Category: Grab Bag

Enjoying the memories

So the day after flying back from our Maui vacation, I’m out at The Forks doing a 16km bike race, Icebike 13. Fortunatly, it’s the warmest For an Icebike ever at -4°C. There has not been an Icebike for a couple of years and I was really pleased to see it come back this year. Participants were sporting all manner of bikes from high end road, cross and mountain bikes to some low-end bikes, like the 30+ year old steel commuter bike I road. While a nice light  bike might be an asset, especially dragging it up some of the cross-style sections of the course, I think it’s more about the rider. Besides, I didn’t have time to switch over the studded tires to the Specialized Rockhopper, and I really wanted those tires. The tires really paid off as this year there was quite a bit of “ice” in the Icebike course, and while others were slipping and sliding, I was riding hard and confident.

I think this year was my best race result as well. I’d heard that 58 riders registered, the results list 49, 2 DNFs and I placed 26th! Not bad in my estimation. Too bad they don’t rank by age categories. I think that would have moved me way up in the standings. 😉

 

 

It’s our last day in Maui, where has the time gone? We’re up fairly early and gathering up all our gear from all over the condo and trying to get it to go back into the suitcases. Breakfast is an attempt at eating everything that’s accumulated in the fridge, there will be leftovers. Then at 9am we have an appointment for our “free” 8×10 photo from the onsite photographer. An hour later we’re the proud owners of over a hundred pictures of “us”, and I was the one who caved and bought the full package! Shirley just looked so good, I couldn’t resist.

Once we’re all packed and checked out we head back to Maalaea Bay to do a little shopping (Shirley) and a little harbour exploring (me).

Afterwards we return to the resort to hang out on the beach.

We clean up and get ready for our last night’s big event, the Drums of Paradise Lu’au.  The dinner and show was great, well the dinner was not so good for Shirley as the gluten-free option was pretty basic, the buffet for me was quite excellent.

Back to the condo to pick up the bags, across island to the airport and we’re on the overnight flight to Vancouver and on to our Winnipeg home base.

Great day, great trip, lots of super memories.

Photos of the day

Today the plan is to do some snorkelling and explore the West Maui loop by car.  After breakfast we get all our gear together and headed off to Napili Bay. It’s still fairly early in the day, but parking is at a premium at this popular spot. We score a place fairly close to the beach and walk over to one end where there is a promising looking area for snorkelling.

We stake out spot near this Castle builder, and snorkel along the shoreline behind him out to a point, and around the corner a bit. Lots of great fish and coral. Where is that underwater camera anyway?

We wrap up the snorkelling and head of on the Kahekili Hwy to explore the rugged West Maui coast line. Within minutes, we’re in a  very rural area following the coast line which is now mainly steep cliffs with some pretty impressive wave action on the shore.

Another 30 minutes and we’re back at the condo enjoying dinner. Pictures of the day.

Today is our really big adventure day for both of us, it’s the first time in a helicopter!

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Our ride is at 11:30 so we’re around the condo for a while having  lazy breakfast and then it’s a 1 hour drive over to Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. After we get checked in, weighed it and watch a safety briefing we’re good to go. We’re signed up for the complete island tour so it will  be about one hour in the air and we’ll circle the entire island of Maui.

There are six of us, plus the pilot and seating is controlled by weight so we’re loaded up in a very specify assigned seating basis. Shirley has the window, so she’ll have to endure me leaning over to take some of the photos. In a funny ironic sort of way the one lady who was really nervous about the flight is up front and centre, right next to the pilot.

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Much to my surprise the flight is extremely smooth and the one time there was  little turbulence our pilot Glenda made some course corrections to get us back into some smooth air. Takeoff is a little eerie as you just float up and away and the next thing we know we’re over the harbour looking at kite boarders and a cruise ship.

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I’d expected that we’d be buzzing by all the big hotels and popular beach areas but there is something they really don’t tell you about up front. Due to the noise of the helicopter they are restricted from flying over, or too close to  lot of stuff, which means no beach & hotel fly bys and surprisingly, even over the Haleakala crater they can’t fly over it, just around the outside.

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We fly around the West Maui Mountain over the ocean and see some fabulous coastline and then inland as we go by Kaanapali and Lahaina. All the while we’re on Bose noise cancelling headphones with an intercom to the pilot, Glenda. She gives us an excellent guided tour of what we’re seeing and is exceptionally knowledgeable about the island and answers a couple of off script questions with amazing details.

