May 19. 2012 – Heathrow Airport for a connection to Nice. A relatively uneventful flight here, Kirk upgraded us to some really great seats with buckets of legroom. It was as comfortable as one could probably get on a nine and a half hour flight without being in First Class. Next stop, Nice!

When we landed in Nice, we waited for our luggage. Kirk found his quickly….mine didn’t materialize. Hmmmm, do I see a new wardrobe in my future?

When the carousel finally came to a stop, several of us were left without our bags. Over to the baggage services to discover that my bag stayed in London. Well, could have been worse, it could still be sitting in Vancouver, in which case I WOULD be shopping for a new wardrobe!

No biggie, it’s evening and it’s not too hot nor too cold, so I’m fine until morning. My bag will apparently arrive at midnight and be delivered to our hotel in the morning.

Our next challenge was getting from the airport to Juan le Pins where our home for the next week is located. We asked a taxi driver and were told it would cost 85 Euros. Seemed a little steep considering that Antibes is only about 5-10km. So we wandered over to the bus stop and decided to try our hand at finding our way there by ourselves. The woman at the ticket booth told us to get on the 250 bus and it would drop us at one of the two stops in Antibes, and another passenger told us to get off at the second stop and find a cab to the hotel from there.

So off we went, no map, no idea, but our driver called out Juan le Pins so off we got and stood there in the middle of a street wondering where we were. A sign indicated the centre of Juan le Pins, so we went in that direction and could see water in the distance. We knew our hotel was close to the water, and near the train tracks, and was located at 5 Rue Sainte Marguerite. So we walked along the waterfront until we hit number 5, then walked under the train overpass, and voila! there was our hotel! No taxi needed.

We were given our key, given entry and exit instructions (it is sort of a cross between a B&B and an Inn), breakfast was explained and we dropped our things off in the room (not that I had much with me) and we wandered out to find a late dinner and a few glasses of wine by the seashore before finding our way back to a much appreciated bed.

Now, just hoping my luggage is here for morning….if not, I shop!

May 18, 2012 – YVR has some pretty cool artwork in the International departures area. We are off for a week in the South of France, at the airport obscenely early, for me anyway. We came out extra early for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is a Friday before a long weekend so the traffic might have been been stupid (it was). Secondly, Kirk has a hunk of metal and close to a dozen metal screws newly implanted into his shoulder and we weren’t exactly sure whether it would be an issue at the security gate or not (it wasn’t). Neither was really a major issue, and we found ourselves our here at the airport and through security before we knew it. And that left us time to have a glass of wine, a bit to eat, an opportunity to view some of the new displays, and buy a pair of earbuds since I forgot mine at home – always something…….

And now I am doing this as fast as I can before the plane taxis away from the terminal and I lose my wifi!

Done!

Bye!

See you in a week!

May 17, 2012 – Getting ready for a holiday….and boy, do we need it. Looking forward to a visit to France, absolutely no plans, but apparently the Cannes Film Festival is on while we are there. Just soooo looking forward to seeing the Mediterranean again. Looking forward to a relaxing, entertaining time filled with wine, good food, croissants, and cappuccinos.

Bring it on!

May 16, 2012 – I had to go to a meeting in Nanaimo today, and again tomorrow, and was undecided right up until last night as to whether or not I’d stay overnight or commute back and forth. In the end I opted to come home tonight, and get back on the first ferry again tomorrow morning. It never seems like that big a deal to me to do that commute, I did it for work for two years, and I actually find the first ferry quiet and enjoyable. And if I ride the motorcycle I am on and off quickly and could make it to the marine station for 8:30am. And in the seminar room, as the meeting went later and later, I could keep one eye out on the bay and see the ferry come into sight.

I slipped out and rode along the bay as the ferry turned the corner and pulled in to dock. I love that I could ride up to the booth less than ten minutes before the ferry was to sail, and ride right up to the front of the line with the other bikes. As I pulled in, a chatty fellow turned around and declared loudly, “There is nothing sexier than a woman on a motorcycle!” I replied “Funny, my husband says exactly the same thing!” That was my way of saying “I don’t know you and I don’t really want to chat with you, because I’m kind of antisocial and I ride a bike so I can be alone inside my helmet“.

That backfired on me. He was an older fellow, and extremely sociable, I instantly had an extremely chatty new friend. As we sat there, a family went by and their little blonde haired boy was practically turning himself inside out yelling “moteeecycles, moteeecycles, moteeecycles…”  Future rider there! Kids love bikes. Do you remember a time when the world was such an exciting place and everything you saw was fresh and wonderful? We should all stop and look through the world with the eyes of a child again, maybe we would slow down a bit and appreciate little things a bit more again.

At the other end, when the ferry docked, the motorcycles were sent off and we all stayed ahead of the traffic. It’s such an efficient way to get to and from the Island, and I get home so much quicker than if I’d taken the truck. True, I could have taken a float plane, but even a short ride is better than no ride on a sunny day

When I came home from my Island trip this evening I knew I’d have some sun left on the garden and I might just have enough time to catch a nice shot of it. I’ve photographed it so many times, so I thought I’d throw a texture on it for a change this time. I love this little plant. I impatiently wait, every year, for it to flower. The little flowers are so colourful and happy looking, and they don’t stick around long.

Like I said, slow down and appreciate the little things sometimes.

May 15, 2012 – Long day, tired, have to get up early tomorrow to make the first ferry to the Island, no idea what to shoot, and I’m tired of being without my guy, and I’m sure he’s super tired of the roller coaster he’s had the past few weeks. o this is all I’ve got today. So this is all I’ve got today. Wall-E to the rescue again.

May 14, 2012 – Until recent years you never would have convinced me to eat corn before late July at the earliest. The best corn was at the farms in August. And the very best corn (after that grown on my grandparent’s farm) came from DeMille’s in Salmon Arm.

But recently corn is showing up early in the grocery stores. On a whim I picked up a few cobs last week and they languished in the fridge until yesterday.

And what a surprise! It was really, really good!

Corn reminds me of lazy summer afternoons in the Shuswap. Cool mornings in the orchard picking cherries, then as the heat of the day crept up, it was down to the lake to cool off. Dinners were later in the evenings, and featured fresh vegetables picked earlier that day. Fresh fruit, right off the trees, for dessert. It’s the taste of late summer. And it’s a nice taste of summer to come yet. Promising the senses that natures best is just around the corner.

Are we born to be optimistic, rather than realistic? Tali Sharot shares new research that suggests our brains are wired to look on the bright side — and how that can be both dangerous and beneficial.

May 13, 2012 – May 13, 2012 – Funny how you live in a place, know that things are where they are, but never really go and look at them. I was wandering back and forth in the sun down at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre and a man was about to take a photo of his wife in front of this art. I walked over and asked if they would both like to be in it, they were thrilled and thankful. When I handed the camera back he asked if I’d like my photo taken in front of it, since I had a small camera in my hand. I laughed and said “No, but thank you, I live here” which started up a conversation about how wonderful the weather was and that they’d heard it had been horrible recently.

Had tickets for two events today – the EPIC sustainability Expo at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre and Rock of Ages, the Broadway musical on at the Centre for Performing Arts May 8-13. I was meeting a friend for the former, and it was a good trade show. I finally found a composter that will work on our little deck.

The latter event I received two tickets for from Kirk as a birthday present, but with his having to leave town on his father’s death, I was left with an extra ticket and no one to go with. I tried inviting a couple of people, but it’s hard to find anyone on a fabulously sunny Sunday afternoon, which also happens to be Mother’s Day.

Here’s the stupid thing – I almost didn’t go myself.

I can get on my motorcycle and spend 8 hours riding by myself in another country along deserted backroads, and have conversations at the side of the road with strangers, without so much as a blink. But when put in a situation where I have to go to a Broadway musical by myself, I found it difficult.

