Sweet Home Canada

"Cowboy Chili", a perfect meal for dry camping along the trail.  Rick is a mean cook and it isn't just that food tastes better outside.

Blueberry morning, creamiest oatmeal we've had in a year!  Something special about returning to food you are familiar with.  We passed by fields of blueberry plants loaded with berries as we rode towards the Rockies out of Vancouver.  Two pounds fresh picked, sold out of the farmer's garage cost $4 Canadian.  How could we pass that up?

After a day of biking and starting out the Kettle Valley Trail out of Princeton, British Columbia, Tarn is deep into his downloaded book.  We camped on a piece of land donated to trail users in honor of the original homesteaders of the land.  Most gorgeous wild camping we've had. Not a speck of garbage, wildflowers everywhere, and layers of mountains beyond the gentle high country valley we were traveling up at railroad grade - 3%.  Pretty awesome.

Wow, what a country we live in.  We have traveled through 18 countries in the past 12 months and I am so happy to have these last few weeks to travel mine.  True pleasures?  Speaking the language and talking to people. Being able to get local knowledge multiple times a day. Buying food I'm familiar with and being on a closer time zone to family and friends.  Traveling slow, our style, through areas I've zoomed by in a car - the route from Vancouver to Calgary.  Taking in the beauty of the Canadian Rockies from the western approach.  Currently we are in Okanagan Falls taking a rest day.  The weather has been hot and clear for days, following our wet, chilly exit out of the lower mainland Vancouver.  We hopped onto the Kettle Valley Trail (a rail-to-trail route) and found amazing camping, fun single track and chopped up loose/rocky portions that were possible to  route off of to quiet and smooth dirt or paved roads.  We must be home by July 31st, Sampson takes a diploma exam in Calgary on August 1st.  Ahead we have numerous mountain passes and friends we hope to visit along the way.   We continue to "write our itinerary" at the end of each day; we are amazed each evening at what adventure and un-predicted circumstances and opportunities we had encountered that day.  We love this way travel, yet love our life in Calgary also and this trip will come to conclusion very soon.  I look forward to the smiling faces of the kids I get to care for in my Day Home, having a stove top with iron cookware and an oven for the baked goods Sampson, Markos and Tarn have brought up time and time again over this past year; our shady back yard and our wonderful neighbours who have cared for our home and our dear cat Vera over this past year.  Homecoming will be outstanding!

  (But we still get to live the life of the traveler for 2 more weeks!  Yee haw!)