June 21, 2015

What happened…

Andrew writes:We woke up early, and Amanda made a beautiful Father’s Day breakfast for my brother-in-law, and the kids. It was a great gesture and just an example of how we try to chip in whenever we stay with family or friends. We really appreciate all of the hospitality we’ve been shown during our week in Vancouver.
Hey cycle-tourists, ever notice how it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, when the time comes to leave, you’ll find that your packing job just isn’t quite up to snuff. We probably spent another hour, re-arranging everything on the bikes. For me, part of the problem, is the solution!? I’m trying an Extrawheel trailer to help me carry the kite board gear, and other beach toys like surf mats and wetsuits blah blah..really, all the stuff that isn’t that important for bicycling, but is part of my plan to keep me sane while we ride down the coast. It was 13:30 by the time we left Tsawwassen, and we figured we had between 60-80km to get to Amandas’ sisters house in Abbotsford.

The start of the ride was quite pleasant, as we rode along the Dyke Road which is a multi-use trail along the shores of Boundary Bay. At the end of this, it was quickly back to reality for us. After being spoiled for 2 months in Cuba, we now spent the next 3 hours rubbing shoulders with SUV’s and tractor trailers. Thank goodness it’s Sunday, and traffic was light. In some respects I’m dreading the highway for the next two weeks while we ride to Jasper. In others though I’m looking forward to camping in the woods, and cooking my dinner at the end of the day. It’s a part of cycle-touring that I’ve missed!

I’ve really liked hanging out with family for the last week because at every house we get to give a slide-show of our Cuba trip. I’m really getting the hang of narrating our 905 pictures. If we stay with you one day at your house, I’ll be happy to give you the whole show! Actually though I was thinking of taking all of our pics from the last year, and whittling them down to something that is easy to show and talk about with strangers. If you see a picture that you think should be included, let me know! That’s all for now, we’re taking a day off tomorrow to visit with Amanda’s mom and sister, and then we’ll be heading east for the Rockies.

Amanda writes:Today took far longer to organize that I had hoped. I was really left reminded that when we were cycling from Northern Canada last year that after two months we really had everything sorted and organized and had a good routine. I feel like we’re starting from scratch and I feel like we’re less organized. I look forward to getting back to the point where we are in a groove again.

The last week was nice spending it with family and friends although I did find it a bit different with the friends. I was left reminded of how nice our ‘official’ departure was last year and it was such a nice note to leave on. This time some how I felt like a nuisance. I don’t know why really, I mean Sven and Dorothy were amazing hosts. We saw our good friends Megan and Paul for a day and even that was different. Not sure why; maybe I was just eager to see family and get on the bikes. In any event it was nice to see everyone and I wish we had time to see all of our friends. Well really we do have time but we want to ride.

The ride was okay. We didn’t plan the route very well and Andrew and I did our normal ‘discussions’ about the route in the middle of the day which never turns out well. At the end of the day we arrived safely and it was a beautiful day to ride a bike.

Today’s Photographs

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