I’m in Canada, and things are good: there is Tim Horton, and the metric system! When I saw the km/h a load lifted off my shoulders. The number 5280 has no meaning here, other than maybe a Jewish New Year. I switched my GPS to its SANE setting, and continued.

Before I left home I took a deep breath, and updated my motorcycle GPS. Knowing Garmin, this action might have bricked the device. But the update did finish, and maybe they finally hired someone educated in software, rather than commandeering a satellite orbits guy to write code by release a week out. I get the speed limits in metric, the 3D terrain is shaded by time of day. Get speed camera flags, even.

The border patrol officer was very nice, reminded me to sign my passport, which I hadn’t even noticed was called for. But she did roll her eyes a bit when she asked her series of questions:

“What’s your nationality?”

“American”

“Do you carry any fruit or other agricultural products?”

“No”

“Where is your destination in Canada?”

”Well, see, I’m thinking maybe Alaska, but maybe that’s a bit far. Alternatively I’m thinking to loop around somewhere mid British Columbia towards the coast. And I’d like to see Victoria Island, so I’d take the ferry there. Now, if Alaska, I am considering going by Prince Rupert, or maybe stay more inland…”

“OK”

I don’t know *what* she typed into her computer in the destination field.

No More Money Worries

I don’t need to worry about money any more! The prices are all in Canadian. It’s not real dollars. And the paper is very pretty.

Joining Clubs and Halting the Aging Process

If you want to stay young of mind, go travel abroad. I’ve downloaded any number of apps, just because you can’t do a thing without them. Which means you have to think about what to scan, and when. And what will happen if you do. Plus, you’ll get a text from ATT, about 1 mile North of the border, informing you that they will charge you $10/day to keep your phone working.

You want them not to do that? To be fair, their instructions are clear:

1. Text the word ‘NO’ to 211
2. ATT will answer with a follow-on challenge:
3. If you really don’t want that, text the word ‘OUT’ to 211.

I *think* it worked. But on advice of a real Canadian my OUT decision took me to:

… where I flummoxed a very nice guy, who did know his stuff. But it’s Canadian stuff that he knew. And Canadian iPhone 14 Pros have a physical SIM slot, in addition to the eSIM system, which is just all digital. US iPhones eschew the physical entirely at this point.

Since TELUS is a carrier, it feels that bits should cost money. Thus:

“I can give you a physical micro-SIM card for free. I can do eSIM, but I’ll have to charge you for that.”

Ohhh K.

So, I now have a second phone number on my iPhone: my US phone number, and a brand new Canadian one. A two-line phone, with widely varying cost structure on each line. But cool. See? That step alone made me younger by three years.

Next, I joined Neuron:

It’s an electric scooter program. The kind that I believe San Franciscan customers were so thoughtlessly nasty around that they are now outlawed? But: this is Canada. People are thoughtful, and don’t seem to park them on people’s doorsteps. Yet, they are ubiquitous, and therefore extremely useful. Get the app, scan scooter handlebars to go.

But, sometimes sights are too far even with an electric scooter. I then have the choice between donning my armor, take the bike to the sight, and see it in 95 degree-plus weather. Or, I can ride in my shorts and slippers. Many do. But I just don’t know about that. I’d feel stupid if the bike fell on me at zero speed, when it most wants to fall on its rider. I could take my shorts and hat, and change into them in a phone boot at my destination. But there are no phone booths.

OR: I could join URide, the Canadian answer to Uber and Lyft. Another app.

You might be thinking that I don’t get age credit just for joining a scooter and a ride share program, all using…The Internet. But of course, each of those wants a credit card. Which means minting a new credit card with privacy.com for those purposes, and deciding on the per-charge, or per-month, or total charging limits. Now, managing all that is worth a few years of age rollback! And I do laundry on the trip, too!

The way I clean my bicycle shorts, and the very small number of shirts I brought is by taking them into the shower with me, and rubbing them over my head once I frothed up the shampoo there. I know, that’s how everyone does it. So, no age credit.

Miscellanea Around the Hotel

Harley Davidson Does Build Pretty Bikes

And here, a standard Best Western Hotel trick:

They remove the caps from all the pens at the reception desk. You do get one capped pen in your room. But they don’t want you to take theirs at the reception. Coincidence at this hotel? Nope. Every Best Western, and I asked last time whether it is intentional. It is.

Bee Planet

An in my book special attraction here in Vernon, BC is a visitable bee keeping operation. It’s family run, and situated next to the second tourist attraction, a visitable fruit farm:

The family kids grew up with the bees. The father almost won the bee beard contest at a bee keepers convention. But even though the bees went all the way to the floor, there was a small break at the knee, which the bees on the winner did not leave on that knee.

