• Category Archives day by day
  • This is the category closest to just being a plain diary. Places I go, things I do, people I see, what’s happening in my life.

  • Monday: The Road To Jasper

    Posted on by Don

    This is the second in a series of posts about our bicycling trip down the Icefield Parkway, through Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta, Canada. The full series can be found here.

    We got up, not early not late, and had breakfast with our hosts Rod and Ivy. We chatted some more, and got to know them better over breakfast: they were from Manitoba originally, moved to Alberta to become farmers/ranchers and raise their kids, then moved to Calgary to run a business with friends for a few years before retiring. Good people, and they had some interesting stories (about themselves and the area), and they also gave us some good advice: Rod has a brother who used to live near Jasper; he used to travel that way often and knew a better, more easterly route than our plan of simply driving backwards up our bike route. It would be less direct but would involve easier highway driving, and we wouldn’t spoil the surprise of our bike route — an important consideration!

    We left them with many thanks, did some last-minute shopping, and finally hit the road, with one last stop at this Canadian icon:

    Fueling Up!

    Coffee and donuts at Tim Horton’s! We felt very Canadian, but probably blew any cred we had by taking tourist selfies in front of the local gas station…

    But we were ready now, and we settled in for our seven hour drive. (We took Rod’s advice.) Most of the way, we were in beautiful but flat farmland, then slowly it became beautiful, rolling farms and forests, and then finally we could see the mountains ahead of us and the scenery started getting dramatic. We also had a moose sighting when it ambled across the road in front of us. (We hear moose sightings are rare, but bear sightings are… not.) The moose escaped the camera eye, but here are some photos taken from the latter part of the drive:

    Once we got into town we found the hostel, which was fairly new, and modern, and basically awesome. The first thing we saw were a bunch of elk hanging out in the yard; the guy at the front desk told us they’d called the park to shoo them away, but we didn’t mind as long as we all left each other alone (they can be dangerous, especially ewes with young, like this group). We gave them a wide berth until they moved on, but I did get some pictures:

    We got ourselves settled in to our rooms, finished building our bikes, ran a bunch of errands — we had to buy fuel for our camp stoves, bear repellent spray (yikes!) and a few other things we couldn’t take on an airplane, among other things — then grabbed burgers and beers outside at a brewpub, while the sky remained light until well after 10:00.

    That Evening Sun

    We’ve arrived!


  • Sunday: Travel Day

    Posted on by Don

    This is the first in a series of posts about our bicycling trip down the Icefield Parkway, through Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta, Canada. The full series can be found here.

    This day had a lot of moving parts…

    It started the night before. We finished packing our bikes (and everything else), and then met Julie at the rental place to get our ground transportation, a huge pickup truck we rented one way for the trip to JFK. (This got Ben off the hook — he’d come up to be our backup driver in case the truck rental feel through.) We all trooped up the block afterward, to John & Donna’s, where Doug & Lori were porch-visiting, to say our hellos and goodbyes.

    Loading Bikes

    We got up in the morning, ate our breakfast and loaded the bikes, then said our goodbyes to Ben. We were giving our friend’s daughter Emma a ride to the airport with us, so she was our next pick-up; the last stop before we hit the road for real was Julie’s house.

    Ready To Roll

    Next came the drive to JFK. I can’t say that this part of the trip was pleasant exactly, but I’ve experienced worse on the Verrazano and the Belt Parkway, and the truck was easier to drive than I expected. We were there, with the truck returned and our stuff unloaded in front of the departures terminal, in just under three hours.

    Checking in the bikes went pretty smoothly (not surprising — we might not have ever done this before, but it was old hat to the airline), ditto security and boarding. And then we sat on the runway for an hour and a half before we took off. Something something, NYC airspace closures and backups…

    That put us way behind schedule, and when we finally we arrived at our Warm Showers hosts (after baggage, customs, midnight bike assembly in the airport, getting our next rental, and travel through Calgary) it was after 2:00 AM. Thank goodness they were sweethearts, and gracious, and they’d waited up for us. We chatted with them for a bit, then crashed and slept like the dead.


  • I Drive The Big Rigs!

    Well, it’s only a few more days until we’re off for Jasper and Banff. Bikes are disassembled and packed, clothes and camping gear are (mostly) packed, and we only have a few things left to take care of before we go.

    I’ve got the bike dialed in, and all the new things I need are now installed. Here’s a picture of me with my new “high visibility” panniers after I put the front rack on. Anne and I did a ride out to Wegmans, going the “long way” (via the Nor-Bath Trail) and I got my first real test ride with a loaded bike. Easy peasy! (Our actual loads on the trip will be quite a bit more than that, but I got the idea.)

    Milk Run

    One last major task I have to do is send my laptop back to System76 to get the hinge fixed. I want this done when I’m not around to miss the computer, and shipping it back is almost the last thing I’ll do before leaving.

    Blogging will be pretty sparse for a few weeks, but stay tuned…


  • More Whirlwind

    Posted on by Don

    Morning weigh-in: 167.5#, 13% BF (so close!)

