A Bit of Biking and Watching

Yesterday we wanted to get away, yet we really didn't want to deal with being in a car in a traffic jam. So we compromised and went to Stanley Park for a fun bike ride. Two weeks ago P had gotten a new bike so it was the perfect way for both of us to ride together.

What was shocking during our ride is how much destruction that is still left over from the horrible December wind storms which devastated Stanley Park. I'd say we saw some 1000 trees on the ride which were cut down or destroyed. And this is almost a full year after the storm! In fact, the Prospect Point end of the seawall is still closed and detoured. Given the current strike, the clean up will even be more delayed.

It would have been nice to have taken a few pics to show you, but I need to get a new tiny camera just for these sort of travels. We did manage to do 2 full cycles around the park as it is not really that much of a ride.

As the morning began today, another part history of biking has ended. I can never get enough of the Tour de France. It's exciting. It has culture, hope and celebration. Yet in the almost month that the tour has come along, the excitement of watching the tour comes to an end. It's a hard habit to part with, sort of like the feeling of coming home from a vacation, that I long for every summer.

The combination of having seen the tour while in Paris in 2003 and being a bike fan myself is why I enjoy watching and seeing so much of the tour. It also brings back memories while in Switzerland in 2002 and watching the tour live for the first time. My little buddy who was just two at the time would watch parts of the race with me and chant "France, France" in the cutest little voice.

I'm happy we can watch the tour here in Canada now and is such a treat since I never had the privilege to watch the race before 2002. It gets me back in my travel element while I'm not over in Europe or Switzerland.

Team Discovery had a great tour this year. Here are the results of the tour.

Getting Creative

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This weeks Photo Hunt Theme is Creative.

Creative I am not, but I think these pics are.. Posting early because I'm not around.

(A Swiss Flag on top of Mt. Rigi)

(HSBC Celebration of Light)

Today I saw a first nations guy who carved an amazing sculpture from wood. I was beside myself how he actually did it all, and within 4 hrs. I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't take a pic, but let me tell you I was honored to hear his story.

A Sunny Week

Last night was a good night for the Celebration of light. Great skies and not many people. But we chose not to go. But the sun is shining again and it sort of feels like summer out.

Here's my fav pic from Crater lake.

Now it's time for me to get creative. :)

Sticking Out a Strike

I mentioned earlier that North Vancouver and Vancouver might go into full strike action. That finally happened yesterday and has led to people having to make drastic changes in their schedules.

For me personally, I can't go to the rec center to work out because it's closed. I have to find a swim pool that is private and not tied to any of the cities. It is a big challenge and I mostly will have to substitute some form of cardio in place of swimming until the strike is over.

Some garbage services aren't in service, but parking is! How essential when they need the money. Also, all summer programs are shut down as well as day cares. And some essential summer concerts are cancelled.

Predictions say this strike could last around 6 wks. Bummer! The only thing I'm doing is sleeping in 45 more minutes than normal, well for this week!

A Little Rain Could Hurt

Vancouver and Central England have had one thing in common, record rains. Although here in Vancouver the rain hasn't been nearly as bad as in the UK, which has been a result of El Nino.

However, we have had enough rain to set records for the most consecutive days of rain for July. Yes Vancouvites haven't seen their vitamin d for days. That's certainly our problem.

But hopefully all of that will change Wednesday with the HSBC Celebration of Light. The weather forecast calls for sun and lots of it. So that little rain might not hurt as much. I'm looking forward to all of the fireworks as it is one of the highlights of the summer here in Vancouver.

In case you are interested in the Fireworks Schedule, it is as follows:

Spain - July 25
Canada - July 28
China - Aug 1
Finale - Aug 4

Visiting Napa on Vacation

While on Vacation in California, we celebrated July 4th with family and friends doing a nice wine tour of the Napa Valley. I think the best way to tell about the 3 wineries we visited was to show a few shots of the wineries. Did I mention we drove a ton, especially for Swiss standards.

(The view as we drove into Napa Valley.)

The day started off leaving by 9am to arrive in the Napa Valley before 10:30am. We picked up my very good friend Sylvie along the way. I had actually met her in Switzerland in 2002 and we have been friends ever since. Actually it gets even more ironic. We grew up in the same city in California and now her parents have moved to Napa.

