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Showing posts from July, 2018

Stolen Trek Lush Mountain Bike Calgary

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Feeling very upset today. Yesterday Frank and I and our two friends who were here visiting from Ireland decided to go for a bike ride along the river in Calgary towards downtown. We lent them bikes and rode to our favourite outdoor store, MEC. Locked all four bikes to the bike racks outside the front of the store, and shopped for an hour. Came out and my bike was gone, the cable lock cut through. I couldn`t believe it. Yes, we hear about this happening in Calgary a lot, but naively I guess I didn`t expect it here in broad daylight in front of this shop with lots of people coming and going. I`m really mad at myself for not having used our heavier Kryptonite lock. Expensive lesson. My last equally expensive mountain bike was stolen from our garage. Our home insurance gives us zilch. Bike description: TREK Lush ladies full suspension bike Bright green colour Dropper seat post 29 inch wheels white saddle Green Wellgo flat pedals Ergo cork and metal grips Stolen in downtown Cal...

Back Home in Calgary

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I'm writing this back home in our house 10 days after the end of the trip. We made it safely back to Calgary on Friday July 13th (fortunately nothing bad happened that day!).  Much as we loved our six weeks on the road, it was great to come back to the comfort of home. The house and garden were in great shape thanks to our good friend Tannis who was living in our place and taking care of everything. It's so nice that Tannis will continue to stay here while she sells her home and purchases a new place. She's great company. Here's a look back at the last leg of the trip. The route back from Crested Butte took us through one more National Park well worth a visit. Black Canyon of the Gunnison is Colorado's version of the Grand Canyon. We viewed it from its south rim, where you can peer down to the river 2000ft below. It is pretty spectacular. Black Canyon of the Gunnison (photo taken from NPS website) After that we just had to find a venue to watch the firs...

Crested Butte, Colorado

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Crested Butte July 6-9 "A lovelier setting could not be imagined". That's what the Fodors Guide says about Crested Butte. And we both agree that of all the mountain towns we visited in Colorado, it's easily in the top four with Aspen, Steamboat Springs and Breckenridge. It might even get our #1 vote. But Crested Butte is unique. It used to be a coal-mining town, and it's historical downtown has maintained the Victorian gingerbread house look, of course now all nicely restored and brightly painted. In spite of its popularity, it feels really down-to-earth and charming. Large mountains loom over the town, and the valley above the town is incredibly beautiful, very reminiscent of photos you'd see of high mountain meadows in Switzerland. Yet the mountains here don't crowd or enclose the town, like they do in Teluride, another lovely mountain town in a beautiful setting. It's a wide, sunny valley, full of wild-flowers in the summer. I read somewhere a...

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Mesa Verde National Park

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Mesa Verde National Park wasn't on our original loose itinerary, but we decided to add it in when we learned that Mike, Hana (Frank's daughter) and the kids were going to be there on July 3-4 as part of their mainly Arizona/Utah vacation. Looking at the mileage and timing, we figured we could fit it in, and it would be fun to see the family. To get there, our route took us through some less interesting countryside and some dead straight roads. At one point, we were dying for a good coffee and we saw no decent cafe as we drive through the town of Poncha Springs. Further down the road, we stopped for a little break in a tiny community in the middle of nowhere called Villa Grove. Across the road was an old general store that looked like it had seen better days. It didn't seem to be open. Although writing on the window panes advertised coffee and wifi, there appeared to be dusty sheets covering the windows. Then I saw some people go in. We decided to go check it out a...

Happy Canada Day!

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Today I was feeling a little bit sad that we didn't have a chance to celebrate Canada Day with some fellow Canadians. I never even thought to bring my little Canadian flag from home. Then we got back from a lovely hike and there was a note on our windshield. I thought we'd gotten a citation! But it was this lovely note from someone who obviously noticed our licensce plate. It made our day.