Good morning. I know I've mentioned this before in other blogs, but besides my musical guys, I am also a huge fan of fitness expert Chris Powell. He just put out a new health and fitness app called "The Kept App with Chris Powell." As such, they are doing an 8-week challenge regarding promises you set and keep with yourself. That means, he's also doing a Facebook live once a week for the duration. It's at 8:30 am my time. I love participating in them so I had to decide whether to leave my hotel late, or get in an hour of cycling and hope I could find somewhere to pull off and watch it. I opted to get some cycling done in the cooler hours of the morning.
I stuck with Highway 212 for now knowing they had the rest shelters and likely more shops as well. Well, the highway dropped for a large 4 lane, to a smaller two lane with a much narrower shoulder. As I was watching the minutes tick by getting closer and closer to 8:30, it's not looking good. Not the safest shoulder to be stopping on. Then, just as I'm giving up hope, I see a little construction pull out/lot just before a side road. Even luckier, I see there's some sort of shop/restaurant. Lucky me. I pull up, by some water and milk and go to sit down at a table. Probably because the sweat was pouring off of me, the lady motioned me over to the shaded shelter. As an added bonus, she gave me the wifi password and I spent the next 45 minutes relaxing and watching the live. 😀 The only annoying thing was that there were a gazillion flies buzzing about. I promise, I showered last night. Leave me alone! 😂
And just in case you're wondering, this week's challenge is on gratitude which is one of my favorites! I'd already been working on this one anyways because it helps shift my focus to a more positive outlook -- and let's be honest, I need that sometimes! I usually focus on it right before bed as it gives me a chance to reflect on each day and remember the positives.
Store/restaurant. There was some debate about the white lump on fb. I promise, it's a dog and it has a head! 😂
It had to happen eventually. The true photo op with milepost 69. I have a love/hate relationship with Bryan Adams these days, but tradition continues....
I planned to stick to the highway until I could turn off on country road #3008. It did not disappoint. Birds chirping, no traffic, rubber tree farms. I'm grateful for all of it and in my happy place!
When I got to the resort no one was around. I walked back by the bungalows to see if they were cleaning them. They weren't, but I did see one occupied and a bicycle in the room. I met Brian. I went back to get my bike and someone was just arriving at the office, so I got checked in. Brian is like me, so happy to be able to speak English with someone. We chatted for a while until I decided I needed to get situated and cooled down.
We were chatting gain later and talking about CGOAB and CycleBlaze and then he casually mentioned the name of another Brian. I was like wait. Brian and Gina? Yep, he's cycled with them before and now it rang a bell. I ran into them cycling in Thaialnd in 2018 and used their blogs for research and remember seeing him in pictures, but wondering why he was cycling in jeans. That's just how he rolls. Anyways, small world. BTW, Gina is the wonderful person who invited me to stay at her apartment in Vancouver when I was there to see Corey Hart's concert. They cycled this route ahead of me so have given me some invaluable tips.
9 months ago
9 months ago