A lot to live up to!

My post got me thinking about last Easter so I went back and read a few entries - I am falling behind this year! Wow - I didn't realize how much I had written in 2005/2006. Looking back on the development of the house is really fun too. Next weekend I'm heading to Ontario for a visit and I promise I'll get back on track with the more frequent updates.

April showers?

This weekend I am going to plant some seeds. I am desperate to move the seasons along a little faster. This April we have had nothing but SNOW. Geesh! I know Calgary is pretty far north , but my third year here and I'm still not used to it. I love the winters and summers but the spring/fall times are so awkward.
Last weekend was Easter and I continued what seems to be my new tradition - I took visitors for a little mountain cross-country ski! There was still over 1 m at Mt. Shark and the sun was beating down. It is so hard to dress for skiing when it's +15 Celsius... Last Easter I went with a friend from out of town to Lake Louise (check back to last year's post!). So, visitors be warned - if you come at Easter you will be skiing in your undies!!
The weekend before I went to Kicking Horse for a last weekend of snowboarding. It again was fantastically warm but the snow was great. I rode blue runs with confidence. What a change since December!
Tomorrow is the University Outdoors Center rental sale and my original plan was to pick up some alpine touring skis I could use at the resorts so that I could learn to ski next year. But, another look over the finances killed that idea. However, I am still going to go and buy two pairs of snowshoes. Even though they are very cheap to rent, I think it will be nice to have a few pairs kicking around.
These next few weeks I'm reading 3 Italian novels recently translated to English. Just checking out what makes the bestseller lists over there. On the bus yesterday I was reading a rant by an Italian convict about how hard it is for him to get new/replacement rubber seals for his moka (small burner espresso maker) and that after 15 years in prison he really needs a good moisturizing soap. (this was in between the plot of him murdering a mother and son during a getaway from a robbery 15 years earlier and now he has cancer but wants to die a free man and is going through the system to get a pardon, so there is some substance).
I'm glad to hear Easter was good in Neb, but am still waiting to be cc'd on a good Auz update... hint hint. Same old going on for me here though. Happy spring!

March madness

So, I've changed the colours again. You know me, always trying to be pretty ;)
This month has been busy! It started with field work and my first ever total site evacuation; very calm, very cool and under control. Everything was cleared up by the next day, but I'm really glad that I was back in town while the critical decisions were made. Then, home for two days, doing laundry like mad (Jeff had just gotten back from the field as well) and we packed up the car with the road bikes and headed for Napa/Sonoma. I've posted the campsite pics on my facebook page.
It was gorgeous! No face-endangering collisions with this year's spring bike trip. With travelling for work, Jeff and I were sick and tired of random hotels, so we camped every night and spent all of our money on food. Holy - stick two vegetarians with biking level appetites in California for a week; you can just imagine our food bill! The dinners, the breakfasts, oh my oh my... (do I even have to mention the wine?!)
So last weekend was my first at home, and I should have updated my blog (sorry Julie!) but, surprise surprise, Jeff is away and I spent the weekend with new library books. I'm all into a new genre (though I think I am the only one to categorise these) - first books by people who are blooming fiction from their trained profession. It started with this month's book club pick of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. I read it up at the aforementioned field site and started what is now 20 pages of murder mystery fiction based in my profession. I have since read Spanish private school murder mystery written by a teacher in Spain, a silicon valley murder mystery written by an early-retirement dot.com-er (about early-retirement dot.com-ers), and a fiction about a young man who follows his girlfriend to Thailand and works as a journalist, written by, yes, a young man who followed.. you get the idea.
That's about it for me. I have some seeds itching to get into the ground to grow and cover all of our new-suburb dirt, but it is currently snowing. Ah spring. If anyone is inspired to share, I would appreciate recommendations for my new reading lists. Murder and mayhem with railway employees? University administrators gone mad? Aussie snaps in the fashion industry? Just some ideas....