The tour started up at Sterling Winery. We wanted to take the tour before 12:30pm so we could get the $5 discount. Arriving early was well worth it because Napa was getting very hot! 100F or about 35C.

(This is the tram, made in Switzerland which zooms you up to the top of the mountain.)

(P's view from our tram car.)

P, Sylvie and I after the start of tasting at Sterling Winery. The tour included the tram ride up and a self guided tour with 5 samples of some incredible wines. We brought back 2 types of wines from Sterling in fact.

The tram ride down from Sterling - doesn't it look dry??

Our second tour was at Clos Pegase after a quick stop for lunch. Clos Pegase offers a free tour and lots of looking around the winery. It was next to empty on this Fourth of July Holiday too.

The cool Clos Pegase cave where they age the wine is naturally 60F all year long.
Boy was that nice since it was well over 102F outdoors!

The Last Stop - The Hess Collection

A look at this Swiss Winery which has an amazing art collection, beautiful views and wine, chocolate wine and other special wine based sauces. The bad thing is they don't allow photography inside the winery.

But visit The Hess website and my flower photo for a few more views of water lilies and vineyards of Clos Pegase.

It was a great way to end the day..
We actually were invited to speak French and meet Sylvie's family for dinner.
What a great time!
Talk about a beautiful Independence Day!

The World Around Us

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This weeks Photo Hunt Theme is Tiny.

For me, while living in Montreux, I used to look out and see how far Lac Leman expanded. Everything was so far away and tiny, but I would make my eagle eyes see as far as possible... And dream...

This view is from my favorite park in the Montreux area.
Everything seems so tiny far away..
Across the way is Bouveret and France.
Yes those are houses across the lake.
Just a tiny paradise.

Starbucks or Peets Coffee

Which do you prefer?

While we were in California, we resorted to going to Starbucks for some fresh brewed coffee since my parents don't drink coffee at all. There was a new Starbucks which opened up. The previous store was a rice discount store. I'm not sure I like the concept, but it's way more convenient...

One day during the week, we went to get a nice frappe mocha drink from Peet's Coffee. My mom wanted to know which we preferred as some people say Peet's is far superior to Starbucks. I'd would totally agree with the iced drinks. Pete's was just perfect and their flavor choices were out of this world. Since we don't frequent any coffee place that often, I can't say we would go to one over the other.

In Vancouver we prefer to make our own. We even bought a new Espresso Maker - 6 Cup by Bialetti Make coffee fast using the Moka Express by Bialetti, the internationally used coffee maker for over 50 years.

It is made using prime aluminun that ensures a blemish free exterior with quality machine screw threads that ensure good pressure and a tight fit. Pressure valves have a stainless steel ball bearing and spring and the gaskets are made from 100% rubber. The thick, hollow ground base allows the Moka Express to be used on gas, electric, or ceramic ranges.

And I still need to figure out how to brew the espresso without the extra coffee grounds spilling over. This morning I got an added overdose of the stuff... lol It was real fun

Time Stands Still

I think time has been standing still yet the days keep zooming on by. I haven't gotten enough of my photos from our trip uploaded yet. And haven't found enough time to really write a post. You can View a few of the photos so far, on the flickr site.

And P took some incredible Panoramic shots. I hope to have those posted soon too.

This is one that I loved (I'll have to wait to fix the error in enlarging the pano later tonight)

Isn't Crater Lake Beautiful!

Crater Lake Shadows

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This weeks Photo Hunt Theme is Shadows.

As many of you know, we were on vacation for the past two weekends. I was not around the internet to participate in the last two photo hunts. This new theme was quite easy for me. I just found a pic from our first day on vacation with great shadows all over Crater Lake. Notice the darker areas, those are where the clouds have cast a shadow onto the lake. Just amazing...

Happy Hunting!

The Tour Is Here

I've been pretty quiet about the Tour De France and have not been watching it, but as soon as July hits, I know my beloved Tour De France hits OLN. I find it sad that cycling is not a mainstream event in North America, or at least the marketing world does not see fit to advertise for it.

