Crammin' it all in

Hi All,
with work looming on the horizon, we felt a need to get back out into the hills this week, to justify to ourselves that we are still on holiday (if only for just 3 more days), so we packed up the tent and the bikes and tootled off to Tunnel Mt in Banff. A couple of nights out in the fresh air was just the ticket. I managed to struggle out of bed early doors to get a couple of rides in, before heading out with Brina later in the day.

The little Canuck was having a blast on her mountain bike, but is aware of the delights of road bikes - and is thus now eager for a new steed.

We zipped around Lake Minnewanka on the Wednesday which was good fun - and fortunately very quiet. Thankfully it had warmed up a bit by midday, as the early morning ride was bitterly cold and gave me nightmares about winter riding conditions coming back early.





Brina was a little chilly camping in the tent, and despite her super thick matress (for which we now have a pump thank goodness - as I no longer have to go dizzy for ten minutes blowing it up) she still had the need to overdress for the cold night air .




It was fun to mosie around Banff for a couple of days too - we bumped into the chap who gave me the ticket to go and meet Lance, and he is currently searching for a tutor to go to Chile with his son for 4 weeks on a ski camp (I almost bit his hand off there and then, but was halted from telling him that I'd readily quit work for such a stint in the southern hemisphere).
It was also very fortunate that I brought the pizza maker along with us on the camping trip (see piccie below).
Unfortunately, I was put in command of cooking the pizza's on the camping bbq - and I did a super job of burning the shit out of them so they looked like charred wagon wheels - alas, it was chips and salsa for supper...
Seeing as though it's Saturday today, and we aint back at work until Tuesday, we're actually off to sneak another nights camping in tonight (and lo and behold it's our anniversary tomorrow - bloomin' eck, how swiftly the time passes in Canada). This morning will see me kicking and screaming my way through DIY stores to pick up odds and sods for the basement guys who we'll probably have back sometime next week to finish off the basement proper to put all the nice finishing touches to it which if left to me would; A: never ever in a thousand years get done, and B: look like they were installed by a one armed, blind Slovenian, even if I did get around to doing it.
Hope you're all well,
Hoping that Tuesday never comes,
S&S.

Junk Vultures

Saturday morning saw the great Garage Sale of Bow Ridge Drive. I inadvertently kept on calling it a Car Boot Sale and was confusing the don't know whats out of most Canadian folk (just for the record, Brits tend to sell all the crap from their garage out of the boot (ahem, trunk - sorry) of their car whilst parked in a field in the middle of nowhere - this way your neighbours don't get to see what rubbish you've accumulated and hoarded over the years).

So we were up at the crack of dawn to go and plaster our advertising signs across Cochrane, and at 8 o'clock on the dot the junk vultures were arriving - haggling over a dollar for this piece of crap or 50 cents for that broken, utterly useless, pre 1976 wad of garbage in the corner. Brina was all very gung ho, and we'd made about $100 by 9 o'clock (I was begining to like this garage sale business).

As you can see, Brina had got every piece of crap we own lined up on the tables out front, and the bleery eyed wife in the photo is sticking prices on stuff at 6.30am.

It was quite a fun way to meet certain characters of Cochrane (and there seem to be plenty of them) - an old couple from Stretford came along, and a woman from Helsby popped by (both places in alarmingly close proximity to the place where I grew up in the UK - about as close as Calgary is to Cochrane - if not closer) and another couple from the Ribble Valley, not a very good advert for the North West of England as we're all fleeing, but a good ad for this neck of the woods though.

It's been a rather quiet week other than purging the crap from the house - we eventually made a whopping $350 by the way, so a productive day on the whole. The rest of the week has seen a few stints out on the bike - headed over Highwood pass with Brad midweek, all was nice and quiet on the pass, although some hefty forest fires in BC and Montana were wreaking havoc with the views as you could barely see the mountains when descending down the other side. More riding should be had this week, in the somber period before resuming work next week (urrgh), and Brina is keen to head off for a bit more camping, so we taking the tent out to Kananaskis and Banff for a few days this week too (Think I'll sneek the bike with me).

Football season has started for all but Man Utd - so perhaps I'll just leave that topic for now.

From some of the last posts, I'd neglected to recant that we'd cruised through Arches National Park where there are endless stacks of crazyily piled rocks (It must have taken ages for them to balance all these things in place!!!)

And there are arches everywhere - hence the name of the park. We took a few of the photos from the car as it was so bloody hot - but in this piccie you can see a host of tourists braving the furness like temps to go and get a bit "hands on" with the one of the arches.

