The Wheels On The Bus Went Round & Round…The Great Creative Human Race – Part III
February 9, 2012 by rtwsenior · Leave a Comment
This blog is a continuation of a theme started several posts back. Please read those first or remain hopelessly confused by this silliness. I believe that I have lost track of my opponents. How does one win a race under these circumstances? I am so new to world-class racing that I haven´t a clue….but I plan to submit a strongly-worded protest to The Committee, that´s for sure!
¨Where are they?¨Leapin´wondered as she stepped off the small Pachamamabybus van in Puerto Montt, Chile, the entry to Patagonia, which had been designated as the original Finish Line for the Great Creative Human Race between Canada´s Team Maple, consisting of Hunkey Dory Hank and Flyin´Bryan of British Colunbia, and the United State´s Team Sycamore, consisting of Leapin´Linda of Florida.
It wasn´t ´sposed to end this way. There were to be fireworks, banners, checkered flags, cheering and confetti. There was to be a sprint across some symbolic line; sweatiness, muddy tires, groaning bodies and the victory of de feet over today´s modern machine´s large rubber tires, effortlessly spinning only because greasy axles require simply the pressure of one foot upon a gas pedal. However, all this horsepower theoretically equals out the brawn of two powerful men against one frail (of a certain age) female.
¨What could have happened to them?¨ Leapin´mulled as she wove through the tourists and the traffic of the vaunted destination. ¨It´s not all that beautiful here. Maybe, they moved the finish line to Puerto Varas, twenty miles away. Let´s go find out.¨
A cryptic message, probably painfully thumbed on a cell phone during the luxury of a downhill run, sent a week ago, is the only communication received from Team Maple enroute. This came on the very day that Leapin´left the starting line in Santiago, after completing the severe handicap set by The Committee to give the fellows a head start on the mechanized monster she´d chosen as her method of transport.
The cryptic message reads as follows: ¨Hi Linda, we are in Bariloche, closing in on the big prize!¨ This was sent a full 15 days post departure on February 2nd. Since then, silence! What do you make of that? Should I call up the National Guard, the Carribinerros , do you suppose? Even a hearty hollering out of their individual mottos, Hunkey´s most original¨Give ér shit! or Flyin´more repeatable Ï´m all in! would be a welcome sound, echoing through the Andes. Any response floating over that serrated, volcanic, snow-covered Andean spinal column would be music to Leapin´s waiting ears as she sips her cappuchinos on restaurant balconies overlooking majestic Lake Llanquihue, watching swimmers, canoes and kayaks cavort in the crystalline fresh water.
Should she have so recklessly changed the TBA finish line venue from that gritty, industrial Puerto Montt to the classy, touristy destination resort of Puerto Varas, a mere twenty extra miles away? Guilt rises in her breast. With no reply to her rather-wordy explanation to Team Maple, she has no way to tell if, upon notification, they fell to the ground in exhausted protest at the extended mileage. Quite possibly, they simply declared themselves the Winners at the original, fishy-smelly, finish line; tossed down a few pints at the nearest pub…not the classy Pim´s Pub awaiting them here… and hopped a plane back to B.C.; leaving Leapin´posing with her self-assigned Winner´s Trophy at the chosen designer Irish Watering Hole, directly across from the highly-photogenic lakeshore, complete with three volcanoes.
¨Where, oh where can they be?¨ is Leapin´s latest lament as she blithely prepares to give up the vigil and take herself, via the wheels on yet another bus, to the small town of Ancud on Chiloe Island where the availability of a whole, entire private room has lured her away from the crowded, six-bed sorority room, currently shared with hundreds (if not thousands) of girls.
Ever faithful to The Great Creative Human Race, Leapin´vows to return to the Finish Line on Monday, February 13, one week after her arrival and almost a full month since her farewell to Team Maple as they bravely set out in the early dawn of January 18, in Santiago, Chile.
Please, won´t you join her as she faces East, (where the Andes hide those intrepid bikers), and raises her plaintive cry and the motto of her life and this race, etc. ¨Go, See, Do, Be….See, Go, Be, Do…Do, Be, See, Go..Be, See, Do, Go¨ Team Maple! Where, oh where can you be?¨
