After living here for nearly a year, we finally visited Lake Louise and drove up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper on the weekend, in a bout of touristing with Mum. It wasn’t fatal, but camping and road trips sure are popular round here in Summer. We fought our way up the highway through streams of traffic, and battled for campground space with RVs. Vicious chipmunks attempted to eat our shoes and car tyres, and vicious panpipe and trumpet players attempted to assault our ears. We were not crushed by the relentless retreat of the Athabasca Glacier, and no tourists fell down a crevasse, despite crossing the barriers and dancing round on the glacier and posing for silly photos. Oh, and we also escaped unscathed from the man-eating Canada Geese at Maligne Lake.

Golden-mantled ground squirrel, at the Lake Agnes Teahouse near Lake Louise
 

Poppies outside the Lake Louise Chateau
 

Athabasca wuz ere in ’82
 

Train tracks outside of Jasper
 

Tomorrow we’re jumping on a ship and sailing up to the Yukon, where I’ll wrestle a moose, then tame it and ride it back to Canmore. And also drive up to Dawson City, and the Dempster Highway – well that’s the plan anyway.

The email I just received from the lovely ladies at the Research and Graduate Students Office:

I’ve received the Statement of Authorship pages and done the cut and paste job. Everything is now in order for your name to go to Academic Board on 13 August.

Friday was supposed to be a climbing day, but a sick climbing partner meant that instead I lazed around the house for hours, then eventually took my bike out for a ride to the Nordic Centre, where all the madness of the 24 hours of Adrenaline was just beginning.

My bike narrowly avoids falling off the cliff as it admires the view out across the Bow River and Canmore from near the Nordic Centre
 

It’s too easy sometimes to be overcome by inertia and stay in the house, but as soon as you leave you wonder what on earth you were doing sitting inside, and then have trouble making yourself turn around for home. Half the cars round town seemed to have 2 or 3 bikes strapped to them, and the Nordic Centre was rapidly becoming covered in bikes, tents and shade shelters. It would have been tempting to enter the event, but for the fact it was also the World Solo 24 hour Championships, team entry cost $750, and it tends to sell out within a couple of days anyway – I just wasn’t fanatical or fit enough. I miss all the more casual MTB enduro events round in Australia though, and the dirt crits in Melbourne. It’s a pity there aren’t more bike events around here (or are there, and I just haven’t been able to find out about them?).

Well the planning is in motion for cycle touring round Europe for a few months next year. There’s a vague plan of the first couple of weeks of June cycling round Hokkaido in Japan, and then on to drop off extra luggage in Ireland, then ferry to France, and away. I’ve been trying to work out which of my bikes to take – the road bike, the Green Giant:

the mountain bike, the Blue Giant (with slicks on):

or some weird combination thereof, or maybe going single speed?

But yesterday I had an epiphany and instead I’m probably going to sell my road bike and buy a Surly Long Haul Trucker (or something similar, probably Surly though). With it’s nice steel frame and general suitability for touring it should be perfect for the job – with the added benefit that I can actually get one that will fit me, unlike the Green Giant, which has always been a bit on the large size.

I’d also stumbled across Epic Designs, all sorts of exciting bike bags and bits, made by Epic Eric. I’ve currently got a set of rear panniers, but a triangle bag with a gas tank probably wouldn’t go astray for creating some extra room (and I’ve fallen in love with the idea of the gas tank – all of my food within easy snacking reach… if it wasn’t too warm I’d contemplate just filling the thing with M&Ms…. yes, I might just have to do that).

Anyone want to buy my old road bike? $550, it’s a bargain. Look, the tyres even match the bar tape!

 
Robo Story! I finally found out the name of the one cartoon I remember from the 80s that I hadn’t been able to track down. With Blueberry the girl, and her dog Loufi and the White Wriggler (the lowest of the low) and Revered Reverence and the Robot Hobo…

 
There’s an episode up on YouTube, starting with this clip.

 
My thesis, finally finished, hard-bound, and submitted.

Ochre beds by the Paint Pots in Kootenay National Park that were used for their colour by both Aboriginal groups and Europeans, before being retired to National Park status.

Daisies down Highway 93, near the border of Banff and Kootenay National Parks
 

Mum is here at the moment, so we’ve been touristing around through all the National Parks that surround us here in Canmore.

The falls at Marble Canyon