The roadtrip piccies will keep bobbing up from time to time as I recall places visited which haven't been harped on about in this blog yet.

Anyway, that's about all for today, I've got a trip to the landfill site to make (we didn't sell everything at the garage sale).

Hope you are all clearing the clutter out of your lives,

Happy Feng Shui
S&S.

Mixed bag of painting, plastering and snow.

The impending camping trip which was intending to relieve our somberness at having returned back to the four walls of home has been thwarted somewhat by the arrival of some really, truely crappy weather. For the past four days it has done nothing but piddle down in Cochrane and the surrounds - although with the first sighting of the hills today from the front window, it has been doing a little more than rain out west....Yeah, yeah, I know this is Canada, and I know that those big chunks of rock out there are the Rockies, but it still tickles me pink (not my pink) that there's a bit of the white stuff coming down in the middle of August. That makes for snow on the hills during every month of the year so far - lets hope the trend continues with much vigour.

As can be seen, the crappy rainy weather we've been having has given way to the blue sky of today - so hopefully we'll be off for a stint of sleeping under the canvas sometime this week. And speaking of canvas, here's the latest acquisition to the Williams' household...

Brina had been searching high and low for a picture of Rundle for the house (as it's where we got wed - aw, bless) and this nice colourful job caught her eye when we were wandering through Canmore. To make matters more excitable for Brina (and me too, although I pretended to be cool) we actually met the artist who painted the damn picture in the shop (as he only sells them in this one shop in Canmore). It was picture perfect (pun intended) and alas, has found a home on the living room wall. To my even greater delight, Brina's need for a new painting has justified my need for a new splitboard - so there'll be plenty of stories of that to come when the snow falls (hopefully another month of summer left yet though).
The basement boys are doing a bonny job and the bottom of the house is now habitable (almost) - expect pictures of the new basement which I could not (and will never attempt again) rennovate - you either got it, or you aint - and I am more than happy to state "I aint".
Still keeping the legs spinning on the bike and we've both now got one eye on getting back to work (horror of horrors) and I'm actually thinking about planning a lesson sometime next week (may as well seeing as though I didn't do any last year!!!).
CT scan on Tuesday, so I may as well head into work and make it a really miserable day (school is next door to the hospital). Hope the new saddle has staved off any "worries" that may show up on the scanarama.\
Hoping that all of your walls are square,
and tuck into the headwind,
Keeping it steady,
Smiles all around,
S&S.

A cacophony of memories and eggs

How do!
It's all somewhat quiet at home after the trip, and I'm still having the urge to pitch the tent every night and inflate thermarests (or full on camping matresses for Brina). Managed to get out yesterday with Brad around Bragg Creek on the mtbs and found some great trails - although was in agony on the trusty old Trek boneshaker having dashed around on pretty bikes like the one shown above the previous week! Came back from the ride yesterday to realise that the splattering of brown on the garage door that we noticed when we left was in fact a very small part of the bombardment of eggs and other assorted grocery shit that had been pelted at the front of our house the previous night!!!! Some little bastards (apologies for the French) had taken to using our house as target practice and thus we spent the best part of yesterday afternoon clambering around on the roof washing eggshells off the upper walls and windows - We've been away for three weeks so I can't think for the life of me who we've pissed off - but I would dearly like to have a cosy little 'chat' with them. The rest of today has been further domestic duty, gardening, cleaning (although bikes mainly), fixing stuff that I can't fix but pretend I can in a very half assed kind of way, and we have found a man willing to take on the onerous task of the basement so he'll be here tomorrow - I wash my hands of it....
Anyway, as you can see, brother was delighted to reach the Shangri-La that is Moab when on the trip. We'd rolled cautiously into the wonderful little town having realised 100 miles away that the back tires on the car were no longer rubber, just metal beading - this nonsense happened last year in the heat of Utah, Albertan tires just aren't made for the desert. Moab had the closest tire fitting shop and as we held our breath awaiting some dramatic blowout we had nothing but praise for "Chips Grand Tire" where Chip himself served us just before he shut up shop, and never before have I witnessed such a cheery, speedy, helpful, we're not trying to rip you off auto shop.
We landed a great campsite with nobody else around and all was good.... Prior to hitting this venue, our previous night had been spent in Mesa Verde about which I knew nowt. Now however, I see it was home to the ancient Pueblo folk who built nifty little houses on the cliff faces hundreds of years ago (700 years ago if I recall, but I kind of tuned out when the Ranger was going on... Now I know what the kids at school feel like when I'm whittering on about meanders and ox bow lakes).