This years race is extremely different. In fact, the race actually goes in a clockwise direction on the map, instead of the normal route. But most notably, Stage 7 almost hits Geneva, Switzerland. It's just a stones throw away. I'd tell ya, if I were there still, I'd try to see that race!

Here are a few interesting facts about the tour.

The route

Running from Saturday July 7^th to Sunday July 29^th 2007, the 94^th Tour de France will be made up of a prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,550 kilometres.

These 20 stages have the following profiles:

• 11 flat stages
• 6 mountain stages
• 1 medium mountain stage
• 2 individual time-trial stages

Distinctive aspects of the race

• 3 mountain finishes
• 2 rest days
• 117 kilometres of individual time-trials (including the prologue)
• 21 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed

12 new stop-over towns

London, Canterbury, Waregem, Villers-Cotterêts, Joigny, Chablis, Semur-en-Auxois, Tignes, Tallard, Mazamet, Cognac, Marcoussis

For me, watching the race go through the lovely French villages, watching the people cheering and searching the maps just interests me in the regions. There even was a stage in London. Swiss cyclist Fabian CANCELLARA one the time trial and I think held the overall for 4 days.

A Stinkin Strike

I've been on edge since just before July 1st as there has been a lot of rumors about a strike happening throughout Vancouver mainland.

Read all of the details from an independent news source. Funny enough, it sounds like the mayor could help keep workers from striking...

And did I tell you it might stink a lot if they strike, garbage will sit in the 35C plus temps we are having this week..

I'd miss my normal swimming workout too!

Obviously there are many of us who are hoping for NO strike in Vancouver!

Visiting Crater Lake

Much of our vacation consisted of moving and purging my belongings from my storage unit. However, we were able to get in a few amazing sites along the way. Our journey began way too early on Friday June 29th. We elected to leave a bit earlier to get across the border and to also avoid the commute traffic around the major towns.

The gamble paid off as we only hit a little bit of Seattle traffic some 2.5 hrs or 3 hours later. It was relatively easy sailing and as soon as we crossed over into the states, we didn't have anymore pouring rain. The pouring rain had actually kept me awake the night before.

Around 2:30 or 3pm we finally arrived in the National Park of Crater Lake. The sky was blue, the air was chilly and there was still patches of snow all around. Once we finally got up to the lake, I was just in pure awe.

We spent about 30 mins enjoying the view however there was a large breeze and it was chilly just standing outside. We elected to get to our lodging and see if we could check in. This was a total mistake! We were totally unimpressed as our room became available at 4:45pm! Now when you have an 11am check out, something like this should literally never happen. And this happened to everyone checking into the hotel that day! All I can say is that we won't be going back to sleep there.

However, the sites, dinner and the view was all worth our short 16 hour or so visit. Here are two pics which I have uploaded so far..

A view past one of the volcanoes closer to the hotel.

Views from our first stop onto crater lake.

More photos to come from the next morning and other adventures along the way.

And I saved the most amazing for last (unedited photo by my new photographer "P")

We're Home

It feels so good to be back in the Great Northwest, with fresh air, cooler temperatures and greenery everywhere...

We drove a total of 3783km's (2200 miles), through 3 states (Washington, Oregon & California). Most of the driving during the week was done with my mom's car, so we didn't add those miles into the calculation.

We actually made great timing but it was more of what I'd call a working vacation. P so wonderfully supported and helped me clean out my storage unit, bring back all of the boxes and belongings and dwindle down my share to just a trunk of a Ford Fusion Green..

Our Rental Car - A Red Ford Fusion was incredible! We rented from Hertz and would recommend them to anyone. The car had Sirius Satellite Radio and a great air conditioner, which we don't have in our car in Vancouver.

So numerous boxes, suitcases and photos later, we are home and have to unpack and get ready to work tomorrow. Ironically I never slept in past 7am and worked on cleaning daily. I've got about 500 photos to weed through and some great jokes to post as the week goes on.

For now - I'll tell you we are so happy to be back and I hope to share our trip soon!

P trying to stay warm while I take his pic - Crater Lake Oregon.. More pics to come.

Jen just as cold as P... (Was about 50F and very windy!) June 29th.