The active season of hiking and biking has ended for me. There’s one more Ramble and hot dog roast on Tuesday, but I can’t go because I have an appointment at the Kelowna General Hospital at one that day for an ultrasound on my left shoulder. It’s been almost a year since I injured it coming down from Knox Mountain and it still hurts a bit at times. I don’t know if I’ll need an operation or not, but I’m going through all the steps to try to find out what’s wrong.
I went to the Vernon Outdoors Club banquet last night with a couple, Mo and John, whom I met hiking just a couple of months ago. I was surprised to walk in and greet and be greeted by so many people I knew. I had a real feeling of belonging and was even able to introduce Mo and John to some people. I saw my friend Priscilla there with her husband whom I had never met. That was a laugh because I discovered that he had spent much of his youth in Port Arthur; we probably saw each other at the A&W (the A& Root) at Intercity on a Saturday night when the gangs from the two cities met there to hang out and sometimes fight, the boys that is. The girls just got out of the cars once in a while to look around, checking out the competition and/or prospects depending on the sex.
Monday I got a shock when I went on ‘my itineraries’ in Expedia just to check my Korean flights. Only the return portion was there. What followed was an almost 2 hour telephone conversation with Fadi in Egypt. He said that Expedia always alerts people to changes made in their flight plans. This time they hadn’t. Korean Air had changed their schedule and both my flights to Korea were scrapped. Fortunately I had noticed it early enough and he, after a lot of searching, was able to get me almost identical flights on the same day, May 1. The whole trip will take longer, but that might be a good thing because the original plan did not give me much time between landing in Vancouver and taking off again for Seoul. The times are still good.
As far as other plans are concerned, all the lines I threw into the water for volunteering began to bob this week. I went to the first meeting for Immigrant Services Volunteers on Thursday and got together with the head of the Adaptive Skiing Program at Silver Star on Friday. So winter is beginning. I now have a downhill membership at Silver Star and a cross country one at Sovereign. I took my newly found skis to be sharpened and waxed yesterday, and as Thursday’s bike ride in Lumby was the coldest I’ve ever survived in my life and today’s hike in Kal Park was great but also cold, I’m going to get out the winter clothes and move into the next season. Daylight Saving time begins next Sunday and although the leaves have not all fallen from the trees and I still have a couple of roses in bloom, the larches are yellow and people say that it’s time to head for the hills. Apparently the Okanagan is grey much of the winter unless you go up to the ski slopes where you’re above it all. We’ll see.
I asked Marie about her dog's name, and it's Osito because os means bear in Spanish and 'ito' is the diminutive and he looked like a little bear when they got him.
John, Mo, Maggie and her man and Priscilla having lunch on the Kal Lake Park hike.
The view from the top of Noble Canyon
My 'art shot' of a hiking pole and boot at the top of Noble Canyon. The end of the first season with the Vernon Outdoors Club.
The gang preparing for the last bike of the season on a cold, grey morning in Lumby. Fortunately, we began and ended at the Blue Ox Pub. Some of us broke with tradition and had beer with our lunch instead of the usual coffee.
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