This is one of the sites from above that we got to go and wander down to and have a good poke around - although touching the walls was a real no-no as they were only held together by mud - 700 year old mud that is, so they'd crumble like an Italian Army even if you just stared at them too long.
A little aside which I neglected to post to add to the amazing splendor of the Rockies throughout Colorado was one intriguingly named ski run in Telluride. Now, maybe I'm missing some obvious Americanism here and perhaps my knowledge of US history and society is very limited, but without wanting to offend anybody - can this really be the right name of a double black ski run in one of the best ski towns in the states?

Clearly Telluride is a rich white "man's" playground....

Telluride was an incredible spot and it was a treat to see where the big bro had raced in the Primal Quest a few years earlier, although he did mention some of the landmarks were a bit hazy in his mind having been racing without sleep for 5 days!

Hitting the Patagonia shop in Dillon on the way home was a pleasure, and clearly the girls were a touch enthusiastic about getting into the seriously cheap store...

And they left the store looking rather pleased with themselves.....

Although it wasn't just the chickeroos who were carried away in a retail frenzy of cheap Patagonia gear.. that night in the warm air of the campsite you wouldn't have believed that this feller below actually owns a gear shop;

Mark and Brina scored highest for being kitted up head to toe in Patagonia.
There is plenty more that will come out about the trip that is sure to come out in future postings - and I must get a photo album set up on here to dump a load of awesome piccies (modest!) that can be viewed online (calling Portland Ken for technical assistance...).

The trip was completed with a magic ride on the bikes from Radium to Banff, and what better way to end that and the trip with one of Earl's finest steaks in Banff.

Great times in the summer of 07.

Dodging the low flying eggs..
S&S.

Road Trip Part Deux

So where did we leave off then? Going to the Sun Road I recall.... good old Montana. It all seems such a while ago, now that we're back, and that Mark and Luce have headed back to NZ (eck).

We cruised down past flathead lake making a beeline for Yellowstone, when the deathly speedboat crossed out paths. We'd seen a layby to pull over in on the bend of a road, and as we were about to drive into the layby a lone trailer (perhaps pulled by Thestralls) and boat came whizzing across the bend in the road and ploughed right through the spot where we would have been about 2 seconds later... The trailer detached from its vehicle on the bend and kept on the straight line course into our parking spot.. that would have been one for the obituaries - four roadtripping tourists maimed brutally by unidentified trailer. It was all rather shocking for us and the poor woman driver of the car the trailer came from (apparently it was her hubby who hitched the boat up, and he wasn't there). It was so shocking that Mark decided the best course of action was to leap out with the camera clicking away at the disaster scene like some frenzied paparatzzi (spelt how?). A dip in the lake was much needed after such excitment.. then on to Wyoming.

Here're Brina and Luce at Yellowstone falls... there was so much just in Yellowstone to see with all the geysers, mudpots, canyons etc... we could've spent three weeks there. We picked up Ol' Faithful on the way out south to the Tetons and Jackson - where there was more biking to be had too. Then a wild, remote and "oh shit we're out of gas" drive towards Colorado - we camped very late in the dark in a random place we plucked from the map - which incidentally turned out to be rather spectacular when we awoke - Flaming Gorge, a desolate, deep sandstone canyon (piccie with the tents).

Steamboat Springs was the first destination in Colorado - and a very sleepy, dreary ski resort it turns out to be in summer time. We got to ride our first 10,000ft pass on the bikes - "Rabbit Ears Pass" heads up out of Steamboat, and the up is steep and prolonged - as I only realised after having spent an hour or so staring at our kid's back wheel feeling a serious burn going on in the legs.

Vail and Aspen were to come next, all very nice (and rather poncy). Here's the rub about Aspen's clientel.... Nearly 100 private Lear Jets lined up in the airport to whizz the rich and Lah de Dahs to and from the resort. The local bike shop was stocked with limited edition $10000 (minimum) Livestrong bikes. It's not that I'm jealous, just... jealous.

The excitment brimmed for Crested Butte - we were dispensing with the tents for three nights of luxury in the Three Seasons condo at "the Butte" (whatever happens in the fourth season I don't know). With wonderful coincidence our first time with a t.v on the trip coupled with the first stage of the Tour in the Pyrenees - three full days of watcing the blood doping, testosterone pumping athletic freaks fight it out in the mountains - perfect.

