It’s been a long six years and a particularly long last six months but we’ve finally arrived. Persistence pays off! We moved into CHUC (Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing) on June 14, 2016. Backstory Spencer and I have long been interested in community and in cohousing. We explored it with our friends Larry & Karin in […]

Last March, 2015 we posted about Sheila winning an AARP Essay Contest and that we were splitting the proceeds between our Banff-Jasper bike tour and creating a mosaic for our community’s entry. The completed mosaic went up a few weeks ago and is all we hoped it to be. It makes a stunning impression as […]

Monday, August 24: 35 miles / 934 ft. elevation gain / TOTALS: gain: 20,428′ / miles: 355.5 We left first today to have time to tear down the bike in Jasper in time for our 1:45 bus ride out. And since it was mostly down, we really rocked. Again, it was very cold. But we […]

Sunday, August 23: 61 miles/ 3,362 ft. elevation gain / Cumulative gain 19,404′ We left this morning at the scheduled start time of 8:30. Somehow it had gotten pushed back to 9 without our knowledge. What the heck, we’ll just get in some early morning miles. It was freezing cold again especially since the first […]

Saturday, August 22: 51 miles/ 2,692 ft. elevation gain / Cumulative gain 16,072′ It was still bitterly cold in the morning when we woke at Lake Louise (top) so Rich decided they’d shuttle us all up to Lake Moraine (bottom) for a look-about. That also would allow us to start riding when it was warmer. […]

Friday, August 21: 1.6 miles / 10 ft. elevation gain / Cumulative gain 13,380 The rain that started yesterday came and went all night long. At our 8 AM tour meeting, we were told that the ride was a “go” and we should be ready to leave at 9. It wasn’t raining at the moment […]

Thursday, August 20: 57 miles / 3,533 ft. elevation gain / Cumulative gain 13,370 This was to be our most unpleasant day of the trip so far. Unmet expectations were the root cause.It was too far to ride from Waterton to Banff, about 231 miles. The plan was to shuttle us to the designated start at the bottom […]

Wednesday, August 19: 49 miles / 3,359 ft. elevation gain / Cumulative gain 10,017′ This morning we discovered we hadn’t read the tour offering very carefully and in fact breakfasts are not being provided. Oops. Another unmet expectation. These were going to crop up all week. There must be a lesson here. But we enjoyed bowls […]

Tuesday, August 18: 71 miles / 5,101 ft. elevation gain /Cumulative climb 6,718′ We woke at 5:50 because it was going to be a tough day. We had to get to the top of Going to the Sun Road (Logan Pass, 6,685′ high) no later than 11. After that we’d be kicked off the hill. […]

Monday, August 17: 30 miles / 1,500 ft. elevation gain We left Seattle at 4:30 PM Sunday evening. We booked a sleeper car which included breakfast and lunch. Of course we pre-ordered vegan meals. The food was pretty good. Sleeping on the train was not so great, what with all the announcements, rattling and train […]