle now loom large in the catalogue of holiday memories.

I remember staying later than I meant to at school so a couple of students could finish a project. I remember the growing anticipation as the break approached. I don’t remember exactly how many years we made the trip west with the Elbow Valley Cycle Club but on one of the first trips I remember being in our hotel room in Washington where a few people were playing cards. I was lying back on the bed and I drifted off in the midst of the fun and laughter only to awaken when Richard closed the door as the last of the visitors left. I was always tired when holidays came around.

We did our fair share of cycling in the rain and some trips were wetter than others. Some trips were entirely in Canada and some ventured into the San Juan Islands and onto the Olympic Peninsula in the US. Our starting place was usually Sydney on Vancouver Island. The hotel we stayed in overlooked the sea and many of the rides went along the sea wall. It was always a treat to go to the coast in March, to leave the mounds of snow in Calgary, or if not snow the brown left over from winter, and land in the warm moist air where there were carpets of green. Often the flowers were starting to bloom and sometimes the cherry trees were a riot of blossoms.

We took ferries between various islands and travelled on the lowest level with huge transport trucks for company. We were generally the first off the ferries which gave us a chance to get through the narrow exits and up the hills before the flood of traffic. It is always uphill from a ferry dock and we quickly learned to put our bikes into a low gear on the way down to the ferry so we would be prepared for the climb on the other side.

We ate smoked salmon and Dungeness crab and as much clam chowder as we could hold. I certainly wasn’t going to come from the prairies to the sea coast and eat beef. Often there were grocery stores within walking distance from our hotels and we bought supplies for breakfast and lunch. Sometimes we chose to buy food for dinner as well and stay in our room with an urban picnic rather than eat in a restaurant.

I don’t know what year it was or where we were exactly the day we sat in the sun against the wall of our motel, ate coleslaw, bread, cheese and ham and were entirely content. At home it was snowing but in the fading coastal light we were warm.

Of course memory is a great editor and looking back it all seems idyllic. I have conveniently edited out the times we got soaked through and squelched our way into a shop or fast food joint in order to get warm before going back out to cycle more miles in the rain. I have almost forgotten about the time I caught a cold and felt miserable for most of the trip. Chances are, I will not take trips like these again but when spring break rolls around I can pull up the memories and, in my imagination, sit against that wall in the sun eating bread and cheese and being content with the world.