The Sunshine Coast

It was my birthday, I rode my bike, and we had a brief adventure:

It's not an adventure unless you have a banana.

This is safe, right?

Someone has been taught to smile at cameras.

So beached.

Business time

Tomorrow Lina becomes a teacher in a school again. Two weeks later, I will become a medical writer, in a medical writer's office crevice again. In the meantime this has happened. It turns out they really do grow...

Month one

Month two

Self explanatory

You get the theme I think

Clever, right?

Different chair, just to keep you thinking.

Ok, we forgot to take the picture in the red chair. I can tell you're not fooled.

Month Eight

If only I could, I'd be riding up that hill.

In fact, I was.

Here's a picture to commemorate that both yesterday morning and this morning I rode a bike up a hill and down again. There was even some moderate exhilaration experienced. Good times indeed.

Despite riding the same trail on the same bike as this video, I didn't make it look much like he did. Perhaps I have the wrong kind of socks.

Insert imaginative title here (thanks)

We're off to Hood River today for some kind of standing-up-on-the-board paddle race whatnot. Don't ask me what that's all about. But, before that here are some pictures of things that actually happened already,

Inspired by Yongchuan style, here was Tav's effective but short-lived sun shade. Now we need a new umbrella.

We hiked up to Spectrum Lake, which seems to be the family camping hotspot of the nearly-Monashee region. You heard it here first.

We'll be back here I hope.

In Tav news, the eating of everything continues apace, and he can bash himself in the head with a cup now.

The kitchen has come on a bit, though the to-do list seems to keep getting longer. Maybe that's because I just started writing it.

You get the idea - it's a kitchen.

Progress report

Brace yourself, here it comes - fast and furious. Well, not actually furious.

Shoulder progress:
I rode a bike today. It was a mountain bike, on the road. My back tire felt a bit soft. That's about all I have to report on that. Oh, I do have full range of motion back now, which makes me really appreciate how fulfilling a full range of motion is. I can even use the indicators now when I drive.

Kitchen progress:
Chris came to visit, hoping to ride his bike. Instead of any of that fun I persuaded him to help me drywall the kitchen. SUCCESS.

Watch out if you come a-visiting, there may be a catch.

Then the men in white came and mudded it while we were in Vancouver, I some painting, some (hopefully correct) wiring, put glue and stuff all over the floor, and we now have this:

Looks almost like somewhere you'd want to hang out - which is after all the idea.

Stand Up Paddleboard racing progress:
I haven't done any obviously. However, Lina raced in Tofino whilst I was cajoling Chris into helping we with the kitchen and then Vancouver (technically Surrey). The Canadian national championships were in Tofino, then The Champion of the Crescent race with a bonus trip to Ikea to spend all the money Lina hadn't won yet. Hmm. Lina did win, and we scurried back to Vernon with some reasonably prices Swedish-style goods and having caught up with the Vancouver crowd.

Tav, nonplussed with the attention of Danny Ching - a very famous man if you're into SUP. I can see he's going to be a free thinker (and the greatest child ever of course).

Tav progress:
Tav enjoys his food. Tav's powers of differentiation between food and non-food items could use some refinement though. Currently, anything that he can pull towards his mouth is considered fair game for eating, which probably isn't going to change for a while I guess. Hopefully he'll have a strong immune system as a result. Luckily he can't move yet, though it looks like he's not far away from that. Time to make those doors for the sink cupboard...

Report ends.

Aftermath

We're back from the Yukon (old news), so here are some forgotten photos. Lina and Tav have just left to go have fun in Tofino whilst I get along with kitchen renovation and shoulder healing activities (possible incompatible). It turns out when I rode my new-to-me bike into a tree in Whitehorse I tore something. Riding my bike again afterwards probably didn't help with that. On the bright side I know a physio from mountain biking, so I guess what riding bikes taketh, it also giveth back. 

The new bicycle in question, being pushed around a lake.

Tav, enjoying his first campfire

The Purple Princess, who would be enjoying the campfire if bikes had feelings.

Now follows a series of gratuitous camping photos from our journey home. For the record, this idyllic spot is where Tav's stroller tire and my bike's brake rotor suffered damage from an inquisitive bear. I was considering putting in an insurance claim for the inner tube, just so I could write that the cause of the damage was "bear's teeth". Tav was not in the stroller at the time, in case you were wondering.

Now we are installed back at home, we received a visit from Paul and Angie. As I can't ride bikes at the moment (or at least would be silly to), we went into Cougar Canyon so they could climb some rocks and we could go exploring. It's fun to keep discovering the things we have behind our house.

When do bad ideas become good ones?

This is a question that I think Lina and most of the other people in this year's Yukon River Quest were asking themselves at some point. Paddling a really long way in the wilderness without stopping for conventional sleep or bodily functions doesn't sound like a good idea after all. For Lina, I think one of the high points was hallucinating friendly tree creatures waving her on from the banks. Hallucinating dead animals just under the water doesn't sound so fun... but what do you expect when you paddle 750 km in 60 hours standing up? Probably not that, but it's a funny old world.

Whilst I have a great deal of admiration for Lina, Norm, Bart, Jason, and all the other pioneers who chose to dishevel their bodies and minds in the race, you didn't get me tempted to join in next time. Coming back to paddle the river at a more suitable pace with Tav and Lina in a canoe some day though - that needs to happen.

Here are some choice moments from the whole strenuous affair: