Princeton-Tulameen Loop: An All-Canadian Weekend
On the week leading to Canada Day we hosted a family with two kids through Warmshowers who intended to bike from Vancouver to Montreal, where they are from. While crossing Canada by bike never really appealed to me personally (although I do admire this family for trying), I love exploring different areas of Canada by bike on much shorter trips. And what’s a better time to explore your own country (or your adoptive country) than on its national holiday? We left on Friday, stopped for lunch in the not so impressive town of Abbotsford and carried on till Princeton which felt very long because of traffic, and also just because…
Brew Hut: Dilemmas in the Mountains
Staying at a hut now poses us with a dilemma: is it right for us to subject other hut-goers to spending a weekend with our toddler (as great as he is)? On the one hand, surely we should not be constrained to stay away from huts just since we have a toddler. Don’t we have as much right as anyone else to share a mountain hut? then there’s the fact that there are plenty of hut-goers that are even less polite or considerate than a toddler. On the other hand, it’s perfectly understandable if other people would like to spend a quiet weekend out in the mountains, away from their kids…
Quarry Rock: The Trial Hike
Quarry Rock is a nice hike when we want to experiment with our abilities. We first went there with Gili’s dad when I was still recovering from my broken arm injury five years ago. We also went up there when I was about 37 weeks pregnant and I remembered it to be very long and challenging. Then we went there again last year with Neil in the carrier and finally we went there once again a few weeks ago to test Neil’s hiking abilities. Hiking season is upon us and Neil is getting heavier. We are not sure how far we’ll manage to hike this summer if Gili needs to carry…
Washington and Idaho: Hail, Warmshowers and Sunshine
Our trips are known for their rocky starts. So we were not surprised when we were all packed and ready to go on our first four day ride when it started hailing and blowing winds like in the Wizard of Oz. We both looked at each other and we knew that this ride was not going to happen and we should come up with a Plan B. In fact this whole trip was a Plan B. We were actually planning to go to Oregon and cycle some of the Scenic Bikeways we haven’t done already. However, when Gili went to pick up the rental car (we don’t own a car at…
New Zealand: Cycling the Wild Far North
Some people know how to take a vacation. They book a week or ten days in a resort or a hotel, spend some time on the beach, eat well and have a good time. Or they travel in style to Europe, hopping between ten cities in ten days, seeing all the important sights. For some reason we are not those people. Some years ago we became addicted to cycle touring, and having a kid hasn’t seemed to change it so far. There is something about travelling slow and into the unknown that just appeals to us. So I guess when we chose New Zealand as our winter travel destination we…
Victoria: A Wet Ride and a Warm Stay
On the last weekend in November, literally hours before selling our car, we headed to Victoria for the weekend. Of course, the car only served us to reach Tsawwassen – from there we were on our bikes, as usual. We had about 7 km to ride to the ferry terminal and our mission was to keep Neil awake so he would fall asleep on the other side. That included leaving his trailer open and it was very cold. He wasn’t the happiest camper, but once we arrived to the Kids Zone on the ferry everything was better again. Those Kids Zones have proved themselves to be very useful. After getting…
Seattle: Post Election Weekend of Urban Cycling Exploration
It was a stressful week with the US elections taking over everything and everywhere. For some reason, not in my worst nightmares, did I ever think Donald Trump would become the next president. I followed the elections a little bit (because how could you not), and after the second debate I just decided that there was no way this bully was going to win. I guess I am still an optimist inside, but sometimes you just fall on your face. We still decided to go ahead with our plans to go to Seattle for the long weekend. So the atmosphere on the streets wouldn’t be as cheerful as we hoped, but…
France: Cycling in the Place Where You Can’t Go Wrong
We heard from several people that “you can’t go wrong” when going to France. However it seemed that in the beginning everything was going wrong. We arrived early in the morning to Paris after hardly getting any sleep on the flight. The flight was long but went well. We had an extra seat for Neil so it was a lot easier than to hold him on our lap the whole time. I discovered a while ago (or rather, he discovered) that stickers keep him busy for a long time, so I bought a dollar store worth of stickers to take with us on the flight. I think that by the…
Yellow Aster Butte: 24 Hours Car-to-Car
Sometimes everything goes smoothly. After a few ordeals on trips this summer, this is not something to be taken for granted. After we got our car back from the mechanic in Whistler, we both felt it was time for a weekend hike, and we decided on Yellow Aster Butte, a place we had been to a few years ago. We left Vancouver pretty late, ensuring that we all got a good night’s sleep. There was a lot of traffic, a bit of a wait at the border and then we took a long break at the ranger station in Glacier to pick up a parking permit and blue bags (to collect our poo).…
Welch Peak: Uncomfortably Numb
We had spent the last few hours scrambling along a narrow ridge. The rock was rotten, every boulder seemingly just waiting for one of us to free it, such that it could roll down the mountain side. Every now and then we came across a snowy section, where we took out our ice axes, which we hoped would allow us to arrest a fall. I was tense and nervous. Images of my friends who had been hurt or died in the mountains in the last few years were haunting me. I noticed my stress levels rising, and took a few deep breaths. Why was I here, in this place where…
