an update from Gelbin

Wow, what an exciting few weeks it's been!

One day while I was wandering around the countryside I met a lovely group of cyclists who
were heading from Vancouver Island all the way out to Newfoundland. I got talking with them and they asked me to join along with them for the ride! Of course I accepted, and hopped into one of their backpacks and headed out east with them. These folk would bike about 100km a day and then set up camp for the night in whatever campgrounds they could find nearby. I'd never slept in a tent before, but i found that it's not so different from sleeping in a garden and I quite like the idea of not being wet when it's raining. We travelled all the way through the interior of BC over the course of several days. Oh, the mountains are so beautiful there! Great green streams and rivers flow between the crags and the air is so fresh and clean. Every night I slept for what felt like 100 hours and awoke ready and refreshed for the next day of travelling. We then headed into

Alberta where I started to get a little scared.When we arrived in Jasper to my great surprise it was snowing, and it was snowing hard! We had to camp that night with three inches of snow on the ground and it was quite a bit below freezing. Now, I've never mentioned this before, but I am not a winter person! When the snow covers the garden at home it's all I can do to brush it off and go sleep inside, but I know that I must stand guard, or who else will? For the next several days on my way through Banff it continued to be cold and it rained instead of snowed. After arriving in Banff I'd decided that if I were going to be cold, I might as well be going north instead of East. I discussed things with the cyclists and they agreed to mail me back to the Vancouver area so that I could start my own journey north (now that I know for sure where I want to go!). I arrived today and I plan on leaving for Yukon in a few days once I figure out just how to get there.

I've not yet found what I'm looking for; I hope that I find it soon.

Floating over your rocky spine....

Wow, I did not expect that I would not update my blog once during Tour Pacific, but that's how things turned out! I've been quite busy in the last few weeks as I travelled over Canada's rocky spine. Things started off in Fort Langley with an orientation day and a dinner of chicken paprikash as made by yours truly. Our riders were a crew of 14 consisting of some very diverse individuals. We had a pair of psychologists from Toronto, a pair of brothers (the Holy Rollers) one of whom was a PHD in theology and the other who is an episcopalian priest, a lovely Australian couple and several other lovely characters. The day after orientation the crew dipped their tires in the pacific ocean and began their journey out east.

Cooking on the stove



Who's that handsome fella?
Ol' blue, my commuter bike that I built out of my dad's old racing bike

Part of the Tour Pacific 2010 riding crew

The crew in its entirety before heading east

Our time in BC was actually rather uneventful. We travelled up the Coquihalla highway passing through the BC interior on our way to the icefield's parkway in Alberta. Along the way things went rather smoothly and my partner and I got to know the riders. We had a rather lovely rest day in Kamloops where I found a Scotiabank, slept in a real bed and ate out at real restaurant! What a day! I also got to see Toy Story 3 which was pretty decent. My glasses exploded this day however and I have yet to get them fixed. Thank God form y prescription sunglasses.

Our first real glimpse of the rockies (on this trip at least!)

Young Anna (FROM GUELPH!!!) celebrates her 32nd birthday with a cake provided by the lovely staff

Can't remember where I took this, but it's real pretty!

We then crossed into Alberta where things took an interesting turn. One of our major stops on the icefield's parkway was Jasper. We had a rest day scheduled here. On the night leading into the rest day (my only day to sleep in) my air mattress broke in the middle of the night! The following morning was teeming with rain which continued all day. I spent my day off in Jasper checking out the local laundromat/internet cafe. I managed to buy a therm-a-rest which was on the best decisions I made in my life. It may be thin, but it sure is comfy! The following morning was just awful. I awoke to heavy, heavy freezing rain and temperatures hovering around 0. As we packed up the galley in the downpour the rain began to slush and quickly turned to wet, cold-packed snow. Now, I like a good fluffy white snow, but this snow was basically like getting pelted with a 7-11 slurpee. As this is a DIY tour except for food and a campsite, the riders bravely set out into the frost. Most of them made it about 10km, but a few made it for longer. A bus was called in to pick everyone up and take them to the icefields center where they spent the night. However, us staff needed to tend to our duties and stay at the proscribed campsite and had to set up camp with our soaked gear in the -5 temps and camp the night!! I slept in the back of the truck while my manager and my partner slept in their tents in a shelter next to a woodstove.