    The busy days are continuing: we hosted a Warm Showers guest overnight Tuesday, Anne left Wednesday for DC (museum-hopping with Lorraine and and her grandkids — she’ll be back home tomorrow), I’m running around “putting the chess pieces on the chess board” and planning for our big Canadian Rockies trip, and in between has been riding, and cello, and… well, everything else…

    I had my cello lesson yesterday, then went to the Canal Museum for the afternoon. Last night Julie G and I sat down with a bunch of maps and guides — we had the Lonely Planet book open in front of us, and the Adventure Cycling maps, but I also downloaded the electronic version of the map the other day (more about that some other time) — and we got the first few days of our bike ride planned out.

    This morning I got some yardwork and food shopping done, and then got in a short, sweet afternoon road ride — Williams Township and Hellertown but still pretty mellow. My front rack came today, and so did my bike bags. Installation will have to wait until tomorrow: I’m meeting John & Donna on Southside.


  • Out And About

    Posted on by Don

    It’s been a whirlwind of a Memorial Day Weekend…

    We went out Friday night, met Jennifer & Sean for some wings at The Keystone Pub, then we all went up the street to meet Yana and her boyfriend Evan at Big Woody’s. The food didn’t agree with me — don’t know what it might have been, I made poor food choices at both places — but we had a good time.

    On Saturday Anne and I got in a good ride: we went to Easton to help CAT with a booth at the big bike race celebration (in other news, Easton now has an annual “Twilight Criterium” on Memorial Day Weekend), but we got into town just before the rain started and we were trapped at the Easton Market for about two hours while it absolutely dumped outside. Oh well, coffee and bakery items, and people-watching, and then Mr. Lee’s Noodles for lunch… Scott and Jennifer C eventually joined us after the CAT booth closed up, and we all took advantage of clearing skies to bike back together. We got home just as the next downpour started.

    Later we went over to the Rose Garden for the Saturday Evening Concert. We saw Larry & Joyce, Mark & Sarah, and a whole bunch of other people including tons of little kids splashing in the puddles. We ended the night at our neighbor Josh’s fire-pit, along with with neighbors John, Matt, and Scott & Kellyn.

    Sunday was another ride for me, north on the towpath to explore the improvement work they’re doing. (Looks good, but I’m going to miss those wilder paths.)

    Now we’re getting ready to head over to Somerville to watch the big annual bike race with Joe & Laura and hopefully Ben.

    Enjoy a safe and happy Memorial Day! Remember those who gave their all.


  • Time To Face The Music

    Posted on by Don

    I’m slowly getting back in the swing of cello things: I played duets with Donna on Tuesday, and yesterday was my first lesson in probably a month. I thought I played well, for both the lesson and the duets — I’d been practicing since we got home, so I didn’t expect to stay rusty — but I was pretty tired after each one.

    Meanwhile: We haven’t done quartets in a while, and my ensemble is on hiatus for the summer, and the music studio I go to is about to close (the owners are retiring).

    That is all.


  • Can’t Beat The Heat

    Posted on by Don

    Two rides, two days: yesterday was a Freemansburg/Hellertown hill ride, and today Anne and I rode to Easton to brunch with Judy. Both rides were sunny, with 90-plus temperatures, and I am now wasted. Eighty nine miles for the (abbreviated) ride week though, so I feel pretty good.

    (Things could be worse: Denver just got a ton of snow — Emmi actually invoked the “more than 6 inches fell” rule and made sticky buns. At least it waited until we were gone this time…)

    Thunderstorms should be blowing in tonight, and tomorrow should be a bit cooler. Towpath?


  • Denver, And Departure

    Posted on by Don

    Well, we’re home. We flew to Philly yesterday and rented a car to get the rest of the way — hard to believe, but that’s probably the easiest way to get between PHL and here. We were home in time to vote, but there’s no food here, the grass was ( was! ) a foot tall when we drove up, and the car had trouble after sitting for two weeks — it sounds like something is broken and clanking inside one of the wheels, no idea how that could have happened just sitting there. But now the car’s been towed to the shop, the lawn has been tamed, my first load of laundry is done and I’m gearing up for a bike ride, my first ride in two weeks…

    Our time back in Denver after Colorado Springs was not too crazy, we just stayed in a nice hotel downtown and did some exploring: we saw the Denver Art Museum, and visited the REI “flagship store,” and watched the lunar eclipse from the fancy rooftop bar we could see from our hotel window. We’d returned the rental, so we did everything on foot, except for one time, when we rented those electric scooters we saw everywhere. (Sorry, no photos!) We did see Emmi & Kyle for dinner a few more times, and also managed to get together for an afternoon with my nephew Chris.

    For completeness, here the are photos from the final phase of our trip:

    And that was our trip!


  • Florissant Fossil Beds

    Posted on by Don

    Our trip today was up into the mountains, out near Cripple Creek to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. This was a place where, 34 million years ago, a lake/creek area was buried by volcanic activity — all these giant redwoods were buried to about 15 feet or so, and what was buried got fossilized while what was above rotted away. (All sorts of other plants, as well as fish, insects, and small mammals, were fossilized as well.) Fast forward to about 50 years ago, and this area was saved from development and the national monument was born…

    This was a really fun and spectacularly beautiful way to spend the day, and afterward we stopped for a late lunch on the way home.

    This is our last night in Colorado Springs; tomorrow we head back up to Denver for the final leg of our trip.