Take nothing but photographs...

One of my favourite places to walk is a section of The Humber Trail. It is about 3.5km long, mostly gravel but with some dirt and paved areas.  The trail is used by hikers, bikers, and dog walkers. Motorized vehicles are not permitted. We start  at Foster Woods and follow a dirt trail through a meadow of wildflowers and are chased by mini monarch butterflies. A light breeze is blowing now and the walk is comfortable. The dirt path leads into the woods and the trail goes down to a gully and then back up again. I once some some boys practicing mountain bike jumps here, but not today. The path levels off  and then takes us out through another meadow.

This is a bridge crossing the Humber River or a part of it. The water is not very high in summer. The bridge is named for Elizabeth Simcoe, the wife of John Graves Simcoe who was the first Lt. Governor of Upper Canada (back when Toronto was called York). At the opposite end of this bridge we join the main branch of The Humber Trail.

At this point we have a choice: go right and walk the shorter part of the trail; or go left and take the longer trail. We decide to take the longer trail to the left, but first we go a few paces to the right. We want to have a look at the damage done to the tunnel when a car was set on fire back in May. The top of the tunnel is black and part of the wooden guardrail is new but fortunately the tunnel is the same. We will follow this path another day..

We turn back to the longer trail. A sign tells us, among other do's and don'ts, that we should "take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footsteps behind".

We wander the path through meadows of wildflowers, past gorgeous trees both small and tall. There are benches where we can pause to take in the views, dedicated in memory of those who enjoyed these walks before us.

We cross another footbridge over the Humber, and come upon a sign pronouncing a steep grade ahead. So we climb, it's not too strenuous but if we need to there is a bench at the top.

All along our walk we are followed by dragonflies and butterflies, much to busy flitting to and fro to care that we are here. In particular were the black butterflies with a white stripe across their wings, one of which  finally stayed still long enough for me to take a picture.

We wander past the Humber River again as the path ahead leads us to the northern parking area. We turn back to retrace our steps through this beautiful greenspace and arrive at our car happy to have left only footsteps behind!

Distracted by the view

Headed out the other day to ride for exercise but got distracted by the sunshine and views along the way.

Commuting to work

I work at my kids school at lunch which is 2.5km from home or 5km round trip. It takes the same amount of time to drive as it does to ride my bike and with today’s gas prices the bike is a smarter choice.

One issue I have with that commute is that I have to ride over a major highway that spans 6 lanes . The road I use is 6 lanes wide and includes a northbound on-ramp for that highway, a southbound on-ramp for that highway and a southbound exit for that highway. This makes for a lot of vehicular traffic.

Needless to say that I do not feel safe riding that route on the road. I use the sidewalk until I am safely on the other side and can ride within the neighbourhood again. I am supposed to ride on the road…I like to ride on the road. The sidewalk is too bumpy! I brake and roll past  any pedestrians that may also be using the sidewalk because I know I am supposed to be on the road.

BUT I don’t feel safe on the road! Not all the time. When I am climbing up and over the highway my speed is about 9-10km/h. The speed limit on the road is 70km/h. I am sure many vehicles are going faster than that. It sure seems like it.

As I wait to cross over the on-ramps I usually count how many vehicles actually signal their lane change onto the on-ramp.  Most days only 2 of 10 vehicles signal. 8 of those vehicles should have gone straight and I should have been able to safely cross to the other side…Had I attempted to exercise my right to cross I would have been hit.

And don’t even get me started about the cars that move to the center lane to get around trucks and then pull in front of the trucks into the right lane again before exiting onto the highway.

These (predictably) unpredictable drivers are dangerous. They take away my right to safely share the road as a vehicle.

So I ride on the sidewalk and wait until there are no cars coming before I cross just to be safe… 4 times on my round trip commute.

Because my helmet doesn’t protect against everything.

This Old Bike

I bought my bike in 1987 when I was in college. I lived downtown and riding a bike is a great way to get to summer jobs. Then in ‘93 I bought a car and the bike was relegated to storage.

Fast-forward more than 15 years and I get it out, tune it up, and start riding it again. I live in the suburb of a major Canadian city now and I like to ride my bike for exercise and for transportation. My kids are proficient riders themselves now so we ride around our neighbourhood  as a family. We ride to the park, on nearby trails, and sometimes just to get ice cream!

I installed a computer on my bike to track how far and how fast I ride. It tells me my avg. speed, max speed, trip time and it estimates calories burned. It even tells me the temperature. I can't say how many km 's I have ridden since I forgot to write down the odometer reading when I had to change the battery on the computer last week but it was a lot...

1000 Paper Cranes

A Japanese legend says that if you fold 1000 origami cranes your wish will be granted.

 So the students at my childrens' school folded a gazillion paper cranes, and made many wishes to help the people of Japan

       

                                            My daughter's class folded 1,015 on their own!

  

                                              

                                    Many were hung on the tree in the school's entry...

  
                                       ...others were strung into garlands and hung from the ceiling...

   


                                          Some were strung as curtains on windows...

                                  And many, many, MANY more  were placed into display cases...

                                          ...the sheer number number of paper cranes is staggering!

The students/families also collected around $3000 by bringing in toonies (and more) to help the people of Japan.

Note:  At the end of the school year in June most of the cranes were taken to the Consulate General of Japan  and were put on display there!!

Spring

Today is the first day of Spring 2011 so it is fitting that today I also saw my first robin of the year in my backyard!!!

He is on his way...

I mentioned in an earlier post that my son is participating in a student exchange.  This involved hosting a child from another country and then sending my child to live with that family.

We took Lucas to the airport on Saturday. It was really hard to see him go bravely forward into the unknown, at only 13 years of age but I was so proud of him. You see, Lucas has never been away from home for an extended period and he has never been on a plane before.  This exchange is 2 months long, 58 days to be exact...

The airport was busy with families sending off students for 2 months (some students are gone for 3 months) so there were lots of tears. Boarding passes were handed out and then they were off... Lucas walked off without looking back. So we went home with one child where there used to be two.

I knew he would be fine and would love the flight but a mother worries when her child is away from her. I don’t think I will breathe properly until he is home again. I cried most of that night; just when I thought I’d gotten control of my emotions I would start up again.

There are a lot of flight trackers online so I watched as the plane took my son across the Atlantic Ocean and I wondered what he doing, what he was thinking even though I knew he was partly nervous, mostly excited and just watching movies.  Finally I sent an email to the family letting them know he was indeed on his way to them and went to bed knowing that he would be at their place when I woke up.

The next morning we talked to Lucas on Skype! It was afternoon for him and he had been up all night so he sounded tired. He had a great flight to Paris, and enjoyed the shorter connecting flight to Geneva where he could see the Alps out the window of the plane. Magnificent!!

I felt immediately better knowing he had made it safely to the family that would take care of him and started thinking ahead to all the adventures waiting for him in Switzerland and in Europe!