Stupid, right?

Eventually I convinced myself to go and enjoyed myself.

The show was fabulous, but I really missed having Kirk there. We went through the 80′s together, and there were so many wonderful stereotypes and cliches in the show, many of which I recall vividly, and lived or wore. Having been a part of the club scene in the 80′s, it was hysterical.

May 12, 2012 – I have a couple of dozen cameras, but only two that I really use. The rest are novelty cameras, film cameras, or old ones that don’t actually work anymore but look neat on a shelf. The two that I use on a daly basis are my big Nikon D300, and a little Lumix LX3. The Nikon stopped working last saturday without warning, simply refused to focus. Not even manually, so obviously the mirror is out of position. Today I went on an eight hour ride and covered closet to 500km of fabulous roads down in Washington State. I took some great shots overlooking the valley below Mount Baker, the deep snowbanks that I rode up through, and the mossy trees. I had some really great closeups of seashells on the beach in Birch Bay National Park, and a great shot of a road that simply ended into a 10 foot snowbank. I had some shots of herons off of Lummi, and of a really great little rock construciton building.

All gone.

Totally annoyed!

Well, aside from that annoyance, it was a great day. I dragged myself out of the condo at 10 am and headed for the border. I crossed over at the Pacific Truck Crossing without issue, as usual the border guard wished me a good ride. They are generally pleasant to me in the Nexus line, and particularly when I am on the bike. I headed down I-5 a short way and bypassed the usual front end of the route I often take. I cut back into the side road a short ways down the freeway and headed towards Birch Bay National Park. I stumbled onto a back route in to the park that didn’t take me through town, that was a nice change. I stopped for a bit and had a bite to eat and sat by the seashore for a while. The park is usually a hive of family activity, but it was almost empty save for some cyclists and one or two cars. Eerily quiet.

From there I took a different road out and bypassed the residential area I usually ride through. That popped me back out on a road I recognized and I took that all the way through Lummi Reserve where a First Nations Pow Wow was underway and there was a war canoe race taking place out on the water. I stopped and watched some herons fishing and some eagles soaring overhead making them all nervous, then continued on through Bellingham, and into Fairhaven. I breezed through there and turned on to Chuckanut Drive.

I’d found the traffic.

It wasn’t terribly bad, but it was still slower than I like to ride it. I pulled out into a rest stop about halfway through and had a granola bar at the side of the road, looking out over the Pacific. Fewer riders than I’d expected on the road, but there were some, and most gave a friendly wave as they passed me at the side of the road. A few big groups of cruisers, but mostly single riders, or couples two-up. It was a great day to get lost in one’s own helmet and ride solo.

I picked up four sport riders who settled in with me for a bit, until I turned off on Colony Road and they kept on going straight. This is a wonderful stretch of road recommended to us by a waitress on our last trip down. A bit of construction, and a few short gravel stretches, but otherwise, a really nice way to cut over to highway 9 from the I-5. I stopped for gas and grabbed a power bar before heading over through Alger-Cain Lake Road and around the bottom of Lake Whatcom.

I took a couple of short side roads that didn’t really amount to much, but then I decided to head down Mosquito Lake Road on a whim. I’d seen it when passing by last time, thought the name was funny considering Kirk’s hatred of the insects. Turned out to be a fabulous choice! In the next hour I only saw two other bikes and a half dozen cars. That was it. And it was an awesome stretch of road.

Eventually it set me back out on the main road and I continued up until I hit Mount Baker Way. I headed up through Glacier and up Baker and went through some pretty amazing temperature changes as I climbed. I was glad I’d put the thin wool tights on underneath my leather pants. As I rode higher, eventually I had snowbanks on either side of me, and rounding one nicely banked corner in the shadows I hit a patch of sand on the road and the bike skittered sideways under me. That woke me up and reminded me that all the road dirt that had already been swept away down lower was still a hazard up here.

