Big horse camping diary entry

Prepare to be bored. Sorry.

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Thursday. I drive to Port Alice to buy two used Apple HomePod speakers. There are some nice sights on this drive but there is still something about it I hate. It’s kind of the drive equivalent of Port Alice in that it’s got some cool aspects but is overall still too shitty, kind of gross and sad. Get to Port Alice, what a dump. Lots of cool 70s houses I’d love to root through and find cool light fixtures and shit but the community is too depressing even for me. Get to the seller’s house, car port has a mobility scooter and a bunch of detritus everywhere. Buddy answers the door, strong animal odour wafts out. Smells like a pet store, like full litter boxes and bird cages. Two little yappy dogs come to the door with buddy, they must shit and piss in there. Buddy looks about 30 yrs old, is very friendly in the way that white trash are that I consider a red flag. It’s a thin veneer. He is wearing a maroon-coloured housecoat that looks like one your grandfather would wear, and it looks like it smells like his house. He brings out the speakers, turns them on, Slipknot starts blaring from them. “Oops, hehe, just my Slipknot there, sorry about that…” You just know he relished that moment and thought I’d be like “WHOAH what is that psychotic scary music, why is he yelling so much?” I spend too long there figuring out how to connect my phone to the speakers to test them. I only manage to get one working with my phone but I’m too annoyed to spend any more time there so I say ok and buy them despite them costing way too much to be this blasé about the price. I’m immediately angry at myself for being so impatient and worry they won’t work and I’ll have to eat the $450 loss. The drive away from Port Alice sucks just as bad as the drive in.

I get to Hyde Creek and grab a sandwich and a tea at the gas station. I enjoy this ritual.

The drive down to Campbell river is uneventful. My shitty car stereo is acting up so I can’t listen to music and am forced to listen to a few podcasts. The Dateline one is ok, the Stuff You Should Know one about widowhood is boring.

I get to Jenn’s horse camping site where she is already. I help her with a few things then head into town to do errands. They go pretty well, surprisingly. I exchange a riser for a septic tank lid, and return two truck batteries at Canadian Tire for the $40 core charge refund. I go to Home Depot (one of the nine circles of hell in my opinion) and grab a bunch of shit we need. Most of the staff is surprisingly helpful here, I can’t believe it. I go to Superstore and grab dinner for Jenn and I (a chicken taco kit) and some Celebration cookies (Jenn’s favourite). Then I pick up bubble tea from a pho place in town. I am furious with myself once the lady hands them to me and I realize I forgot to specify NO ICE. Too late now. I bring them back to jenn, she likes them despite their obviously inferior quality (the drinks and boba, not just the ice). We have tacos and listen to a true crime podcast and hit the sack.

Friday. We wake up early, have some ok muffins for breakfast that Jenn got yesterday. Jenn does horse stuff, I walk the dog and immediately come across two small bears scampering up a tree. I wonder if they’re small enough to indicate a mama bear being somewhere close by, then hear huffing and crashing foliage near the base of the tree. The dog starts barking, I tell her to can it and we vamoose, opting for a less exciting but safer route. We finish packing the horse stuff and leave for Courtenay.

Nice short drive south by comparison to all of yesterday’s driving. We get to Courtenay, I help Jenn set up her stuff. Once I’m free I begin today’s list of chores/errands. A very nice guy brings his ride cymbal to me, I try it and buy it even tho I feel like a hoarder with all the fucking cymbals I currently have that I need to sell. I go buy a large shag rug from a very nice woman but as I load it in my car I notice a big stain mark on the underside. Then when I get in the car with it i notice an overwhelming dog smell. Great. I’ll probably use the pressure washer on it at home before I put it in the house. I go to Price’s Locksmiths and get a key for the Tercel made from the code on the lock cylinder. The old key was so worn down that it could slide out of the ignition while the engine was running, but this fixes that. I didn’t expect it would actually work so I’m surprised and pleased at this affordable, effective fix. I go to a grocery store to get lunch at their deli, find the deli has one of those cafe/restaurant areas that you used to see in department stores way back when. It’s deliciously sad and empty, with only one old woman sitting in the vast space, surrounded by countless unused tables and chairs. It’s perfectly liminal. My wrap isn’t bad. I plan on coming back here in the future. I go to Value Village, don’t find anything on my thrift store shopping list. I visit Boba Island for the first time after years of wanting to try it and am very pleased with my mocha bubble tea. Far superior to yesterday’s boba experience. I leave them positive reviews online.

I come back to the horse show grounds and help with setup for the show. That’s surprisingly nice. I met a lot of these horse people in the last year or two and it’s pleasant to see them again, and it feels good to take part in their event and be positive and productive in a community. Jenn and I take the dog for a walk and get dinner from an El Salvadoran food truck. Our order is up fast, and it’s fantastic. We meet a nice woman and her daughter walking their dog and talk with them for a while. We get back to our camp and spend a relaxing evening chatting with Heather and her daughter Mia. I sleep well despite someone walking their horse around the grounds at 1:30 am which riles all the other horses up. I wake up to horses calling and the sound of horse hoofs on gravel so my first thought is that one got loose. I wake Jenn up and she goes to check on Marvel and finds all is fine. Phew.

