Pictures from biking near Penticton

The view from the Naramata tunnel looking south to Penticton

A 1934 car at the Penticton antique car show. My house was built in 1934. 

Back to Victoria.

It's a grey afternoon at the Ferry terminal in Vancouver and cooler than it was in Vernon at 8:00am.  The Okanagan is having a heat wave that I don't mind missing.  The temperature has been in the high thirties for days and the forecast is for more. It might have forced even me to turn on the air.  I only wish that I weren't pulling out because I have to.  Mom is in the hospital after suffering a pulmonary embolism on Friday. Bill and I are both heading her way because one doctor seems to think it could be fatal, but another is impressed with her fighting spirit and how alert she is.  She even explained to the latter how her grandson, after teaching in Korea for five years, was soon going to come back to Canada with his wife and two daughters.  So little Shirley Liddle is ending her life as she lived it, a battling biscuit to the finish line. 

It's the same spirit that won her many a race , argument and bridge game. 

I haven't brought my bike this time because it is my fervent hope that I will be able to return to Vernon to pick up Jay, May and the girls on July 6 and in the meantime do what I can to help mom. I don't need any more biking for a while. I biked in the heat on Thursday and Friday last week.  A group of us drove to Penticton to bike around Skaha Lake, spend the night in Penticton and bike up to a tunnel near Naramata on Friday. Four of us shared one hotel suite, so it was cheap and Priscilla and I got to share a double bed again as we did in 2011 on my first bike trip with the VOC. 

Kettle Valley bike ride

Me with my biking pals, Priscilla and Mo on the Kettle Valley ride

The gang in front of the tunnel just before the descent through vineyards to Penticton

A view of the vineyards and Lake Okanagan

June 23, 2015

I’ve just got home from a wonderful Tuesday Ramble along part of the High Rim Trail to Wrinkly Park.  Sunday’s hike up to and along Ravine Edge was also very good.  Now we are all bracing ourselves for a week of serious heat in the Okanagan, so I might be staying out of the sun for a while.  Up to now the old system of windows open at night and blinds and windows shut all day has worked well, but I might have to try the air conditioning soon. 

Time is flying by.  I have had two good bike rides in the last while, one on the Galloping Goose in Victoria before I left and one on my birthday over the Myra Canyon and down the Kettle Valley Railway from Kelowna to Penticton.  The latter ride was approx. 80km.  The good news is that it’s a downhill run, but the bad news is that the mid section was on a trail that was dry and sandy, no work for the legs and lungs, but exhausting on the arms.  I had to grip the handlebars like grim death to keep my hybrid bike from tipping over.  The tension this created gave me a mildly painful cramp between the shoulder blades.  However, the first section on the trestles over the Myra Canyon was spectacular and the last approx. 20 km. down through vineyards into Penticton made it all worthwhile doing, ONCE.  The shoulder cramps were gone before we rode into Penticton.  The next morning at 8:00am I was in the Vernon Hospital to be fitted with a Holter Monitor to check my heart for 24 hours.  This had been arranged months ago but came as a coincidence right after such a long, by my standards, bike ride.  It’s the last in a series of tests I have had in connection with the mild angina I may or may not have.  I’m not going to submit to any more tests if the doctor suggests them.  Things seem to have settled down, and I think I’m learning how to handle stress and exercise.  I’m doing a simple T’ai Chi program almost every morning, trying to learn how to “balance the heart.” 

Mom had 5 consecutive days of radiation last week and does not feel well.  I call her every day, but there’s little I can do to help her and she knows that.  I think she regrets making the choice to have radiation but can’t do anything about it now.

Jay is feeling the stress as their big plan nears its moment of realization.  It’s hard on all of them as they spin faster and faster toward July 6 but have less and less real control.  All the preparation of papers, ending of school and jobs and packing is finished.  Now it’s just waiting, and that’s always difficult.  I’m making some changes in the house and getting very excited about going to the airport to pick them up.  Bert is going to come with me because they will have easily enough baggage for 2 cars.

Mom on a bench at Willows Beach on the Sunday before I left Victoria

My trusty Trek on the Galloping Goose

Mom and me and plumbing

Mom and I are doing our best to behave well with each other, but we share a long rocky history which we seem to be the victims of. The first of our screaming matches that I remember occurred in the kitchen of our house on Shamrock Crescent in The Green Acres suburb of Fort William in 1957, an ideal setting for a  nuclear family drama. There have been others over the years, not many but memorable. And it seems as if as we age the original ruts are the easiest ones to slip back into, to such an extent that I felt as I drove to Victoria this time a palpable pressure building up inside. Yesterday morning it burst out of both of us in a verbal blast of pent up emotion, followed by an hour's separation and the inevitable return and reconciliation.  We behave like the plumbing in the house did when the water was turned off for five weeks while I was in Mexico. As soon as it was turned on again, the pressure blew the works right out of the tank.  That problem was relatively easily fixed. We're a bit more complex, I think, but we are carrying on, carefully. 

I gave mom an outfit for her birthday and she bought new shoes yesterday. Here she is all dressed up for the Shannon Oaks June birthday party. 

Now it's Thursday night and I'm back at Barbara and Terry's. Mom and I had a good day today, lunch at Marilyn's, a drive along the ocean stopping to watch  wind surfers and whitecaps and 

a good piano concert in the evening at Shannon Oaks after which we went back to her apartment and had a good chat. 

And so it goes. 

A view of the Thompson River from the top of our hike on the Dew Drop Range near Kamloops last Sunday

On the ferry

In the past five years I've taken this trip to  Victoria so many times that I almost know what I'm doing, except that I never will because things always change and catch me unprepared.  The last time was the first time I took the new Hwy. 17 to Tsawwassen instead of the old gasoline alley down Hwy. 10. It's a much faster route, but I almost took a few wrong turns. This time I drove with confidence and caught the ferry earlier than I had expected to because I left Vernon late. The road report at 7:00am said to stay off the Connector until later in the morning because it was shrouded in fog.  By the time I got there it was clear, and from the summit west it was bright. So I left the sodden Okanagan for the sunny coast. My yard is drinking deep and I'm walking the decks of the ferry in the sun and a stiff wind. It's enough to make me echo Panglos' comment that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. I'm sure my mother will divest me of this illusion soon enough. She's having a very rough time, and I don't really know how to help her, so I'm just doing the next thing and trying not to worry about what I can't control. I've brought my bike this time, so I'll be able to ride the rabbit out of me if I have to. 

Jay finally heard from CIC. Their passports are in the mail, so he hopes to buy tickets for Vernon for early July.