Cycling

When you're not cycling, your home is your castle.
Milt McCrae's Whyte Inch Castle, Smoky Lake, Alberta


When you're cycling, your tent is your castle.
I must have been a turtle in a former life.
My Tent - Looks like a baby basinet, eh!
Ron loves his wild daisies & doesn't mow there but I was careful not to put the tent on any of them.

Before I started out on this trip, I had three fortunes from Chinese fortune cookies taped to my computer from the last 3 times at a Chinese buffet restaurant:
'You will soon receive help from an unexpected source.'
'Your present plans are going to succeed.'
and
'Good luck bestows upon you. You will get what your heart desires.'
Well, I guess I did, although my heart's desires are modest to begin with.

June 13th (2008) was a Friday the 13th, and my last night at work before retirement. I will never see Friday the 13ths with the same forboding again. Instead, I will celebrate them.

In this blog, the first 26 entries are from my bicycle trip itself, cycling from Edmonton north to the Iron Horse Trail and then east to Onion Lake which is in both AB and SK, and then southeast across SK diagonally to the TransCanada Highway in Regina, and finally ending this pilgrimage at Brandon, MB.
The blogs are titled according to the name of the place where I stopped to camp each night, if it had one.
The next group of entries are from my trip out to the west coast, to Vancouver and back to Edmonton, on the train.
And prior to that was my countdown to this wonderful holiday trip which started on the day after my 64th birthday, 365 days/entries of cycling information, and pictures, up to my 65th birthday, as well as a few entries from my birthday up to June 19th, when I left Belleville on the train.
You may leave a comment, which I do so enjoy, but blogspot does not let me see your email address so I can't reply directly back to you. I love to read the comments, and have moved most of them into subsequent entries.

I am extremely grateful to my higher power, my God, for having allowed me to get even this far. I know how fortunate I am, even though I have the barest of pension.
Just to have been born Canadian is a blessing in itself, especially in this time of freedom to make my own choices which a woman in the time of my youth wouldn't have had.
Struggles - I'll have many and have had already just to get this far.
Challenges - tomorrow just to get to the Edm. trail means frighteningly high bridges, deep valleys to go up and down, and the danger of crazies hiding in the bushes and woods.
Blessings - the chance to face and experience it all.
May all your Struggles n Challenges be small, and all your Blessings be great.

Thank you for reading this blog,
and May All Your Trails be Happy Ones.
Karen