Reality comes around

All week I was excited to go down to Fernie (BC), to stay with some friends and check out the hill. Then I just kept getting a bit sicker every day... til, bam! I have a bad cold.
I did drive south on Friday and met Jeff down there. He had driven 1100 km from North Dakota that day and was dead tired. However, it was a beautiful and warm day on Saturday and my friend who we were staying with showed me around the hill, while Jeff went off riding in the trees. I really challenged myself to great effect and had a wonderful time. We all desperately tried to stay up to a decent hour, but were all in bed by 9:30 pm, happy and exhausted. On Sunday my sinuses kicked my ass and Jeff was really tired so we called it quits and drove home Sunday afternoon after a nice long and leisurely breakfast. Yesterday was a long weekend holiday Monday here in Alberta, and I spent it on the couch with a roll of toilet paper blowing my nose. Classic. So, not much went as planned this weekend and it was certainly not the epic snowboarding extravaganza I had hoped for, but... There is always next weekend. (Actually, next weekend's plan is cross country sking - it's much cheaper!)

Do cowboys make good snowshoers?

This weekend I did the Avalanche Safety Training Level 1 course. I used snowshoes instead of skis so I wouldn't look like such a novice in a group of strangers. But holy - I am sore in the strangest places today! You have to walk so wide with snowshoes on, I felt like a cowboy all day. And my hands are super sore; it appears that in steep terrain I have a death-grip on my ski poles. However, all the soreness aside, I am very pleased that I can now identify suspicious terrain and know how to find someone using/wearing an avalanche transceiver (beacon). I bought my camera along but it was snowing pretty hard all day and was effectively white-out conditions for most of the day. In a few cases the instructor just had to describe to us what type of terrain we would be seeing if we could see more than 100 feet ahead. It was strange knowing that there was a large rock face and bowl very nearby but not be able to see it at all...
Avalanche beacons are pretty cool but expensive. I'll be renting one if I do any back country travel this season, but if anyone needs birthday or Christmas ideas for next year, keep it in mind :)
Next weekend I'm planning on heading to Fernie. It's the provincial Family Day next Monday, so the ski hill will be packed, but I'll brave it. And my friend who we will be staying with is eager to kick my butt on the hill. The learning curve just never stops...

Singles Weekend

Last weekend Jeff was away and I took the opportunity to go snowboarding with some girlfriends on Saturday and head to a Superbowl get-together on Sunday (HD with American commercials; good times had by all). Saturday was great weather (well, it is winter! the lifts are cold in the mornings every time...) and I rode a black diamond run twice before lunch - can you imagine?! Today my plan was to play some more and take the day off for another Ladies Day special, but I now have other plans. Jeff is still away (he actually came back to town for a full 36 hours earlier this week) and so I have another single girl weekend to fill. I have decided to take my Level 1 avalanche safety training. I'm really not planning on doing anything particularly hard core; I'm taking the course so I can read the danger and steer well clear of it! I asked my boss if work would fund my weekend as part of my safety training, but no dice :) They don't generally drill gas wells in active avalanche zones...
Other news: I finished Colony of Unrequited Dreams. The last third of the book really drags on and then bam! everything is wrapped up nicely in the last few dozen pages and life goes on... The first half is great, and I realise since it is based on a real person the ending can't be super over-dramatic, but the balance was pretty off. Book club meets tomorrow night so I'll soon hear what the other ladies thought of it. I am now reading a dirty little Michael Crichton book - I feel like I need a brown paper cover for it. I'm ruining my bus reputation!

Playing Hookie

Yesterday I used a vacation day and went snowboarding. It was beautiful and sunny, about -10 degrees or so, and it was Ladies Day at a nearby hill. The package day deal was transportation to and from Calgary, a lesson, lunch, a stretching/pilates workshop and the afternoon on the hill to do what you please. It was terrific! All the other ladies were better snowboarders than me, and trying to follow their lead down the hill pushed me to get over some fears of steeper terrain. I think I am off the bunny hills for good! I still have a lot to work on, but I am happy that I can tick another day of fun off the calender as being injury free. My goal for 2007 is to have something like those worker's safety boards at manufacturing plants - Injury Free for 31 days! (I have a few bruises, but if we start counting bruises as injuries... well, it's just not feasible!)

