This summer I took a European adventure, bicycle ride.

What a trip, plus 40 degrees on the bike, drinking water every 15 secs, riding through Paris, camping in a lightening storm beside the Seine, sweating for days without let up, diving over guardrails to save being run over by a fish-tailing-tractor-trailer, going to sleep in the middle of a French forest at night only to wake in the morning, clamber out of the hammock and notice a sign parked about five meters away that read, 'zone military, danger de la mort'.

In the dark I had inadvertently camped in the middle of a military training zone (I had been riding the previous day, through a very large forest near Fontainebleau when night set in). While trying to come to grips with this odd idea of how to 'start my day' I heard a sharp crack in the woods about 50 meters to my right. I went flat to the ground. Fortunately I camp very stealth with camouflage for the bike and hammock tucked out of sight, in other words I was hard to spot ten feet away (I have practiced this art over the years because I like to urban camp - camping in and near populated areas without being noticed). I listened for movement sound... nothing,  I waited (I'm good at that) and then perhaps after five minutes another crack and then definite movement. Shit, I was into it now. Carefully I peeked through the tall ferns encircling my camp, and yes I could see movement in the brush off to my right now only about thirty meters off.

Heck, now what do I do. If this is a military exercise and I am trespassing on military property and I don't speak French (aside from hi and do you have any chocolate croissants) will I be carted off and interrogated under bright lights in a dark, damp room. No probably not but it was kind of fun to think that (you know that scary kind-of-fun).

However, giving up my position wasn't something I wanted to do. I pride myself on my stealth camping and now I was going to find out how well I had done. Hopefully better then on my first bike trip (a quarter of a century ago) crossing North America when in the dark I camped out on a running path in the middle of the Minneapolis city park and woke to find joggers glaring at me as they waddled past.

For a second I scared the tar out of myself imagining it wasn't a soldier sneaking through the undergrowth but an Axe wielding nut looking for trouble (more of that scary fun). I'll tell you though I had the heart rate up, top gear, pedal to the metal and I was trying to keep pace with my brain calculating the seemingly endless possibilities and my reaction to them. I decided to just stay still and wait. I was ready though for a bit of wrestle in the morning mist but wasn't so sure how that would read - Newspaper headlines 'French soldier attacked by crazed Canadian terrorist' - I was starting to rule out confrontation and give in, claiming 'geeze I thought I was at club Med le Foret'. Unless of course it was that Axe wielding fella again and I was committed to 'aving him and 'ard like.'

More crackling and then scrambling, fast movement sound, like quick steps, UH OH, whoever it is, it's charging - WHAT do I do? - quick think of something - I got it stand up (that's it? STAND UP!!- what about all the previous calculating, those great ideas that included Matrix style slow motion, hanging in the air while I dodged bullets whizzing by my toned and ripped torso - nope just stand up) - so I did, ready for anything, and I yelled, very loudly (not sure where that idea came from - that hadn't been in rehearsal during the waiting period - must have been a knee jerk reaction from the martial arts training years) any how, I YELLED (not sure what it was, rather like a brutal mix of grrrrrrrrrrrrr and rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) but man let me tell you it had a fantastic effect because it scared the bejesus out of the family of wild boars who where scampering through the woods. They let out some sort of return grunt changed course in one lightening fast movement (rather like wild boar synchronized movement) and where gone crashing through the underbrush leaving me fixed in my Ultimate Fighting stance (I kept part of the Matrix idea) alone in the middle of an eerily quiet French Forest......................................

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Whistling softly and quickly pack the gear and go.

I figured breakfast could wait.

During the rest of the ride I met many wonderful people including a French lady who had been saved by the Canadians during WWII and she cried when I told her I was Canadian and insisted on feeding me (so sweet). I rode through some amazing French countryside, fields of purple and fields of laughing yellow sunflowers. I swam in quiet waters as the sun set and sang a children's French song I didn't know I knew. In the Alps I hiked and ate dainty yet amazingly flavourful alpine strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, wild plums and apples. Saw snow fall in the summer, drank from a mountain stream and sang 'Somewhere over the rainbow.' And I saw on that day, for the first time in my life, the end of a rainbow.