Bet you weren't expecting this title!

I used to live and work halfway up a mountain in Jasper National Park. It could be a hell of a thing getting groceries seeing as how I didn't drive or even own a bike.

The path to town,
and the reason I still double knot my shoes.

Photo Credit: not me

You know what? Why don't I just come clean right now. That last point about my not owning a bike was completely irrelevant. I need five cups of coffee just to pump a bicycle up a small hill. An adrenaline shot straight to the heart couldn't get me up a mountain on one of those infernal contraptions. Like I've always said, put me on a hiking trail and I'm as nimble as a cat. Put me on a bike and I'm as nimble as a cat.

A cat trying to ride a bicycle.

No, a bicycle wouldn't have helped me. Thankfully I did not live alone up on that mountain. During peak season there were twelve women living in the dormitory rooms above the Maligne Canyon Tea House.

Two. Yes, I understand. Anytime anybody hears about any quantity of women living together the first question is always "how many bathrooms were there"?

Yes, only two. Yes, I understand. It's commonly assumed that the correct ratio to prevent violence in any rooming situation is 3.5 bathrooms for every 2 women. In this instance that ratio was completely irrelevant anyway. The two we had really only added up to 0.5 in functional terms, and they only rate that high because both toilets flushed. How they managed to flush when the only supply of liquid coming through any of the pipes was a thin, brown, sulfuric trickle of mostly grit I have no idea, but they performed heroically indeed. What was in that grit I don't know. I'm sure a mineral analysis would answer the mystery of why everyone had copper tinted hair and black jewelry, though.

So the other good thing about having transportation equipped women around was that the closest supply of fresh water was also at the bottom of the mountain, at Lake Annette. There we found a pumping station where we filled gallon jugs for cooking and tooth brushing and a large, insanely cold body of water where we'd try and swim ourselves clean. What it lacked in convenience it did at least make up for in scenic properties. That lake was so beautiful I even named my cat after it.

Have you ever seen anyone use a flimsier excuse to post a picture of their cat?

The point I'm making is that for a shop in a heavily trafficked park, that place was pretty far away from civilization. As the season wore down and the traffic eased up there would be lulls where you and your dwindling population of co-workers could feel like the last people on earth.

No cars in the parking lot.

No hikers on the trail.

Just you and the mountain sheep.

Nope. The sheep left.

Just you and the trees.

Ksh. Clank.

Bus!

Some tour guide found your shop at some point and decided they liked it. Now all of a sudden you can't move for visitors. They're all talking at once and they're all talking to you and they're all talking together because they've all been on an epic journey so long they're starting to read each other's minds. They're all happy to see you because their guide told them it's a great place to be. You're happy to see them because gosh, they all seem so happy and so friendly and you were just starting to think that maybe your little mountain had fallen off the edge of the world and you just hadn't noticed yet. Everything changed in an instant and everything's alive and it's breathtaking and fun and you hardly know what's going on but what the hell, you just go with it.

That kind of happened here on this blog yesterday.

I've only been back into blogging for two weeks now, and I've been thrilled and have savoured the joy of meeting every single reader who has done me the honor of following this thing. Then yesterday I sit down to a banquet of beautiful people here presented by the delectible Braja, and my head is still spinning from the new names and faces and all the wonderful new blogs to read. There are still a few I haven't sampled yet - mmmm dessert - but I'm delighted to meet each and every one of you. This is a great chance to say the same to everyone else that I've been lucky to cross cyber paths with over the past two weeks, too - very much including the friends from my old journal who left a trail of bread crumbs to find me again.

Okay, this is getting mushy. I better shut up before I post another picture of my cat.