I'm a horrible sister!

Arrhh - I just hit the 'publish' button and I was so engrossed in describing my cabbage battle that I completely forgot why I logged in to post in the first place!!
My Sister Has A Blog TOO!!
Check it
It's all about her shoe dreams.
If you are in our family or know us well, you will know that my sister and I both have these great vivid dreams and that we used to go on and on and on and on at the breakfast table telling our amazing adventures. I think hers won because she always had great detail, but I certainly get honorable mention for the sheer randomness of mine.
Of other worthy mention is the battle of the next two weeks to finish Colony of Unrequited Dreams for book club. As much of the Canadian media has reported, this book is a keeper; balancing social justice and landscape beauty, this book connects some wonderful things in my life. Sadly, I'm just not sure my bus commute time is up for the challenge of 550 pages in two weeks. I'll have to do some laps of the neighbourhood... :)

Cabbage Battles

Alright already! I know I'm a slacker... Sorry about the silence since Christmas. Been too busy watching the TV - ha ha!
But really, I composed a cute summary of all I've been up to on the way home from work on Tuesday. However, I went to the fridge for a wee snack before I typed it up, and was challenged to battle by the reigning champion vegetable - the cabbage! I bought a large red cabbage a while ago, and though I have been using it for dinner probably twice a week since then, they just don't go down in size! I can't imagine what you people do with a pot roast... I imagine the size of a pot roast from childhood as about the same as my large red cabbage; the cabbage that never ends. So, I took a quick walk to the store (it was +12C!) and bought wonton wrappers, fried up about 5 cups of cabbage with 1.5 cups arame seaweed, 6 garlic cloves, shoyu, mirin and a bit of apple cider vinegar and made dumplings - the whole wonton package (i think it's about 50 wraps).
Now, I have a freezer full of tasty snacks, but still have some cabbage!!! What do i do with this? I have about 3 cups worth still laughing at me from the fridge. Funny thing is, I bought the cabbage to use up the beets who were the last senior vegge in the case. I used up the beets, but now I'm thinking I need a big bag of potatoes to match the cabbage. Then, you know what that means - potato battle forthcoming...
Other than sharpening my knives I have been up to nothing much - reading, skiing, working. Sadly I have not been out snowboarding since before Christmas. January is the month of paying off the well-meant but poorly-timed visa bills of 2006. I mean to have a much more exciting life come February.

A new TV! - The Christmas Post

Ahh the Christmas post. First off: Christmas and I do not get along very well.
Receiving new things makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable.
So you can understand that when we got a new TV for Christmas, it was the cherry on top of the new house and the new car. Oy, 2006! I know I will get used to it, and I know that it was a good idea to move our old 'got it from a friend' TV downstairs to the basement to watch old bike race movies, but Christmas puts me in a bad mood about these things. I have to get over it. Christmas and I will have to reconcile one of these days.
Maybe it's the 'gifts for love' thing. I know my family loves me because I get good gifts? Hmmm... now I'm being silly. I love giving gifts; but I'm just such a chump when it comes to accepting them. But I did get great ones! Thank you all.
Back to the TV. It's not that I don't like the TV. It was a well thought out purchase, we even picked one with a super low wattage so not to waste untold energy while indulging our love of many HBO series. Jeff was checking out the output of smaller windmills to offset our unhealthy love (not a good deal at the moment - turbine technology has not made it to the suburbs), so we know exactly how much we sold our souls to the energy devil for. It is similar to leasing the car - eventhough it represents a whole new pile of materials and processes, the finished product is much more efficient than the old one. I'm naively hoping it all balances out? We were half joking that maybe we should set up the TV with bike power - it uses 107 watts, which is an output even I can sustain on the trainer for quite a while! (for you techno kids; it's a Toshiba LCD 32" using 107 watts (email me if you want the model details) - I'm putting this here because finding this info for comparison shopping was really difficult, so if any of you are thinking of a new TV, add these stats to your list).
Just to make my sister squirm - It's all good. (Haha!) The next post will be all about New Year, and most likely another "does my life have meaning?" type entry. Though today I figure, if I have time to question things, I'm probably doing just fine. Happy Holidays to all, and don't work too hard!

