Monday, 23 May 2022 was Victoria Day, so Amanda had the day off work and decided to ride with me on the tandem.
We rode out to the Chappell Marsh Conservation Area.
She brought along the new camera that she's been suggesting I take out with me on rides... I don't know... it's a bit big and clunky and my camera fits in a pocket and that has to go somewhere else and would take so much longer to get out and ready...
A few times we stopped to take a picture of some bird that we spotted I had my pocket camera out and had taken a dozen pictures before Amanda even got the one she was using out!
She spent a lot of time taking pictures at the marsh... and... I have to admit, it takes great pictures... I might have to start bringing it along...
We took lots of pictures of birds.
Like, LOTS and LOTS!
Too many to choose a few to put on here when this is already so late...
I SHOULD do a post of comparing the pictures I took with my little camera and the ones Amanda took...
We stopped a few other places to look at birbs and critters - and take more photos.
Wednesday, 24 May 2022 O went for a ride to get groceries. Totally thought I was going to get rained on. Somehow managed to dodge it.
Thursday, 25 May 2022 I went out for a longer ride in the afternoon, heading south of town, passing through Casa Rio.
Down all the way to the northern edge of CFD Dundurn
and along the sandy summer road that boarders it.
New tires working so much better on this...
Heading back north on Strathcona
Detoured through Chief Whitecap Park
As I was rolling into town I checked in with Amanda and she was just leaving work - LATE - so I rode to meet her.
Friday I spent a good chunk of the day doing bike maintenance. I got this old Giant fixed up for Finnegan to use. It was my dad's. He bought it maybe 15 years (or more) ago and set it up with a Bionx electric motor kit. I'm sure the bike and motor was close to $1000 (or possibly more!?) and I think he rode it ONCE... maybe... for a few years it was left locked up outside at an apartment my folks lived in, exposed to rain and snow. He never recharged the battery. I'm not even sure we HAVE the battery for it... so I had to strip off all the electronics and find a rear wheel to go on this bike. Having done that, though, Finnegan has a pretty decent city/commuter bike that perhaps he'll use in the fall when he starts university.
The impetus to get this done, however, was Finnegan needed a bike to ride on Saturday. He's recently started working at the Saskatoon Public Library. He works at a branch very close to where we live and walks every day. On Saturday, however, he had to do a "training" shift at a different branch way over on the other side of town!?
I rode out there with him as he's not the adventurous sort and I doubt would have been able to find his way there.... It was nice riding with him. He did indicate he remembered riding the route we were taking to go to the zoo - which we did a LOT, many years ago. He also mentioned that he didn't remember it being so hard of a ride. I pointed out that when we rode when he was younger the ride would take us over an hour... and we were trying to get there in less than 45 minutes... AND we had a killer headwind.... (AND when we rode there when he was younger, we were doing a LOT of riding and he was in much better shape then... the twenty minute walks he does every other day doesn't keep one in riding shape!)
After getting him to the library, I headed further north to the swale to look at birds and try taking a few pictures of any I saw with the fancy camera. I took a few quick pictures with my phone and went to send them to Amanda only to find a dozen or so messages from her!? Apparently Finnegan had forgotten his lunch!?
So I rode all the way home... and then BACK to the library... and got there just in time for his lunch break!
I still wanted to go for a longer ride and look for birds in the swale, so back I headed in that direction... but took a different route.
Way-finding signage along the route.
More signage.
Path I've never taken.
I did make my way back and took a few pictures... but then the camera's battery died... so it was back to using my pocket camera (which I'd also brought along...)
In the end I did over 65Km of riding...
THEN Amanda wanted to go out to our friends' for Operation: CAKE - a celebration of both of their birthdays AND their 20th(?) anniversary - all of which fell within a week of each other and they bought a cake for each - a fourth cake was bought at the last minute as earlier in the week one had been made redundant and decided it was time to retire...
Sunday morning Keiran and i rode to Art Placement for their "yard sale" and picked up a few deeply discounted sketchbooks and other art supplies.
Then it was off to Operation: CAKE par two - a continuation of the previous days festivities... because there was SO MUCH CAKE it had to be consumed over two days...
No comments:
Post a Comment