The Piranha Brothers: Rain, rides, crash & a sunny stroll.

Tuesday's ride was preceded by my bike getting a well deserved clean - not that it was worth it in the end - & the start of the ride to the Benchlands area on the other side of the Bow Valley was punctuated with snain/hail again. As it was an after work ride, it wasn't overly ambitious & the rain curtailed the loop a bit, as the roots got slipperier & slipperier. Still it was a pleasant ride, not too cold & the trail interesting. Going down the last downhill before Cougar Creek I got a little wayward when my front wheel slid on a parallel root & ended up shoulder barging a tree. The tree didn't move too much - just as well it was my slightly better shoulder & it didn't do any damage.

Wednesday I just remember it raining a lot at work, Thursday quite a bit too. It wasn't too cold, in a T-shirt all day - even for the long walks to the garbage skips. Once inside again, we would dry off soon enough. But all that sogginess did put a bit of a damper on Zara's new found keenness for football (soccer in this country) - our Thursday night kick around was put off a week. The weekend got off to a start that lived up to the forecast of sun & warmth (finally). Friday evening was a cracker & Alex, James & I headed up for a lap of the Orange Circuit at the Nordic Center. It was still a little slippery on the roots & a little muddy in patches, but nothing that posed too much of a concern. It must be noted that I've adopted "hey-up" (pronounced more as "hey-oop") as my advance warning system for bears. I'm pretty sure it was someone at NZ Steel who used to say that a lot - perhaps Jamie brought it over from Pommyland - anyway, it's a good call to let bears know I'm coming so as not to surprise them too much.

Today's weather was as beautiful as promised & after getting up much too late - I was shocked to first wake at about six after only five hours sleep, so I watched a bit of the World Cup lying in bed before going back to sleep. I love World Cup time, so much football to watch - the goal that England conceded today against the States was pretty funny too. I also seem to have got hooked watching the rest of the BBC series Luther (I saw the first two while I was still in London) today - lots of good London sights to spot & just general Englishness to remind me of my time there. I'm just waiting for the fourth episode for today (the last in the series) to finish downloading - it may be a later night again.

With Megan only about [mmmm, Alex just bought me a train wreck of a waffle covered in Nutella] nine weeks from due date, our hike today was a little less ambitious than the previous three weekends. I wasn't complaining though, at least I shouldn't be walking around for half the week at work with a strained achilles. We drove up in to K-Country (Kananaskis) north of Canmore (& site of my last shoulder dislocation, incidentally) past parking lots full of cars near Ha Ling & the Goat Creek Trail up past the lower Spray Lake. It was a gentle amble up to West Wind Pass - only about 350 metres of altitude gain & even at our pace we were only walking up for seventy-five minutes. It was nice & warm, if a little breezy at the pass. Here are a few pictures to end my rambling.