Happy Canada Day!

I celebrated Canada Day by taking my bike to work. You know, "doing my part" for this wonderful land.

Going to work is much easier as it is mostly downhill. This is nice because I don't really get very sweaty. But on the way home, the direction that brings me nearer to my shower, I do get rather sweaty.

Vancouver has established a good system of cycling routes which are direct paths through residential neighbourhoods. One of the factors that went into planning these routes was to choose paths with minimal ups and downs to ease cycling. Cars cannot take advantage of these alternate direct routes because there are frequent barriers (such as lovely planted boulevards) that force cars to turn left or right while permitting the much narrower bicycles to continue straight. Whenever these routes cross major roads, there are traffic lights with buttons installed right next to the curb for cyclists to push without having to dismount.

The result is that I took a route to work along streets I had never been down before. The slower speed of cycling and the lower stress of driving along quiet residential streets permits one to notice and appreciate the neighbourhoods much better than one would by zooming past on a major car route.

I took advantage of this slower pace, and stopped to buy lemonade from an honest-to-goodness lemonade stand run by kids on the side of the road. I felt like I was in a Norman Rockwell painting. They had a home-made sign and smudges of summer grime on their faces and everything.

To complete the day, Aaron and I went downtown to see the fireworks. I made a game of "commanding" the rockets when to explode. I think I got about 50% of them dead-on. It took awhile to get the hang of which rockets would explode sooner or later than my gut instinct said. But it was fun!