Dread Delayed

My first official snowboard lesson has been cancelled due to insane amounts of wind chill. Now I am sitting at home working on my annual Christmas craft. To do this I am sitting at the computer and I decided to listen to music. I thought I would put some of my old favorite cds on the puter here so that I could get them onto my ipod for the commuter soundtrack. This has caused me to discover that when I was young I knew people who could control the universe and concepts of time a we know it. My copy of King Cobb Steelie's You Said A Mouthful has a total playing time of 49:17:02:47. Wow! What is that? 49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes and 47 seconds? That is some long groove they've got going...

Dreading the Chairlift

Just in case knowing the weather here in Calgary isn't a number 1 issue for you, let me tell you - It's COLD here. This weekend I broke out the cross country skis, shoveled off the car and went to the hills. I lasted about 10 minutes (which may be exaggerating a bit). It was around -23 Celsius plus the wind chill. The bike trainer in the basement never looked so lovely. On Saturday afternoon (at about -22) I pulled the amateur move of walking the 7 minutes to and from the grocery store. I was bundled up and was enjoying the bracing cold, but I forgot one key scientific fact: lettuce does not do well in -22. Neither does celery, bananas, mushrooms, tomatoes or apples. Luckily my dinner was saved as the ice cream pulled through just fine! I know that when Jeff is away and I'm cooking for one my meals suffer, but a Sunday night of mostly tea and ice cream was particularly unique. On Monday the temp hit -28 with a wind chill of -42! When I successfully walked the 6 blocks from the bus stop I felt like I had accomplished something significant. I even called my mom to tell her of my latest extreme sport - bus commuting! This morning it was a balmy -20 again (warming up!) and I am faced with a looming dread - my first snowboarding lesson is tonight. Not only I have the 'first-ride-of-the-season-do-I-really-know-how-to-get-off-the-chairlift?' dread, I might just lose my nose to boot. I've researched it though and a comforting thought is that they shut down the chairlift at COP (here in town) when the wind chill gets below -30. Isn't that thoughtful. Yikes that's cold. And Jeff is missing the whole thing. Last night he called from his hotel room in some small town in Texas and left the comforting message that including the wind chill, there is 100 degrees Fahrenheit difference between us. He's been showing the pilots he's working with the snow reports for Sunshine and Lake Louise and they just simply don't believe it, and frankly I'm in a bit of denial myself! Thanks for the support, honey.

Getting out

Here are some photos of the last touchdown of the Roughriders in last week's game against the Stampeders. As you can see I was in the middle of a very very green section (plus, note the mesh backed hat). I went with a friend who had an extra ticket and it was so good to spend the afternoon at the football game. I had been travelling so much and sitting there I realised that I had really isolated myself. Surrounding yourself with crazy football fans really helps to put your life in order. Ha ha! I'll bet you've never read that in any self help books. Overall I remembered that don't go to big sports events not because I don't like sports (I do) but because I don't like sports fans. They are so strange! All those people who act en mass sort of freaks me out; it just can't be sane.