It was pretty lonely up there on a sportbike. I saw less than a half dozen other riders on that stretch, only one was a sportbike. I stopped at a lookout near the top, and looked down into the valley below, still heavily covered with snow before continuing up around the little lake, or rather the ten foot deep area of snow that covered the lake I recall being there. The road I remembered from last summer ended abruptly as the pavement disappeared under a wall of snow. The end of the road was a little sooner than it was last summer.  It will be awhile before it’s open.

I took it a little slower on the way back down, at least for the first bit. The shadows made the hairpin corners treacherous because it was impossible to see the sand. I have to say, American drivers, or at least those in Washington, are a darn sight more courteous than our drivers. I caught up with several vehicles, and every one of them eventually pulled to the side so I could get in front. It wasn’t like I was tailgating, far from it, in one case I wasn’t even paying attention to the driver because I was fiddling with my vents trying to open the back ones when all of a sudden he pulled off on the side while he was driving. I had to pick it up to get by him before he ran out of shoulder and gave him a beep as I went by.

I passed back through Glacier, but when I rode into Maple Falls I took another side road.

I’d seen the road to Silver Lake Recreational area on previous occasions and noticed that it came out on the other side. Someone had recently told me it was a nice ride, so I turned the corner and had a fabulous detour, although a LOT longer than I expected. If I’d looked at a map I’d have seen how far up the road went before it came back down. No matter, I had no agenda and over the next hour or so I didn’t see a single other bike and only a handful of cars. They aren’t fast roads, but they are scenic.

The road finally popped back out on familiar pavement and I rode the last bit to cross the border at Sumas. The border guard was pleasant, and when she asked me if i was bringing anything back, I simply answered “a lot of dead bugs” and she laughed, complimented by bike, and told me to have a safe ride home.

My back was hurting at this point, and I just didn’t feel like dealing with the freeway, so I rode across to Mission, took the Lougheed, and then returned to the Number 1 at United Blvd to take the last bit home fast. Another rider settled in behind me for awhile. It used to bother me when a stranger rode with me, now I’ve gotten used to it, and sometimes it’s acutally nice to have another rider there when I’m tired. There is a bit of comfort in it.

Home, tuck bike in, clean gear, food, wine, couch. I’ll have to scrub the dead bugs off tomorrow.

Done. And done in.

Eight hours, 460 kms, and not a photo to show for it because the camera crapped out. Oh well, I suppose it just means I’ll have to do it again soon.

The Google Map track is here (I forgot my GPS so I just did this from memory)

May 11, 2012 – I don’t want to scare it away, but the weekend is supposed to be nice…shhhh….it frightens easily….

Wow, nice weather AND on a weekend AND it’s sailpast this weekend for our yacht club. What a fabulous set of circumstances. I was invited out on a couple of boats for the weekend, scratch that, I was heavily pressured by a number of people to come out on one of the boats since Kirk is back home dealing with his Father’s death. One friend even went so far as to include a portion of steak and prawns in her grocery list, and suggested that she’d brought extra bedding along for me. No pressure there

For some strange reason everyone here feels that I need to be with the social group for the weekend. I think they all thought I would be sitting home alone.

It took a lot of work to finally convince friends that I really just want to take the opportunity to pull my helmet on and do a few hundred kilometres on the bike tomorrow. The last three times I was on a motorcycle weren’t really fabulous – two rides in pouring rain (one of those late at night to add to the fun), and another getting Kirk’s bike back home from the Valley. I want a NICE ride for a change. And tomorrow’s weather is promising that.

So while I love that so many people seem determined to not see me be alone, and I do so dearly appreciate the love, I am looking forward to the solitude and meditative focus I find on the bike. I am quite happy by myself. I have a pretty good relationship with me

So, Wall-E and I plan to enjoy the sun tomorrow, just on land rather than on the water this time around. There is lots of boating season ahead.