Sunday. Get up at 6:00 am. Take the mutt for a walk through the woods. Go to town to get breakfast for Jenn and I, and head to a coffee shop called The Mudshark Cafe because it has good reviews but I hate it. My tea costs about $4 (which is almost the cost of a box of 20 at the store), their calorie-free sweetener situation is a messy joke, my Earl Grey tastes awful and nothing at all like Earl Grey, and the breakfast bagel sandwiches I order take so long that I wonder if someone else has taken mine by mistake. On top of that, the tip prompt on the debit machine pisses me off — my light breakfast order already costs over $30, and there is zero table service, yet the minimum recommended tip is another $3+? Hogwash. Balderdash. I tipped $1, and after how bad the overall experience is I’m glad I didn’t tip more. Not over-tipping is about the only part of my Mudshark Cafe experience I am satisfied with.

I return to the horse show. Now Jenn has to call the tests for other riders and can’t eat the hot breakfast I got her until it’s cold. I hate hot food getting cold. I move the dog’s pen out of the sun and right then another dog walks by and our dog takes a run at it. I’m on her instantly, she doesn’t actually touch the other dog but still obviously terrible. I hold the dog on the ground for a few seconds, then when I go to put her back in the pen she won’t get up, and keeps yelping when I tug on her collar to try to get her up and in to her pen. I can’t reach her leash so I’m stuck looking like the worst dog owner in the world, like I have an aggressive dog that I abuse. Wonderful. Jenn asks me to help tally the scores for some of the riding tests so that some of the other volunteers can have breaks. I’ve never done this before so I’m nervous but it turns out to be quite easy, and I’m once again happy to be contributing to this event. Next time we do this I will volunteer more time for marking tests.

It’s now 11:15 am and I have to leave so I can do all my errands for the day and catch the 4 pm ferry home. Right then, Sebastian texts to tell me a bunch of the electrical stuff we need for building the next barn is in at the electrical supply shop. I planned my day pretty tight but if I don’t get it now it will be a week and half before I can get it again and that’s no good so I begin racing around like a maniac. I get that stuff and jam it into my already very full car, then get gas, then back to Canadian Tire for a light fixture part, then to Superstore for groceries, and then I begin the trip north. I get to Port McNeill right on time and am able to pick up some stuff I ordered at the auto parts store and get cash at the bank before getting in line for the ferry.

It was a great trip, and I’m happy to be home. I spend forever trying to figure out the fucking HomePods, I finally get them working and they sound great. Thank goodness.

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Epilogue: that was my first time “coming home” to Sointula. I wondered if it would really feel like “coming home” after only being here a month, and no, it didn’t quite feel like that. In that realm, and obviously on its way to becoming that, but it’s just too soon and there are still too many things I’m still just getting familiar with for it to feel completely like home yet. In time.

people i see: weird cymbal lady

Victoria BC, dark January 2023 AD evening. I’m going to look at a cymbal that is for sale on facebook marketplace. The seller has been nice to deal with over messenger but when she gives me her address, I recognize it as being a low income housing development I have bought tacky old stuff from before. I arrive and yup it’s the same complex. I find the seller’s unit, ring the doorbell, and a 60-ish year old woman opens the door a crack. Eventually lets me in and I say hi to her very friendly dog. Then she politely tells me to get the fuck inside and close the door before the cat escapes, and then proceeds to spin some yarn about where this rescue cat came from. She and her place actually aren’t too sad, better than I expected for this place. She tells me to be careful not to slip on the stairs, how she had to remove the carpet from them and paint them when she moved in because the carpet was just so stained and smelly and awful so this is much better but it is a bit slippery so it’s a tradeoff, yada yada. We get upstairs and she explains how these cymbals belonged to her brother and he was a member of our local homeless population and he finally succumbed to his addiction, and shows me a family photo of the man. Ok. Eventually she leads me to another room where the cymbal is. I had asked on messenger if she had a drum stick I can use to test the cymbal, she had said yes, so I ask for that now and she produces what I learn is called a ‘tipper’ for a ‘bodhran’ — not quite what I meant but it will suffice.

I hit the cymbal on the bell and body. The woman makes some “mmm, mmhmm” sounds I don’t understand. Then I hit the edge and the woman makes a similar sound but I think this one is disapproving. Hard to tell. I go over each of the sounds again and the woman makes more sounds but they seem more agitated now. I hit the edge again and the woman quickly states that there are five young children in the unit next to hers. I look at the time and it’s exactly 6:00 pm. Not sure how many kids are in bed by 6 but I take the hint and stop testing her cymbal. I haven’t been able to really test it but from what I’ve heard I’m not nuts about it, and not nuts about the lady, plus she had listed it for sale quite a while ago but priced it rather high which is why it hasn’t sold yet. She recently dropped the price from $240 to $225, which isn’t going to convince anyone to finally pull the trigger on it, and indicates she doesn’t realize it’s not an especially valuable cymbal, and isn’t very flexible on the price. Even if I was interested in it I don’t know if I would have bought it from her.

Luckily for me, none of this matters at this point so I say thanks but I’ll pass. As I go to head downstairs, in my peripheral vision I see a man who I assume is her partner, standing in the kitchen facing me, not saying anything, looking like he might be a jump scare in a horror movie. Hadn’t seen or heard him, had no idea there was anyone else in here. Maybe my wild cymbal smashing woke him from his 5 pm bedtime. Whatever. I’m already irritated with this entire situation so I don’t look at or acknowledge him, can’t be bothered. The woman ushers me out the door just as quickly as when I came in, again due to the cat. I’m happy I didn’t buy yet another cymbal I don’t need. I get in the car and finish off my roasted milk tea with boba. I feel good now.