How do you grow this beard? Note the small hump just left of the father’s sternum. That’s where he placed the queen. The rest happens on its own. To clear the bees, Hop up and down once, then take the queen off.

The son gave what would normally be a 20 minute presentation for $5 (but it’s Canadian). I was the only one who signed up. All the rest of the visitors stayed in the store, which had its own marvels. Including two fully functioning hives with glass pipes to the outside for the workers:

The speaker encouraged me to ask questions since it was just him and I. The resulting conversation with slides lasted an hour and 45 minutes… I added $30 to the required five. Though, that’s Canadian, so I feel unsure whether that’s enough. He was deeply knowledgeable.

You all know tons about bees, I’m sure. So just some very few facts that stood out to me.:

Various information; note the metallic color of some species

In list form, unadorned, Information that interested me. These are taken from my notes:

1. The North American bee is practically extinct. Honey is now produced by bee species from Russia, Europe, Africa.
2. The ‘African Killer Bees’ are indeed mean as hell. Not more poisonous, but happy to kill just to watch the prey die. They eat the same as regular honey bees: nectar, not meat like yellow jackets or wasps. But in Texas they took down a young horse.
   Worse, they operate like Cuckoos: they enter a hive, and lay their eggs. That way, the entire gene pool of that hive is Africanized within a few generations. Of which where is a new one every 6 weeks or so. Fortunately they can’t deal with cold. So they never made it above Texas.
3. Honey bees can survive Canadian winters with -20C to -30C (‘C’ is for Celsius, not for Canadian)
4. Most species of honey bees are not aggressive at all. But bumble bees are particularly gentle.
5. Why does smoke work for taking the honey? Most type of mild smoke would do. Barley is often used. The smoke disrupts the pheromone-based communication. In particular the warning pheromone. Also, bees take smoke as a sign to prepare for evacuating the hive to escape wildfires. At the first sign of smoke they migrate to inside of the hive, and start gorging on honey to have energy for the escape. When the smoke stops they just reset. There are cave dwelling paintings from 6000 BC showing a human use of smoke under bee hives.
6. Isn’t it mean to take their honey? The bee keeper knows how much the bees need for winter, and will always leave enough to ensure survival.
7. Unusual worker tasks: guard duty. Where the guard bee smells each incoming bee to ensure it belongs to the hive. Each bee is endowed by the queen with the ability to recognize that particular smell. Another task: attach with their feet to structure outside of the hive’s exit, but wave the wings as if to take off. Result: they cool the hive. If the hive is too cold, they form clusters inside and generate heat.
8. The famous bee dance: there are problems with the current theory of how that dance works to indicate direction to blooming flowers. [Email me is you want more on that]. But the dance works: the bee farm family once accidentally dropped a barrel of honey from a forklift, and the barrel burst. Within 15 minutes all their hives knew about that resulting river of honey in the parking lot, flowing towards the storm drain.
9. California almond farmers monopolize bees. The almond trees rely almost entirely on insect pollination. So bee keepers from all over the Midwest truck in their hives, making a lot of money. But the transport stresses the bees. Plus diseases spread easily among the hives from the practice. And hives that stay in a stable area have older bees that know the area and are good scouts. This familiarity never develops at temporary host almond groves.
10. Bee loss: after 2005 bees began to disappear from their hives. They flew to collect, and just never returned. Research finally revealed the culprit. A pesticide used primarily for corn. The corn seeds were soaked in the pesticides making spraying unnecessary. Turns out the resulting nectar caused disorientation in the bees. Essentially dementia. They never found their way back.
11. A very bad invasive mite causes massive bee death. It is a parasite. Formic acid kills the mites, but makes the honey unusable. Meaning a year of no yield. Likely not great for the bees either. Research is pursuing a gene that causes OCD type cleanliness in bees. The behavior has them pick the mites from each other.
12. Deformed-wing virus stunts the wings. Researchers are working on a vaccine to be administered just to the queen. Since all bees, female workers as well as male drones stem from the queen, the vaccine would immunize the entire hive.

More Restroom Signs

These work well, I thought:

WPP, and Geology Question

Finally, as I ride though towns I often wonder whether I could stand being sent there under the witness protection program. I don’t know whether we have a witness exchange program with Canada. But Vernon. BC might work (left):

Unrelated: the image on the right: does anyone know whether the white lines are scrapes from the glacier that made the valley, or layers of some other kind of rock, or somehow man made when the road was built? (There is no rock on the other side of the road. I.e no machine crashing through in between.

Nothing Beats Paper