Home was really pulling me now. I rode steadily the next day up the Fraser River Canyon, the highway much improved over the last time I drove it in 1982. It is a beautiful route, and the pioneers and railroaders have done a magnificent job. I appreciate engineers more and more as I see the results of their work in these more remote areas. The next day, as I was riding north on the Cassiar, I would see more evidence of fantastical engineering. There, they are building a major power link, and the towers are designed with a curve in them to compensate for the weight of the lines. When the lines are strung. their weight pulled the towers into a vertical position. I marvel that someone can sit in a office hundreds if not thousands of miles away. and design a tower to a precise height with a precise curve to handle a precise weight calculated on the length of the line to the next two towers. And then have a manufacturer build that tower, and have it trucked to the particular location on a sealed gravel road in the literal middle of nowhere. But they do it as a matter of course. I applaud them.
So I rode until I came to Prince George. Unbeknownst to me, the downtown center of PG (as it is known to the local prosecutors) has "gone downhill" in the last years. I was riding around in circles looking for a place to stay, and not really finding anything. Riding around in circles also got me accosted by a youngish prostitute, who apparently thought I was circling because of her (?) charms.
I finally found a seedy motel, the front desk of which was manned by a singlet and shorts wearing snaggle-toothed man of limited intellectual capacity, who was very nice and accommodating. However, no sooner had I unloaded all my gear and taken a turn or two around the confines of the not-quite-clean room, someone commenced pounding on the door while the room phone started ringing.
Since it was still daylight, I opened the door. There, a man of apparent mid-Easteren ancestry was holding a pizza box demanding payment, With the phone still ringing, I told him it wasn't mine. He was angry. I told him it isn't mine again, and went to answer the phone. The voice on the phone, also with a mid-Eastern accent, wanted to know about the pizza I had ordered. I answered in words to the effect that I had not ordered any sodding pizza, as I had just told the man at the door, and to bugger off and leave me alone. Whereupon I hung up. Smartly. The man with the pizza box was still loitering outside my open door, so I repeated my words to him and shut the door. Smartly. I never did figure out what their scam was, but at least they went away.
I went and asked my newest friend at the front desk where I might get a bite to eat. He wasn't really sure. I mean, he was pretty skinny, but surely he ate from time to time. With little guidance except from the iPhone, I stepped out smartly. The info in the iPhone was outdated. The first three places it described had closed long, long ago, if appearances may be believed. The cracks in the sidewalk outside their doors had tall grass growing in them, and the dust was caked on their windows.
Lots of inebriates were lolling about, notwithstanding the closeness of the police and municipal offices. I finally found a place with a sign outside, marvelous brass rails leading up the granite stairs, and brass fitted revolving doors at the top of the stairs. Apparently it was a pretty good place to go, with lots of regulars, some of whom were still capable of sitting upright. I ordered pizza, which was delivered promptly, hot, and very tasty. After finishing, I made it back to the motel without incident, and slept the night away between the more than slightly grey sheets.
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