170 km in one week.

About a month ago, Kay bought a new bike. Yippy! A week-later Pamela bought a bike. Very surprising. I took both of them to MEC to equip them with all the little necessities. Bike lights, bells etc.. It was great doing it together. I made some suggestions and they bought what they felt they needed. They have quite different bikes and their choice in accessories but at least they're both safe with lights and helmets.

Shortly after that we had a very busy week where we rode 170km all together. Each ride seem to have a different combination of people but that's what makes it fun. Vanessa tagged along on about half of it. She loves her trailer and even asks for her helmet. She falls asleep in all sorts of interesting positions.

We went over to Parc Jean-Drapeau to the Festival Plein Air. We'd planned to go for dinner. On the way there we got soaked in the rain. I'm sure it gusted up to 50km/hour. Good thing it didn't last long and we were dressed for it. Windshield wipers on my sunglasses would have been nice. We didn't realise it closed at 7pm so Pamela suggested we go to the old port for dinner. Kay later confided that she initially thought Pamela was nuts. Half way they she realised how close it was. Our clothes dried in the wind and we went out for dinner. We got some looks going in and out of the restaurant. On the way out, I nearly told someone staring that to watch out the ceiling was falling and tap on my bike helmet. Hehehe. We called Eric at 9:30 after dinner to let him know where we were since the old port was not in the plans. He said we'd better hurry up since the bridge we had plan to return on is closing at 10pm. We hoped on our bikes and rode like the wind. I figured we averaged about 25km/h. That's much higher than our novice rate. When we got onto the island I had lost all sense of direction in the dark. Good thing Kay knew her way around and we got back with a couple of minutes to spare! We took a break on the other side of the bridge. We were eager to get over the bridge but did know that if we got stuck we could take the metro from the park.

The next day. We went back to Parc Jean-Drapeau and took a bike "fine tuning"(great french)seminar. It was pretty good and packed. Vanessa and her daddy walked around the facility. One of the kiosks was giving away free mediteranean yogurt. I gave one to Vanessa but after she ate it all I took it away. She screamed like I had just pinched her finger in the door. Nice to see lots of sympathetic smiles. We walked away and she moved onto her happy self. We again rode over to the old port and had dinner and then to Ben and Jerry's. We didn't bring a seat for her and regretted it. It's much easier to eat together when she's strapped in somewhere. Vanessa had a B&J cookie which was easy for her to feed herself and kept her happy while we had yummy icecream. We rode back and Vanessa fell asleep and even slept through a trip to grandma's.

Kay's teaching Vanessa to play in the tracks.

On the Sunday, Kay, Eric and I biked to the Fort-Chambly. It's a lovely ride all on bike path and mostly away from traffic. Eric pulled Vanessa on the way there. We brought a pic-nic and met up with my parents and Tara. It was a really nice way to spend the day. This time we brought her clip on chair. Vanessa walked Grandpa and Grandma around the park. She still won't walk on her own but loves to put her had up and get us to take her by the hand.

It was a great week-end and we'll do it again soon.