The Bike to Work

I haven't had much trip report material lately. Strangely I find myself visiting stores with daft names like "The Urban Barn" (barf!) and checking out websites like hammerzone.com ("Better Living Through Handymanlyness!").

I guess buying a house will do that. Thank goodness the ski season hasn't started.

In the interim this is a post about a trip that I make every day -- my daily bicycle commute to work.

The idea for this came about because I realized that I was starting to view the ride as a major hurdle in my day -- something to be overcome and endured -- rather than appreciating the fact that I could ride to work at all. Not needing a motorized vehicle to get to work every day is really important to me. Weather, health and a host of other reasons could take that option away instantly.

Sometimes I need to make myself slow down and smell the proverbial roses.

So one day last week I brought my camera along. I rode slowly with my head up looking around at the sights rather than with my head down pedaling as fast as I could. Here's my ride and some of the sights along the way. You can click the icons to see the photos and click on the photos to see bigger versions.


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Mission Creek

Didn't do much on the weekend. We met with the "house lawyer" late on Friday afternoon and this preempted our normal Friday night departure. It was downhill from there. Heck we even bought a washing machine on Saturday. How domestic.

We did manage a short canoe paddle on Sunday evening. We put in at one of the local beaches and then paddled part way up Mission Creek. It was really shallow and we didn't get very far. Saw a few salmon making their way upstream and a huge flock of mergansers.

Here's a map of the "expedition"...


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Jade Lakes

We left town on Friday evening and drove in the rain to Revelstoke. We spent the night at a forest service campsite just outside of town. How did we ever do this before we owned a VW van? Next morning we drove the rest of the way to Revelstoke National Park and started the hike into Jade Lakes.

The odd thing about Revelstoke Park is that there was a road built in the 1930's which leads right to the very top of Mount Revelstoke. At 1900 meters just about everywhere else is downhill from there. So after 4.5 hours and 10km of hiking we arrived at upper Jade Lake a full 100 meters below the elevation that we started at.

We had the place to ourselves, took it easy for a couple of days, explored the area a bit, and generally just enjoyed being outside. Mark (bless his heart) hauled in a bottle of wine and was the only one who managed to get in for a swim. Definitely the hero of the weekend.

More photos here.





And one more thing happened this weekend that I can't resist posting...



Yesss!