Merry Christmas :(

That's what it feels like after 3 straight days of heavy snowfall in Red Deer. Getting pretty sick of it, but at least now the sun is peaking out and we are getting some warm weather finally. I went biking on Tuesday my last day in the city, not very much mind you, but enough to know that I'm pretty out of shape. :) Anyway Julian, Leo and I were supposed to go for a longer ride but I had to cut it short because of the massive amount of errands and chores I had left to do that day before going back to work. My GPS showed 18kms on the odometer by the time I got home so it wasn't all bad. Julian bought a Rans Stratus last fall and he hasn't ridden it too much since then. He let me take it for a spin in front of his house and it is pretty nice, rides much like my Burley, just with a softer seat bottom. It takes a while to get used to riding a recumbent, but he is doing really well and pretty at ease on it. Tina and I have made a decision to move out to Alberta in Oct sometime. Right now I think that we may buy a condo if the bank will let me, at least for a while so that we can get back on our feet and look at houses. Not sure where we are going to be located yet, that will come with time. Anyway sorry for no photos today, I left my camera at Mom and Dad's place and I'm at the Nordegg Library using the high speed internet. Next time I will post them. Ride safe and have fun, summers coming and look for more frequent updates. :)

Mt. Baldy

The trail/road leading up to the summit.

The mountains on the west end of Lake Abraham.

Mom's neighbor puts out food for the squirrels.

Here is a couple of them chowing down.

Mt Baldy fire tower at the summit of Mt Baldy, 2082m above sea level.

Looking off the edge, it was kind of cloudy that day.

The town of Nordegg from the summit, you can also see the damage caused by last year's forest fire in the upper left hand corner of the photo.

Dad resting on on of the many switchbacks leading to the top.

A part of the road near the top, still a lot of snow.

Snow covered alpine meadow near the summit, would be really nice in the summer.

Well some exciting news, I bought a Garmin GPS off of a fellow at work, he got it through work somehow and didn't want it so he gave me a really good deal on it. This got me excited about doing some hiking. We are on spring break up right now so it is very slow around the shop and not much going on. I went out to Nordegg for Easter weekend and Mom handed me a really excellent book about hiking around Nordegg and area. I really have been wanting to hike to the top of Mt. Baldy for some time now. It is the mountain that is located almost directly across from Nordegg. So Dad and I, along with Kramer (my parent's dog) decided to climb it one day. A road leads part of the way up so we drove up in my van, we got stuck on a hill about a km from the gate on the trail so we hiked from the van to the summit and back, altogether about a 9km hike. The view from the top was awesome and well worth the effort. My next plan is to climb another mountain right close to Nordegg as well. Anyway the hiking is good fun and fitness for me. Ride safe and have fun