Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this aeroport

Aboard this mighty ship.

The crew were mighty airborne gnomes,

The skipper brave and sure.

Fifty cryptids took flight that day

For a thirty-hour tour, a thirty-hour tour.

The giant party blimp, Airship of Clonmacnoise, had taken flight from a private aerodrome in California’s Napa Valley. In recognition of the Chinese Year of the Dragon, the sausage-shaped fuselage had been adorned with colored streamers suggesting scales and feathers. Although it was called a ‘blimp’, it was actually an aerostat with a rigid internal frame, like a zeppelin; its buoyancy was dependent on a combination of helium-filled gasbags and hot air. A crew of a dozen gnomes operated the dirigible; all of them had squeaky “chipmunk” voices, resulting from frequent breathing of helium.

“Hey, just hold on there a minute, Ramóna! You’ve got some nerve, using a passage from my journal that describes our trip last year!” Desdemona wasn’t merely steaming mad, she was flamin’ hot angry!

“Oh, Dez, I’m so sorry! It’s just that you had written such a perfect introduction to your account of our journey, that I knew I couldn’t possibly write anything so good to begin my tale. Please, please, please, can you forgive me? And can I please use your paragraph?”

“Well, okay, I guess. But your story had better be good! Don’t flame out after such a strong start!”

The weather started getting rough,

The party blimp was tossed,

If not for the mettle of the motley crue,

The airship would be lost, the airship would be lost.

The ship’s aground among the trees of a forest evergreen,

With Chipmunk Chet,

Kimana, too,

Roy L. George and gnine gnomes;

And dragons red

From distant Wales,

Here in Canada BC.

Alas! Are the travelers stuck here for a long, longtime? They’ll have to make the best of things. It’s an uphill climb.

“Hey, wait a minute! What’s this about an uphill climb? There’s a wonderful gondola at Squamish!”

Actually, this was a light-hearted (light-headed?) group. They would indeed make the best of things. The Bigfoots had taken this trip so that they could vacation in the forests of the Canadian Rockies. Well, that’s where they were! (Maybe they were in the Cascades. Close enough.) They quickly discovered that they were near the hot springs resort at the south end of Harrison Lake.

The gnomes had brought their motorcycles with them on the flight north from California. They had planned to take the scenic ride from Vancouver to Squamish. But where is Vancouver? For that matter, the gnomes didn’t know where they were.

The dragons were on their way to a meeting of the book-dragons book club in Cindy’s Eyrie on the Stawamus Chief, a granite massif which towers over 700 meters above the waters of nearby Howe Sound. However, like the gnomes, they didn’t know how to get there.

Well, really, this shouldn’t be a problem. A handful of dragons took flight high above the crash site. Like the mighty thunderbirds of Kwakiutlmyth, they soared high above the clouds, at such a great altitude that they could see the ocean to the west. The five dragons headed west, and soon one of them recognized Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea. On their return flight to the crash site, they overflew Boundary Bay, on their way to where the Airship of Clonmacnoise had crashed north of the human community of Chilliwack.

The dragons were now able to give directions to the gnomes so that they could reach the highway to Vancouver. Those stout and sturdy guardians of the earth’s treasures were about to mount up when Chesterfield Chipmunk spoke up. “Hey, what about us cute little furballs with the racing stripes? What happens to us?”

The lead gnome, Roy L. George, offered to let Chesterfield and his mate Kimana ride with him in the pockets of his rugged motorcycle jacket. Other gnomes welcomed chipmunks as traveling companions. The rodent road warriors, born to be wild, were thrilled. This was their chance to go looking for adventure, in whatever came their way. Soon the gnomes and their riders were westbound on the Trans-Canada Highway, headed for Vancouver. A few other chippies, somewhat timid, decided to stay in the forest where their airship had landed.

Meanwhile, the entire pod of dragons flew about 90 kilometers west-by-north to Burrard Inlet. The city of Vancouver lay a short distance to port. Where the inlet joined the Strait of Georgia, they turned north and were soon flying over Howe Sound. What spectacular scenery! Forested mountainsides! Orcas and humpback whales in the water! As she flew, Ramóna listened to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” on her iPod. It was her favorite recording, the one by the Trondheim Symfoniorkester &Opera.

Ramóna and Desdemona had met Cindy last year. She was a rather eccentric book-nerd, yet very friendly, a gourmet cook, and a warm, welcoming hostess. However, the two damsel dragons wondered how they would fit into this book club meeting. After all, they were not book-dragons, but rather party girls.

Happily, when the travelers arrived at the eyrie, Cindy welcomed Dessy and Raime as life-long friends. As the literati settled into the comfortable dragon-sized chairs, Cindy pulled her old friends aside. “Look, I know you girls aren’t really into literature. I could really use your help in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.” The girls eagerly volunteered to be kitchen maids, assistant cooks, and servers.

In the kitchen, Cindy showed her new assistants the well-stocked pantry and urged them to make use of the smoked salmon from her larder. As she returned to the party, Cindy took a charcuterie-and-cheese board which was in the walk-in fridge. The seasoned veteran party girls knew what to serve at a gathering. They donned their aprons and toques and got to work. First, trays of bruschetta, followed by antipasti. Then, canapés and other appetizers. Later, for hors d’oeuvres, they served smoked salmon tramezzini, Spanish tapas, and Basque pintxos.

During a quiet moment, while they relaxed with espresso and biscotti, the girls looked over one of Cindy’s cookbooks, The Galloping Dragon Gourmet. Hey, wait a minute! That’s Cindy’s picture on the cover! So, she isn’t just a book-nerd, but also a gourmet cook and a published author!

The gnomes, with their chipmunk companions, were cruising north on the Sea to Sky Highway along the east shore of Howe Sound. With their long beards flowing out behind them, they sang "On the Road Again"

Indeed, this 40-mile stretch of highway between Vancouver and Squamish was unlike anything the gnomes had seen before. After all, these guardians of the earth’s treasures spent their lives underground, deep inside mountains, using mine tunnels as thoroughfares. But now, they could see the outsides of mountains, covered with forests, rising above the ocean. Seabirds flew overhead. A panoply of pinnipeds lay basking on the rocky shore. A splendid splash as a humpback whale breached.

The gnomes stopped at Britannia Beach to visit the mining museum there. The 19th century copper mine must have been magnificent! Hey, let’s get some lunch! Disappointed that the Mountain Woman Take-Out was temporarily closed, the group decided to have burgers and poutine fries on the patio at Outbound Station. After lunch, it was just a short ride to the Watts Point Volcanic Centre. And then, another short ride to Squamish, where they soared up the Stawamus Chief on the gondola.

Later, in a coffee shop on Main Street in Squamish, Roy L. George was chatting with Gnarly Gnorman, another gnome. Gnorman asked, “Well, Roy, where should we go next? I hear the road to Whistler is pretty scenic.”

Roy replied, "I think we ought to head back to the U.S. before the new president closes the border to people who don’t look like his idea of ‘real Americans’.”

“Gee, that’s an ugly thought. What about the dragons?”

“I’m afraid they’ll have to make it on their own. It’ll be a long flight, but they can make it.”

“And the Bigfoots?”

“They might stay here. They seem to be pretty happy at the hot springs and in the forest. Besides, if they later decide to return home, they can just sneak across the border; they know how to stay hidden.”