And the embers never fade, In your city by the lake

Hi Folks, Lucas here again.  Hope all is well out there.

I have lots to tell and a few pictures to share. 

When we last left you I believe we had made it to beautiful Keremeos.

We have been blessed lately with amazing and abnormal weather for this time of year, and the last few days have been no different. 

We left Keremeos with an appreciated tailwind blowing us up the slight incline along the river up to Princeton.  We stayed at the Princeton Pentecostal Tabernacle, where pastor Tony Essex kindly and trustingly gave us a key to the church, and let us set up for the night.  Viera and I had a chance to take a quick walk around town and enjoyed the quaint feel of the alpine town. 

On Thursday we left for the park.  It was yet again another beautiful day, with blue sky and warm sun.  We headed towards Manning Park, and put our heads down and sweated hard. 

We ended up climbing and climbing.  It ended up being the most challenging day of the trip yet, despite only going 50 kilometres.  Despite all the hard work we got to witness some beautiful scenery.

We got to the gas station before the park in the early evening.  There was really nothing between there and Hope, BC, which was about 90 more kms.  Garrett’s dad had kindly donated some emergency money for if we ever needed a place to stay.  We were going to stay at the hotel in the park, when we noticed a sign for a B&B.  Garrett and I ended up riding up the hill to ask the people about rates.  They ended up being incredibly kind to us.  Their names where Kristina and Brittanie,  they ended up putting us in a cabin, (which would more adequately be called a house).  They also let us come up and have a soak in there hot tub, which to a sore cyclist seems like about the greatest thing on the planet.  We had a spaghetti dinner in our cabin, with a nice fire going in the fireplace and classical music playing from the speakers of the sound system.  How Romantic!  Despite the love in the air we all gathered around the fire and watched Space Odyssey: 2001 and eating a whole load of popcorn.

  We slept great and in the morning were thankful we had a warm place to cuddle up.  The temperature had dropped to about -10C overnight and our bikes outside were thoroughly frosted. 

We took off into the park, with the knowledge that the next 90kms to Hope were actually somewhat easy, and that we had done all the hard part the night before.  As cyclists we were naturally sceptical of the reconnaissance, but our intel turned out to be correct.

We reached the Allison Pass Summit at a little after lunch time, at 1324 metres above sea level if I recall correctly.  We knew Hope was pretty close to sea level so we were happy to think of the descent we would have.

Honestly I could not have imagined how amazing it would have been.  Talking to my father in the morning he had suggested to fix my breaks.  Well sorry dad but I didn’t heed the advice.  Justin and I were riding together, and when we crested the summit we stopped to bundle up, then plummeted down the amazing valleys.

We have found that our bikes naturally hold us bck to about 60-70 km/h.  To us that is pretty much the perfect speed.  Other than a slight cold rain in the eyes, I was in near perfect bliss.  We raced down the mountains, and as we kept thinking we couldn’t get any lower, another valley would appear.  It is quite literally mountains on top of mountains on top of mountains here.

At one point I believe I experienced my soul try to escape, and I found myself shouting guttural yelps of joy and delight like a young puppy caught up in a game of fetch.  We were on top of the world as we dropped from the top of the world.  It’s funny how our bodies are capable of understanding so much joy from experiencing the rare combination of thrill absolute and beauty absolute.  And sometimes your only response is to hoot and holler at the giant cedars passing you by at 70 kilometres an hour.

I was so impressed by those trees, they covered every mountain from tip to toe, unlike most mountains you see with patches here and there of grass and field, and the mix of different deciduous and coniferous trees.  These were completely green, like the deep pits of a glacial run off.  We thundered down through the deep canyons for literally hours (how often in your life can you change elevation for the long).  As you can probably tell I would like to ramble on all night about that ride, but my words cant do it justice anyways (Neither can these pictures but hopefully they help a little bit [my camera ended up dying half way through the ride).

We made it to Hope at dusk, and a kind lady named Gail brought us to an Anglican church here to stay the night.  I guess it is Halloweens Eve, and probably a fun party night for many of our adult readers, but we are sitting here quietly in our church basement.  I bought a bag of candy at the store tonight to give to kids tomorrow, but have yet to devise a way to give the candy to kids without coming off as a weirdo.  The kids may have to settle for taking candy from a weird guy on a bike, or we may just end up eating the leftovers on Monday.

As for the next few days:

We head to Chilliwack tomorrow, then an eco village near there the next day.

Then we will probably head to Vancouver the next day, where we will most likely finally meet up  with Steve, the newest member of our group, who has been patiently waiting for us for a few days now, since he got in from Ontario.

I think there is a sense of excitement within the group to see the Ocean and the Coast.  It will be a very big psychological victory for the group.  Everyone has been riding hard for what will be 4 months on Wednesday.  Garrett informed me tonight that we have reached 1/3 of our total distance (5327 of about 16,000 kilometres).

I am proud of this group.  There has definitely challenges along the way, and there will definitely be challenges over the next 8 months, but I really believe in this group of youth, and we all feel lucky to be a part of this amazing journey.

Thank You all for reading, Lucas and the PEDAL team.

And if you have time to read a little more, I would like to share possibly my favourite lyrics.  I find myself thinking about these words when contemplating the distance of a journey, or the bittersweet changes of our lives.

Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel
Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
We're not the same, we're different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
And you know you're never sure
But you're sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born
Believe, believe in me, believe
In the resolute urgency of now
And if you believe there's not a chance tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
We'll crucify the insincere tonight
We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight
We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight