I’m just back from the first hike of the season with the Vernon Outdoors Club. I felt mixed emotions as I made lunch, filled the water bottle, gathered my gear and walked down to meet the others at the City Hall parking lot. I’m still here. A second season is beginning. Is this really where I live? It’s still too soon to think about all that, but it was good to see the faces I remembered, many of whom I hadn’t seen since my Christmas party or before. I drove with Donna and George to Predator Ridge where the hike began. It was a beautiful day, warm but not too, some sun and some overcast, an easy 4 hour walk, stopping to look at small flowers along the path or lakes in the distance and chatting with different people from time to time.
Yesterday I got out my new bike for the first ride of the spring. There were the usual season-opening glitches. The tires were a bit flat; I couldn’t find my biking gloves. What about my shoulder? Did I really want to go? I found Jim’s pump that you plug into the car lighter. The instructions were in the battered box. The PSI was written on the tire rims. I blew up the tires, and the pride of accomplishment I felt erased all my hesitations. I was off. Without the push from the outdoors gang, I’m pretty wimpy, so I rode for about 2 hours, but on the flats, which is hard to do in Vernon. As I walked to the hike this morning and found one of the tops for the tire inflation ‘thing’ in my pocket, I felt a bit deflated. My pride had been premature, but it had got me going. I was sobered the other morning too when I had to search for the house keys before going downtown and finally found them in the back door where they had been all night. I have wasp spray by the bed and bear spray in the front cupboard to fight off intruders and then I leave the keys to car and house in the back door. If I were a Roman Emperor, I would not need to have a slave standing behind me in my chariot whispering in my ear, “You’re only human.” The fact is made obvious to me almost every day. The bright side is that although Jim is no longer here to laugh at my foibles and help me, I have family and friends who do. And increasingly, I laugh at myself. This reminds me of the lines from Leonard Cohen’s song, ‘Anthem”
“There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
The raising of a new hydro pole outside my house this week
At this point it was beginning to remind me of the coming of Easter
Lake Okanagan, the first stop on my first bike ride
Lake Kalamalka, the second stop on the ride
Hiking on Predator Ridge
Lake Okanagan from Predator Ridge
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