Circumnavigating Sikome

I'll try not to gush too much.  It was just one of those lovely days for a bunch of reasons. In fact I'm so excited I forgot I'd published this morning. You may have missed a new series of abstracts.

Once upon a time when I was a kid, maybe 14 or so, I was out for a bike ride around town. I chanced to to meet up some other kids, one of whom I knew, and we rode around and had fun all afternoon, with nothing planned.

Today we didn't want to run. My hams are cranky, and BRBE's calves are not happy. But it's been crappy weather for a while, and today was lovely out this morning. We badly wanted to be outside, and landed on a bike ride in Fish Creek, not using our fancy road bikes.

Well holy doodle! I haven't had so much fun on a bike in ages. We've often run in the west part of the park and know many of the trails, so we noodled along. We explored a bit in Votier's Flats, then decided we could make it to Sikome Lake, such as it is. It turned out to be 34.5 K round trip over 2.5 hr or so, stopping lots of times to enjoy the scenery.

We didn't zoom but rode along enjoying a beautiful day, dodging a tonne of other people on the path. Some of them seem to have forgotten that many people move on the path, so if you're going to stop and chat or just admire the view, get off the path. Fortunately my squeaky shark noisemaker still works.

I had to laugh at one point, I was a bit behind Michelle, just out of sight around a corner. A guy coming towards us, turned his head and just about rode off the path scoping out her butt, then turned to look forward, with me looking right at him. Busted! He looked so guilty.

Yes, we waved as we went past Terry's place. One guy said hello to me as if he knew me, but I didn't get a good look. There was a guy on those ski-roller thingies, lots of people on bikes, a few on roller blades, some skateboards, plus lots of walkers and runners. Once I nearly rode off the path trying to see what kind of camera and lens a birder was using. A few times I wished I'd brought my camera, but then we never would have made to Sikome. It's nice to see so many people out enjoying the nice weather. Everybody is desperate for spring, and this is as good as it been for several weeks.

Contrary to the map below, Sikome is some damp sand just now. Later they'll charge admission to get in, but you couldn't pay me to go in the water. Every child in the water uses it as a toilet, and probably some the adults do too. Supposedly they have water treatment of the lake. Supposedly.

Along the way we saw scenery like this, though not exactly as represented.