Other than that things are good. Jeff is working way more than when he was at the bike shop, but he's enjoying the challenge and hasn't really gotten cranky about it yet. Me, on the other hand, am finally looking at a drilling season that I think I'll be able to stay home for. Even before the whole income trust thing, the gas industry has really slowed down. There is very little capital development going on these days, or maybe it just seems low compared to the insane pace of the last two years. Luckily, at work we have many other projects and I am doing some surface water modelling. I'm taking a little air vacation and am going back to my first type of environmental fluid, water. I'm still friends with my hydrology TA and I emailed her to let her know that some of what I learned in school is actually now playing a big role in paying my mortgage. How very exciting. So kids, stay in school and only go to football games if you absolutely have to. :)

Never a dull day

As many of you know, since August I have been having a fairly positive email correspondence with a project team at the University of Postdam about doing a Phd. At the end of last week, the head researcher emailed to say that he wanted to speak one on one with me. We set up a time of 6 am Calgary time (2 pm Potsdam time) for yesterday (Wednesday). Sadly, the news he wanted to pass on to me was that he really liked my application/background and that I was one of the short-listed candidates on his end (good), but that the funder of this particular position had picked their own candidate without going through the University department. They had also shortened their portion of the Phd program from 36 to 30 months, which, as the Dr. said, is a 'sporty' approach to the process. He sounded very frustrated with the situation and I can sympathize with how hard it must be for him to get this project organized with 5 students and a multi-stakeholder funding group who still hold so much power over the project. So, as much I would have loved to work on the project, I am staying put in Calgary for a bit longer. It's a strange feeling at the moment; I have lost something I didn't have to begin with, through no fault of my own. All in all, things are going well for me out here, so the consolation prize is terrific! Never a dull day around here :)

A Great Leap Forward

September was quite a month! I have so many things I want to tell you all about but they will have to be in brief.
I started the month up north in Tumbler Ridge. Then, after just missing the labour day long weekend, I came back. Jeff was bumming around home, loafing between jobs, so when I took the next day, a Friday, off work, we headed to Rossland B.C. for a little mountain biking. OOOHH Boy. Those are some big hills they got there! That weekend I learned something about myself that probably won't surprise anyone; when I am exhausted (from climbing the biggest hill ever), I start to cry when I hear gunshots in the valley. Hunters make me cry. I guess I had over-looked one of the benefits of riding in k-country - there are no hunters. I'm not a fan of hunters.
So, we were back on town to go to work that Monday, and I was back working up north before the week ended. 5 days later I called Jeff from my in-transit hotel room to wish him a happy birthday (I have missed all his birthdays since moving to Calgary - oops!) and good luck on his first day of his new job! That's right folks, Jeff is no longer working with bikes. He is now using his degree, in a round about way, and has a classic Albertan job - high tech in the resource extraction industry. He's working with GPS/GIS combo units in a surveying/seismic implementation; driving big trucks down small roads and talking with smelly men. Second only to ranching. Ah Alberta!
The next two weeks saw me in Calgary (5 hours between flights), Vancouver (for work), then to Victoria (2-day weekend vacation), back to Calgary, off to Lake Louise, a working weekend in Canmore and then it was October.
After this long introduction I'll get to the meat of this update - drum roll please - I turned 30. Ta da! Jeff and I had gone to see Billy Bragg in town the week before and he had some excellent new songs about how just because we are all so much older it doesn't mean we can't still be cool. It was inspirational (if anyone can find a bootlegged version of The Clash Fan Fight Song I would be very interested in having a copy). The day of my birthday, I brought a bottle of champagne to my work meeting - it was Saturday the 30th and I was turning 30, so me and my 10 co-workers ended the days business with a little bubbly. We then proceeded to drink a bunch at dinner and following with my boss buying tequila shots, and I ended up going to bed before midnight, because gosh-darned-it, now I'm old and I was tired! Haha.
That was two weekends ago and then this past weekend I was in Nebraska with my mom, her sisters, my sister, my cousins (who are sisters) and did a road trip tour of the family roots. I met my grandma's sister, her daughter, the daughters of my cousins (who are sisters) and all in all there were lots of women everywhere! Sure there were uncles and husbands and sons, but it was the sisters who made it cool. Isn't that always the case? Haha again.
In all this travelling, in all these airports (btw - I am currently in Toronto), I have been waxing philosophic about what it all means, what is life's goal, what is important about getting older, and so on and so forth (mostly to myself to the relief of my travel companions I'm sure!). Although I am a big proponent of reading a lot, not reinventing the wheel, learning from others, etc., I am fascinated that this line of thought is so individual that we all must truly go through it as our own individual. I don't know what my life will be, I don't know if you all will be proud of me for living it, but I do know that I try to do everything with my eyes open, my heart open, and my mind open. Recently I have talked with so many different people who lead such different lives than mine. I loved hearing about their lives, their mistakes and successes, their passions and frustrations, and it worked to calm me. Not knowing the master-plan makes you free to do what you like, from hog farming to world travelling. Really, if someone could tell me now exactly what my next 30 years will be like I think I would childishly plug my ears - Na na na, I can't hear you!