TURN BACK KEVIN!!!

A view from the road

Gelbin and I 'chilling' at the campsite for the night

We eventually survived this ordeal and headed out for Banff where we had a lovely, sunny stay. We then descended into Calgary over a scenic and lovely couple of days where the tour sadly ended. There are no pictures of the going away party as I went to bed right away! This job really is working me quite well.

The water everywhere is so green. It's eerie

Some more mountains

Sad that all these are from the truck, isn't it?

Tomorrow I'll be doing orientation for Tour Arctic and then the following day we begin to head north! Things are moving really, really quickly.

I miss you all terribly.

One Great City!

Having travelled from Ontario all the way to the coast of BC, I can say that in the past few weeks I have seen an awful lot of Canada. However, one city stands out in all that adventuring as an albatross: a city that possesses a certain "je ne sais quoi". While passing through - and even near - this city we were subject to flooding, camping relocations, construction detours, lane restrictions, and awful, awful weather. In my brief stint passing by this metropolitan and allegedly world-class level city I accumulated quite a strong emotional perspective on her.

In that vein, I have recorded a song as written by The Weakerthans which I feel sums up how I feel about Winnipeg quite nicely.

You say "Goodbye" and I say "Hello"

After our journey across Canada I had a few days off in Fort Langley to rest my bones at the campground here. Afterwards though we were quickly uprooted and transported to the University of British Columbia to help officially "launch" Tour Du Canada 2010. I was given my very own room at the university dorms with a real bed for two nights! This made me quite happy. The first night we were there was rather simple; just some preparation and bookwork for the coming days. The following morning we started to meet the cyclists. This was a day of registration, meeting and greeting and of orientation. The following morning was the first official ride of the Tour Du Canada and everything at UBC was packed up in the truck and shot out East. Everything ran smoothly on the first couple of days barring a bit of rain here and there and some confusion over bathroom keys. Highlights of the journey include jam sessions with one of the TDC guys who brought his own guitar s well, and on our last night many of the TDC cyclists and us went out for a karaoke adventure in Merritt which was a great amount of fun. I sang "Solitary Man" by Neil Diamond by myself, and then after a few more pints myself and the musician-cyclist did a duet of "Daddy Sang Bass". My partner and I only followed the tour for a few days in order to help launch the tour smoothly and I tried to stay relatively detached, but I can't help but feel sad after having left them behind in Merrit. They have now moved on further East and now we've headed back to Fort Langley to await the launch of Tour Pacific: our first official tour of the season! It was also especially sad to say goodbye to the Tour Du Canada staff as we went through all of training together and convoyed across Canada together. Dare I say that we became friends in the ordeal and that they will be missed every time I pull into camp and go to set up for dinner.

Gelbin and I hanging out at UBC enjoying a scene from his natural habitat.


Meet and greet with the TDC cyclists at the UBC residences

"Suit up!" TDC style
(Not pictured here are the 43 cameras laid at my feet so that everyone would have a copy of this picture. This took about 5 minutes to get everything shot!)



In BC some things are really, really tiny!



...but some things are really, really huge!


Camp: Day 2

A little bike repair

"Any place to swim around here?"
"Sure, just across the way!"

Two brave souls go in for a closer look

What a coooool walking path

On my last night with the TDC the other musician and I somehow dressed identically with awesome beards, earth-toned plaid jackets, jeans and black hoods!

My manager insisted that the Turkey Tiara stay with the TDC crew, so I wore it as often as possible while I still had access to it.

I have today off as it's Canada Day. Later I'll be going out to check out the fireworks, but right now I'm just bumming around the Fort Langley campground again! Tomorrow is the orientation for Tour Pacific and then we're off to travel all across western Canada the following morning.