For those of you unaware of Crested Butte, it is one of mountain bike's mecca's -and it certainly was.

We all hired mountain bikes and hit the trails, Brina and Lucy were chirruping away like a couple of hens in the excitment of it all, and me and Mark were squarking a wee bit on some of the single track laid down. Also finding $35 on the trail is alway a bonus - now I normally carry a quarter in case I need to make a phone call, but what people carry (and loose) $35 for on the remote biking trails is beyond me - maybe it was for an elusive cafe we never found.

I don't remeber if on the last post I pointed out we saw a bear in town one night here too - all good fun leaving the garbage bags out at night to feed the local wildlife.Loads went on in Colorado, I've already forgotten to mention we all took roadbikes up to the Maroon Belles in Aspen, and I'm sure my rambling and picture choice isn't doing justice to the trip (we got carried away and have about 1000 piccies to view).
Telluride, Mesa Verde and Moab will feature a wee bit in the next post - but I am now to drag my sorry ass from the computer as the sun is beaming in the window and I've a neglected moutain bike who needs to be taken out in Bragg Creek for some lovin'.

Other news from here is we're still basking in the holiday time bliss. We cruised out to Banff yesterday and kicked about lazing around and finishing reading Harry Potter's last installment (it's not too bad). Will post again imminently.

Keep spinning and smiling,

S&S.

p.s:

"YEAH.. I WISH".

Back from the Road

Hi All,

What a lenghty time lapse without a posting here - all due to the Road Trip of all road trips. We've just landed back home after a mere 6500km have rolled around on the trusty old Ford Focus (which performed admirably - only needing to have 2 new tires put on the back in Utah as the wire had come right through the old ones making for some very wobbly driving, akin to racing down a cobble street at 70mph). I'm not sure how to get all of the trip's news on one post, so this might have to be a multi posted affair. First things first though;

My fascination with the big wild animals of Canada remains, and we saw this critter just as it was going dark by the road up near Lake Louise, feasting on the abundance of Buffalo Berries. Thinking how cuddly he looks, we had to recall that such a beast killed a biker a few days ago at Panorama!!!!!!

The trip into the states opened our eyes about how they deal with bears. In a town called Leadville in Colorado, the local newspaper pointed out that the biggest problem with bears was that locals were going out and wrestling them (honestly, I kid you not), and then in Crested Butte we saw a bear wandering down a back street at night - but thinking that there would be signs up or some kind of "alerting news" we dismissed the bear sighting as a big dog or a shadow - until the chef in the bar we ended up in told us that the bear had been in the alley every night for the past two months scavenging in the garbage bins (not bear proof) - the Yankie Doodles really are laid back when it comes to the ol' Ursus (maybe it's because they're all allowed to be holstered up with guns - the folks not the bears).

Anyway, back to the road trip. The focus was fully laden (with a touch of space saved for loading up at the Patagonia shop on the way home) and we headed out at 6pm making a bee line for Waterton. The plan was to ride the "Going to the Sun" road in Montana the following morning.

We spent most of the day of leaving, wandering around MEC trawling for all the things we needed (and didn't need).

So we made it to Waterton for sunset and had a nice wander around the Prince of Wales hotel and the Lake (which is the piccy at the top of this post).

It was a treat to be on the road and in the tent. We were all beaming about the adventure that lay ahead (although I was a tad apprehensive about getting into the States, for no other reason than I think that the customs folk don't like me and am developing a complex about it - but all was fine - and friendly!!!!).

The first ride of the trip came in Glacier NP - from St Mary on the East side of the park, to the Western entrance of Glacier - via the wonderful Going to the Sun road, which we hit early and missed the heavy traffic, saw glaciers, mt goats and incredibly speeds on the descent over the other side - the pass was a mere 6500 feet, which was great, but ones double that in altitude awaited in Coloroado - and I was already gasping for air....

I'll leave you with the bro's of R&R summiting Logan Pass.

My minds still a bit muddled with the enormity of what we've done, so the next post will be tomorrow and shall continue regaling the trip (Flaming Gorge, Yellowstone, Jackson, Crested Butte, Aspen, Vail, Telluride, Mesa Verde, Moab, Black Rock Gorge of the Gunnison are still to come - although not in that order... and I think I've still missed a few there!).

Hope all your summers are trippin'

Missing packing up the tent each morning,

Si, Bri, Mark and Luce.