Alouette Lake: Finding Franklin
When is summer officially over? Is it at the end of August? Is it after Labour Day, when the kids go back to school? Is it on September 21st, when autumn officially begins? Or is it on the last weekend when you can still happily wear shorts, go on a weekend bike tour, and swim in a beautiful lake? This year it felt especially important to keep summer going as long as possible.
So in early October we found ourselves packed up and ready to go on a very local overnight bike tour, but still in an area that was completely new to us. It was the suburbs of Vancouver – Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge, and camping by Alouette Lake. We invited our friends Iris and Yuval to join us quite spontaneously two days before, and since we share the same background, spontaneity is something that is not foreign to them, so they happily agreed.
We started the trip riding the very nice dyke trails of Pitt Meadows. It was an abnormally warm day for October and many people were out and about – walking, biking or kayaking. We noticed a bald eagle up a tall tree, looking down at us. We passed by a few pumpkin patches which seemed full of people. Apparently going to a pumpkin patch is THE thing to do this season. We realized we never actually been to a pumpkin patch…
After 20 kilometers or so the kids needed a break. Neil rode all the way but was getting very hungry. Luckily Maple Ridge Park wasn’t too far away so we made our way there. We had a nice lunch and the kids enjoyed the playground, although Neil still enjoyed climbing a tree stump the most, rather than the actual play equipment…
Then there was a less nice section along a pretty busy road. At this point Neil wanted a break from riding which was perfect timing. On the side of the road there was a pile of free stuff. It seemed like a big pile of junk, but our eyes were drawn to a stuffed animal, Franklin the Turtle. In the past year or so Neil developed a special admiration for the Franklin books. I have to say that we like them a lot too. There are lots of books and each book is on a different topic that’s very relevant to the world of kids of this age.
Neil could just not leave this Franklin stuffy on the side of the road. It became his favourite for sure and he has slept with it every night ever since. A few days later we started talking about plans for Halloween and I asked Neil what would he like to dress up as. The answer was Franklin, of course, which led to a few busy weeks of finding items and preparing a shell (thankfully his grandmother was around to help out with that one!).
We tried to follow the 123 Bikeway as much as we could and Neil was back on his bike riding just before a big descent. Then we arrived at a women’s jail, which raised a whole series of questions about what jails are for, what do people eat in the jail, and why they are there in the first place. From there we followed a dirt road which cars cannot get on for about six kilometers till we arrived at the almost deserted campground.
It was pretty surprising to find a well-maintained campground, with an outhouse and food cages and basically no information online about it. We hung out by the lake and even went for a swim. It was a beautiful evening and there weren’t many people around. Across the lake from us we could see a much busier beach, accessible by car of course. Our friend Yuval kept the kids entertained with his new toy, a drone.
The night was peaceful, at least for us, but our friends who camped closer to the other group complained about loud music late into the night. I guess we were too tired to be bothered by it and I was just thankful that Kai slept well during the night.
The next morning it felt like the season had changed overnight. It wasn’t the sunny summerlike weather we had experienced the day before. Rather, it was grey and chilly and the lake was foggy and mysterious. We had a relaxed morning before we headed out, back on the logging road, and then on the road. We managed to follow the 123 Bikeway even more than the day before, avoiding main roads completely. The trip would have been completely smooth if we hadn’t been yelled at by a driver in a pickup truck – “why are you taking up the whole damn road?!”. Riding through the suburban streets of Maple Ridge we noticed many houses already being decorated for Halloween. It definitely wasn’t summer anymore.