Intense (In Tents)

My experience at 24 hrs of Adrenaline ended well. It was the part in the middle that was hard to deal with. I raced on a 5 woman team, one of whom had raced in 2004, and the rest of us were completely new to mtb racing. The mix made for a great group dynamic, with just enough 'of course you can do it!' to off set the 'oh my god what am I doing?!?' with a little of 'if she can do it, I can do it' thrown in. The plan was to have each rider do three laps, and the rotation would give us about 6 hours between rides to eat, rest and recover. Pretty straight forward, right?

Our first rotation went really well. All of us rode our first lap in daylight and we all had reasonably similar lap times. Eating was a hard thing to balance and I felt a little unsettled while riding my first lap but really, I think it was just nerves. Nerves are something I didn't really give enough credit. I had pre-rode the 14.5 km loop on Wednesday, and the technical part on Monday as well, but stick me on a course with dozens of other riders and time me, and I seem to loose perspective. I rested as much as I could before my night lap (scheduled midnight to 1:30 am). Unfortunately I am not an experienced night rider, and I think I just pushed myself too hard. At around 6km I had a bit of a bike accident and lost my meager dinner onto the trail from a hit to the stomach. Not so nice. I sat out at the checkpoint for a short while, but the unhappy prospect of getting back on and riding seemed to greatly outweigh any benefit I would feel at finishing my lap; or so it seemed at the time. So, I quit. Yes, I quit. I got a ride back to the campsite in a pickup truck and we were down a lap.

Back at the tent ranch the few women who were awake made the instant decision that we were just going to keep up with the rotation and not try to send out someone for a 4th lap to gain our place back. I think trying to decide at 1:30 am if you want to ride even harder is a pretty quick process; riding vs. sleep, sleep wins. To keep perspective, I have to remember that the fast racers who are doing 6 or more laps each are much fitter and faster and therefore are probably not necessarily putting out much more effort than us novices. After I was able to keep a bit of easy food in my stomach (5 corn ships) I climbed in my tent and defiantly (selfishly) did not set my alarm for my last lap.

I woke up when I was ready and the woman riding right before me was just getting ready to leave, so I had about an hour and a half to get ready to ride. I was grumpy! But, I knew I at least had to try. Because of my night ride mishap, my team had taken a break just before dawn so that no one would have to do more than one night lap. With this offset, I did not start my morning lap until 9:30. The trick with 24 hr races is that if your rider gets back before 11 am, you have to send one last person out. In light of this, I was tasked with taking at least 1 hr and 30 minutes for my lap as everyone was either overtired or injured and I was the last one of us is any reasonable condition to ride. (yeah, no dinner, no breakfast, twitchy stomach = best shape to ride) I had to stay out longer than 11 am.

Racing with a 'must stay out as long as I can' attitude is really great! I was chatting with the solo racers, not stressing out about the rooty bits, stopping to catch my breath, and having a great old time! With noting in my stomach but a banana, I had 1/2 a clif shot at the top of the first long hill and I think the sugar and caffeine were critical in keeping my mood so great. I finished my lap in 1 hr and 36 minutes, just 5 minutes slower than my first lap and way happier. All 5 of us ended the race happy and accompished.

