One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the
right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment.
-Hart Crane, poet (1899-1932)
Two friends, Doug and David, from Vancouver, were just taking their bags from guest bedroom, Sunday morning, when Sukey Tawdry and Herardo knocked on the front door. (Big Al's in-laws. Sue worked with Cora Lee at VPL as a Children's Librarian. Gerry is a retired music teacher. Still plays gigs on a range of instruments: keyboard, piano and double bass.) Talk about Hot Sheets Hotel!!!
Up around 7:00 am next morning for java and toast. Then the guests showered and changed and the three went for a stroll before going to morning service at the United Church around the corner from us. When back we were to take a quick run to Township 7, just up the hill from us, towards The Naramata. I suggested they might wish to buy some of their Pinto Gris, a wonderful, wonderful drop and extremely reasonably priced. Then the lads were to be off to OK Falls to have lunch with a friend who lives there. Eventually they are en route, via Crowsnest, to Lethbridge where Doug has a brother. Once we waved goodbye, I planned to hit the road for what I hope will be a 100 km ride, no Dreaded Burning Ground if I have any say in the matter!
However, the arrival of the latest round of Freeloaders put paid to that idea. Lady Mary had neglrected to tell me about next round of interlopers! Still, we had a great time visiting, under the pergola and close to 1:00 pm when Cora Lee took them wine-tasting. This being the case, I wasn't able to leave the house until 1:30 pm but by then I'd decided upon my planned route. Started off with PTC and then Lakeshore but after completing that sequence I headed for Channel Pkwy and then took Green Mountain Road as I wanted to take it all the way to just above Olalla, where it intersects with the highway from Keremeos. In spite of the pretty ferocious headwind/crosswind I plugged away and once past the turnoff to Apex it was pretty smooth sailing, mainly fairly steep downhill runs. That changed once I was back on 3A and starting to climb once again.
Still, I had ridden this stretch before so I knew it wasn't going to be too, too bad and once past Yellow Lake it was very flat until the turnoff on Twin Lakes Road. There is a pretty steep grade past the Twin Lakes Golf Course, but once again, this conquered it was a wonderful rush of downhill zooms, one after another until I was at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. Once here I was on very familiar ground, Granfondo route and training runs, so I knew I had but a few slight climbs ahead. Better yet, the still strong tailwind was really pushing me along so when I had turned onto 97 I was logging about 19.7 kph. I hoped that with the downhill run into Penticton itself I'd be able to up my AVG to at least 20 kph and as things turned out I was just a tad better by the time I was home. Before that I took a short dipsy-doodle through Skaha Lake Park, quite deserted as there were angry whitecaps on the lake and it was quite cool. Still a number of brave souls swimming and at least one wind-surfer going like blazes parallel to the beach. Really pleased with the outing as I've discovered new territory. Next time I plan to go south on Fairview/White Lake Road as far as Willowbrook and then take Green Lake Road past See Ya Later Ranch to come out near OK Falls and then back home along Eastside Road. Back at Burns Street at about 5:45 pm so quite pleased with time given the fairly significant climbs I had to negotiate. Stats for ride:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/890571102#.Ve0sDPaWCsM.email
Inside to find that the Freeloaders were taking naps. Cora Lee had obviously exhausted them on the wine circuit! I helped her with dinner preparations, (pounded the pork chops we were having for supper), and when Herardo joined us Mrs Patmore put him to work preparing the minoi-aubergines she had purchased at the market on Saturday. Sukey Tawdry joined us about twenty minutes later but was too late for the Black Widow Gewurztraminer that went down extremely well. Boiled potatoes with fresh herbs from our garden and a mixed green salad and we were set to go. H/S had presented us with a Thornhaven, Summerland, Merlot which went down quite nicely with the scrumptious pork-chops, baked to poifection in the oven. Dessert was ice-cream over a plum, (JDP), crumble, once again courtesy of Martha Stewart, aka Lady Mary! Herardo was too, too sleepy to have any malt so after I did the dishes and made my lunch, (another hike on the morrow), took out the garbage and made for bed myself.
Hi Patrice, Colleen told me about your friend Andrew and Chloe and just wanted to send my condolences on both and hope everyone is coping ok given the circumstances. Also really really enjoyed the pictures of your hiking group and so glad you are having fun and meeting some great new people.
We had an Indian feast here last night and everyone dressed the part and brought fantastic food to share. We had fun with playing the part complete with accents etc. One bad thing was that I started to have some upper gastrointestinal issues mid evening and as the night wore on they became worse until literally writhing in agony around midnight. Not really sure weather this could be attributed to another bout of gall stone/pancreatitis issues or the indian food or a questionable plum I ate while out walking with Colleen in the afternoon.
Either way I felt fine this morning so very thankful for that! . Had some friends Rick and Ida up last night and had a nice time, fortunately we were able to have a campfire so we had many beverages and some snores while Jacob picked away on the guitar. Jake has really gotten back into playing after an absence of a year and a half or so and has taken it to a new level and is sounding fantastic. Just getting a chance to catch up on stuff including emails but am feeling like a nap so will sign off and talk tonyou again soon. Love to all you guys, take care and we'll talk soon. Cheers, Al
Hi Big Al and Marilyn! Thanks for the sympathy regarding our friend Andrew, as well as for Chloë. Andrew's two children are going to have a difficult time but his ex-partner seems very supportive so trust they will be fine, at some point. Chloë seems to be dealing with everything pretty well so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens next. Very sorry to hear about your very nasty gastrointestinal pain. Did sound terribly agonizing so am pleased that you seem to have recovered. Obviously not drinking enough single malt! I thought I's send along a "quick" reply before heading to bed.
Ragin' Bull is driving up on Saturday to spend four or five days. He has very kindly offered to help me start on shelving in garage so looking forward to getting that project underway as it will allow us to finally make some order out there. Take care of each other. Cheers, Patrizzio!
Patriçio, I get dizzy just following your path. You should try just going to a destination, and coming back. A different rout back is fine, but dipsy doodling has been clinically proven to cause various ailments. C U Saturday. My goal is to leave here by 10am. cheers//bjp
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