One Day Off sandwiched between two Day Ons, so after staying in bed until after 8 o'clock, making Raisin a la Smoke Alarm Toast and pouring two cups of coffee (which I never did drink), I decided to take Breehy for a ride. One good thing about not deciding on a route is that you will never get sidetracked, so we left to go up 134th Street to see what we could see. Decided to turn up 96 Avenue, as I was getting a bit thirsty and had, as usual, forgotten the water, so it was a little detour to the same market as last time, to get another cheap bottle of water. Left Breehy by the door, and sped to the back cooler to grab water - lineup to pay - and out the door - where there was no Breehy.
'MY BIKE IS GONE!'
No, somebody had moved it because he said it was in the way. I had made sure it wasn't in the way, however since he owned the market, I guess it was his call. I don't like him, so I won't buy any more of his water.
On to 120th Street, aka Scott Road, the dividing line between Delta and Surrey. I decided to travel down as far as Nordel (which is 88th Avenue - I hope you're keeping this all straight as you may want to follow my route someday), and check out the establishments on the way.
Lots of Indian restaurants, Jimmy's Cafe (which I am definitely going to check out some day - all day breakie for 3.99), and this Mediterranean place with a cool painting on its wall -
- and tons of not really interesting stuff like insurance agencies, garages, etc. When I reached Nordel, I first decided to keep going on down Scott Road, but then changed my mind - maybe today would be the day I reached the noble Alex Fraser Bridge!
Had to drive in here and photograph the new pharmacy - whenever I see this sign, I think
An Idiot Pharmacy, so I will be unlikely to get my prescription filled here.
Pedalling on. Breehy hadn't had a lot of pushes yet, although the leg muscles were a bit tired. Nordel is all downhill anyway, so hopefully the brakes still worked.
Oh, this was nice. A little path fenced off from the busy street. Sort of peaceful, even though the rumble of trucks was still noisy.
But like all good things, it too came to an end. Which of course, meant a bloody backtrack. I hate backtracks, especially when they are uphill.
So it was back on the sidewalk again - until alas, the sidewalk disappeared. You may not be familiar with Nordel road, but it's always full of speeding transport trucks as well as other traffic, all trying to get the hell out of Surrey. I didn't feel safe 'sharing' the road, so decided to backtrack once again and turn at the previous crossroad. Little did I know at this point, that if I had crossed Nordel and kept going down the other side of the road, I would have shortened my morning jaunt considerably. But that's me, isn't it now - if two roads converge, I will choose the wrong one.
Brooke Road was a downhill kind of road, so I was hoping that it would lead to a bike path for the bridge. Since the only person I saw to ask regarding said path responded with 'I don't speak English,' I kept going, and eventually came to River Road, farther down from the massive construction that stopped my progress last week. However, there was a nice big truck going around spraying water on the road, so even though the sun was blasting, I was still getting rained on every time a truck sped by.
The Traffic Lady I stopped to talk to advised me to cross over and go down the other side of the Road, as that would lead me to the bike path. So once again, a backtrack to a crosswalk, and on we rolled. Blackberry bushes didn't stop us ...
... mud didn't stop us ...
... because we could see our target in the distance ...
... however, this stopped us. They were tearing up the bloody sidewalk. Traffic on River Road was down to two very narrow lanes, and Breehy and I decided we didn't feel lucky enough to chance wheeling down the wrong side of the road, so it was .... I wish I hadn't given up swearing ...
... another backtrack, this time to a road we had passed quite a while before. This road was an uphill road, which more than made up for the downhill road we had previously taken. Still looking for that elusive bike path (I had other more colourful names for it by now) we headed up and around and over - found another path .. dare we?
We dared.
Came out on yet another street - kept going - and ended up on a pedestrian/bike overpass about 500 metres from the end of the sidewalk several pictures back. But see, on the other side of the road? A sidewalk. However, this overpass didn't meet up with that particular sidewalk - instead it meandered through a brand new yet unfinished huge townhouse complex, with roads like mazes and no obvious way out - until I was lucky enough to see a gal rush from her door. She showed me a secret gate, and rushed through it - I think she was 'late for a very important date on the other side of the looking glass' - and I followed her, turned downhill, and once again came to Nordel.
So, I know some of you are thinking, 'Is she going home? You know she's going home now. If she has any sense, she'll go home.'
Ha. Down the road we went - downhill was so very nice, we didn't even think about the uphill that awaited us on the way back, and finally - we were rewarded. The bike path to the bridge!
This path also leads to
Burns Bog , which I do want to explore some day, but not today. Today was the Bridge day.
And there we were, getting really close. Finally.
I had no trouble keeping within the speed limit, especially since it was my turn to push Breehy.
You see these big huge cables, where they are attached to the big white thingies? They are kept in place with two hose clamps, very similar to the ones I've seen in jars in the garage. We got a bit nervous at this point, but wouldn't give up.
Aha! The apex,
acme , apogee, crest , crown- the top. I had already decided not to cross the entire bridge, for two reasons. One, it would mean yet another long uphill on the way back over, and two, there is a very stinky sewage plant on the other side, and Breehy has no windows to roll up.
Here is the mighty Fraser River, with a tugboat pulling a barge of sawdust.
New Westminster
Surrey - taken with a zoom lens - see what I mean by uphill?
Way up in the distance, you can see the slight curve of the orange Patulla Bridge. Surrey on one side, and Burnaby on the other.
Here's the other start of North Delta.
I didn't take any pictures on the way home. It was a gruelling many miled uphill walk dragging a pooped out Breehy, stopping in the shade of any tall wall or fence that offered any shade and sprawling against anything that was sprawlable on the way. I found some comfort on a cement barrier that was next to a tall fence, and shimmied my ass up to sit on it, whilst letting my shoes fall to the sidewalk and hauling off my helmet and letting the breeze from the trucks spin my hair around. One road up from Scott Road, and it was finally downhill once more. Sweet sweet downill, almost all the way home.
So, home to Google maps and distance trackers. Seems we had travelled over 18 miles. That doesn't include the backtracks.
All I can think of was the conversation between my brain and my body after I got home:
Brain: Yeah, I knew you could do it!
Body: What the f...k were you thinking.
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