Jeff was racing too and came in third. He prides himself on having no stories; no technical issues, no injuries, no illness, just great consistent lap times. He was between 50 min and 63 min for all 6 of his laps.

Overall I learned that racing is strange and I'm not a big fan, but it makes you feel awesome when you finish. Even if you come in last! I'm sure I will be convinced to race again sometime, but at the moment I am not registering for anything. Fresh air and friends are what I want when I ride. This weekend I had the fresh air and the great friends and apparently my 6 month rotation on bike injury. Good times.

Ladies getting dirty in Golden

Summers are bad times for blogs; updates are few and far between. Since the July long weekend I have been doing the usual stuff - hiking biking, reading and sleeping (oh yeah, and working too). For the August long, a friend from Vancouver was visiting and most of our big adventure plans got sidetracked as she had developed a bad infection. It's funny though how catching up on each others lives can make a long weekend fly by! Jeff was away for the Transrockies race so it was just us girls.
Jeff did not race Transrockies this year and I did not take the week off either. From chatting last night once we were both home, I think he was quite happy to not have to wake up in the rain and start racing.
This past weekend, myself and four Spin Sisters (a local MTB club) went to Golden to ride. It was originally going to be many more of us, but the difference between 'interested' and 'committed' to going turned out to be quite big. In the end it was great to have a smaller group. A friend in Golden agreed to lead us on her favorite trails and ended up organizing many more women to join in the ride. Here is what I posted as a summary on the Spin Sister's site:
"On Saturday, my friend and guide organized an excellent group for a long ride up the canyon creek trail. We were a little nervous as a few of her friends were joining us, visiting from Nelson, and were sporting downhilling rigs and full face helmets. What were we getting ourselves into?! Luckily, that's just Nelson style, and once we got to the top of the canyon it was a satisfying 'blue run' all the way down and out with a few small stunts near the end (easily avoidable). We had a few seat height adjustments and a busted chain to contend with (totally do-able!) and only one injury. Unfortunately it was our guide! She popped her shoulder out, got it back in and rode out, but our Sunday plans were certainly changed."
"The next day, we all learned a valuable lesson - do not got to a beautiful gourmet brunch before riding! Hoping to get our bikes on the lifts we headed to the ski hill for the brunch special at the top of the hill. Unfortunately the bikes were a no-go, so after brunch we did some old-school cross-country following the ski trails at the bottom next to the hill. There were no set trails and lots of bear poo, so we wooped and hollered and had a grand old time dodging fallen trees. No incidences and no injuries, but some serious overeating regrets."
Good times were had by all.
This weekend is my first race - the 24 hrs in Canmore. Yikes! What a way to start racing eh? I promise I will post a run down of that adventure as soon as I can next week. One crazy thing is that Jeff is racing too. He's racing with a capital 'R', really wanting to place well. Personally, I'm going to be super proud of myself if I; a) don't back out last minute, b) ride my three assigned laps without over sleeping for the night ride, and c) don't get a concussion! I'm an easy girl to please...