A good portion of the tour is the Haleakala National Park, the crater and then into the rainforest area of east Maui. I get some great shots of the twisty road up to the summit and some of the numerous waterfalls.

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Past the park and we’re over Hana and then the magnificent north east shores of the island. There are few if any beaches in this part of the island, just magnificent rugged cliffs and pounding waves. Glenda makes special note of this little island as it was used in the opening shots of Jurassic Park. Apparently they did a low angle helicopter shot and avoided showing the near by road and houses to make it seem like it was in the middle of nowhere.

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Did I mention how smooth the flight was? It feels like your just flating and practically standing still but we doing about 100 miles per hour. I was kind of hoping for some radical moves, the kind that makes your stomach drop, maybe a bit like this.

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In reality, the most radical move was a nice banked 360° turn so that folks on both side of the helicopter could get a good shot of one of the waterfalls.

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Some more rugged coast line, some rural areas and we’re returning to the civilization of the airport.

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We arrive very slow and smooth, negotiating around some building, other helicopters on the ground and right into our landing circle, where did the hour go?

As we’re unloading another helicopter comes in for a landing, obviously not a tour ‘copter, and he’s flying more like a jet jockey as he blasts directly onto his landing spot.

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Was it worth it? Definitely!

Nothing too exciting for the rest of the day as we head off for some lunch and then some window shopping and back to the condo. A stroll along the beach, a pizza dinner and another full and rich day is done.

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All the other pictures from the day over on Flickr:

 

 

 

 

 

I recently had the opportunity to have my VO2 Max tested courtesy of the fitness centre at work. Not the testing where you get hooked up by a tube to a machine, but a step test. Three minutes of stepping up on a box from a resting heart rate and then measuring my heart rate at the end and applying some voodoo math to the numbers to come up with a rating.

The rating is compared to a table, one for men and another for women broken out by age ranges. So you can lookup your rating and get an “average”, “good”, etc.

“Excellent” in my age range is anything over 41.

I scored a 44.13.

That’s right, I’m pumped!

A few weeks back I’m out riding at the lake and I’m on the Jones Road heading north. I notice another rider up ahead and I start to work on closing the gap. I’m thinking this person must be a fairly good rider as I’m not able to close very fast, if at all! For some of the time we seem to be keeping pace and then some of the time I’m closing up a bit.

Finally, I’m on their wheel, an she slows down a bit and I go by, we say “hello”.  Then she’s pulling along side and passing. OK, it’s on now! Turns out she’s training for a triathlon and doing some intervals. We ride along for a number of kms and I manage to keep her behind me most of the time, but she’s realy putting the hurt on me.

We round a corner onto Airport Road and slow the pace a bit and talk. We exchange info on our riding life, she tells me about her triathlon training. I mention how I normally never meet up with anybody on the Kenora rides, and she says she almost always has a riding partner. Then it happens. She says to me, “There’s another old guy who rides out of the Longbow Lake area, do you know him?”. Old Guy! Kids these days, just no respect. And by the way you were drafting me for a good portion of the section.

It starts of innocently enough.

A fruity cocktail on some exotic southern vacation. You can’t even tell what’s in the drink, but it tastes so good, and one leads to another. Most likely it’s made with white rum, and that seems good enough at the time.

But time passes, and the demon has set it’s hooks. White rum is no longer enough and you start looking for something else. Amber rum is calling, and you respond. Fruity stuff is out and you try a number of concoctions but then you see the light and move on to the real drink, Rum & Coke. Not diet coke, not “the new” coke, not coke zero, but the real thing, full strength original Coca-Cola, and life is good… for a while. 

And then the demon calls to you again, and you slip over to the dark side, the true rum, dark, deep, and mysteriously delicious. Coke is decreasing and the demon rum is increasing. Soon you’re drinking it “neat” and it’s better that any single malt. But still, Coke is a good companion and the preferred mix for the serious rum drinker.

Arrrr Matey,  that’s the way of the demon rum

 

It could be one of two things: “

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(Via Seth’s Blog.)

I’ve posted a few photos over at my Flickr site of the guys shooting up clay targets.