Redneck Holiday

Lo and behold, a miracle happened on Canada Day Weekend - Jeff had all three days off work! To celebrate, we finally rented a truck and drove the Trunk Road (and others) up to Jasper. These are roads that I drive for work, so I was more than happy to let Jeff man the wheel. Friday night I ditched book club (sorry!) and we went to Burnt Timber Prov. Park, just over 100 km from town. Of the 7 campsites there, 3 were empty - and this is just over an hour outside Calgary on a holiday long weekend! Where does everyone else go? It was nice that the parks we stopped at weren't crowded (until we got to Jasper), but what is wrong with people these days?
Saturday we stopped for lunch at Ram Falls, just south of Nordegg, then continued north up the Trunk Road until we turned left to follow the Cardinal River. Although the route wasn't packed with people, every river and creek we passed had one or two trucks next to it with people standing in the river. Not a river was left empty! I had no idea that an Albertan's definition of fun is standing in a river - and a surprizing minority of these people had fishing poles.. what were all the others doing?
Late Saturday afternoon we tried 'green lane'-ing to get to a campground but got the rental truck into a bit of trouble. Luckily Jeff maneuvered well enough to avoid causing any visible damage and we headed back to the Trunk Road, amounting to a small 3 hour detour. Sunday we partook of Jasper tourist fun (hot springs, waterfalls, black bears, glacier walking) and poached a camp site along Abraham Lake. On Monday we quit the dirt roads and took the highway the 4 hours home. All in all, the 5 hour drive to Jasper took us a good 2 days and left us with a very very dirty truck. Good times had by all :)

Catch up with last week's fun

For all of you holding your breath, I did not do the Castle Mt. traverse; the leader was sick and cancelled the day. But I met a great woman from Zurich in the parking lot as the group disbanded (she was one of the group. No, I don't go picking up women in gas station parking lots at 6 am on Sunday mornings - haha). We went to Mt. Indefatigable and meant to scramble up to the south peak. We go onto the 'wrong' trail, but it was great anyway. Passing through a bowl and tarn (snowmelt lake at the base of a mountain bowl) we hit the east shoulder and there was a scramble either up to the north peak or a slightly lower east high point. We went east; I like the mountains, but I'm not really a peak bagger yet! We had great weather, great views, and we beat the weekend mountain rush by starting so early.

The next day, I went to ride the lower Powderface loop with two friends. This is my new summer loop. Last year I rode one Jumpingpound loop 4 or 5 times over the summer and it was great to judge my learning curve. I figure lower Powderface will do for this year's training track. There are some serious climbs and a few good water crossings, neither of which I'm any good at so far...

Then last week my mom came to visit! On Wednesday, two of her PhD students joined the two of us for an afternoon trail ride. If you are looking for a trail ride in the foothills I strongly recommend AnchorD, the horses were very well behaved but without seeming like depressed trail ride horses. Three hours in a saddle is definitely all my muscles can handle - what a weird feeling! There was a lot of walking, some trotting and once or twice a little canter. The scenery was beautiful, the conversations lovely and our guide keep signing bob marley; a relaxing adventure. I have pictures from mom's camera, but I do not look lovely on the back of a horse, so you may never get to see them... I'm thinking it over.

Weekend Warrior it seems

This weekend Jeff and I were planning on renting a truck and driving up the Forestry trunk road all the way to Jasper for a little sightseeing, camping and hiking. Unfortunately, Jeff's schedule changed and he has to work on Saturday. So, with a weekend day to myself I started to cast around for activities in the mountains. With bear activity and whatnot, people recommend that you have a group of 6 or more to do any of the hikes between Banff and Lake Louise. Sadly, that would be everyone I know who likes hiking to all be free on the same day! I asked around, but wasn't surprised when that wasn't the case.

I decided that if I didn't have my own friends, I'd have to pay for some - Haha. Really though, I checked out the trail hikes, scrambles, traverses and glacier hikes listed for this weekend at the University of Calgary Outdoors Center. After getting to the top of Yamnuska on the long weekend, I've been really excited about testing my limits with more technical scrambles. I'm not really sure if it was the right decision, but tomorrow at 6:00 am I am leaving to meet a group for a traverse route of Castle Mountain in Banff. We're having lunch at the hut - http://alpineclubofcanada.ca/facility/castle.html

I am very happy that I am not trying this on my own. There will be 5 of us with a trained guide and I think all of them are more climbers than hikers. The weather forecast is for cloudy with sunny spots, high of 14C and no rain. Hopefully perfect weather - no bad sunburn, but not too cold either. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Most likely. I will bring my camera and post the proof on Sunday.