Winter Hibernation

I have to confess, although we have escaped the rather brutal cold spells that have been visiting most of Canada and the eastern half of the USA, we still seem to have gone into winter hibernation mode. How interesting, that despite the sun, and warmer than usual temperatures in southern California (we are still in shorts every day), the primitive parts of our brains still know it is winter and make one just want to hunker down and conserve energy. Although the days are about two hours longer here than at home, that additional daylight is due to early sunrises; the sun sets early, currently making it dark right around 5PM. That makes for some loonnnnggg evenings, that usually find us in full relax mode watching TV, not our usual activity. Sandy enjoys history of the great wars, and I have discovered the Olympics channel. I don’t want to have to fess up to how much time I have spent watching World Cup competitions in cyclocross, cross-country skiing, biathlon, and speed skating. And don’t even think of disturbing me once the Winter Olympics start in February!!

We hope you had a great Christmas and New Year’s season. We miss spending that time with our families, but are able to share it with wonderful friends we have made here. The season started off with the annual golf cart parade. We won the prize last year when we put lights on ourselves and our bikes and cycled the parade route. Since we now have a golf cart, we decorated it instead. No prize for us this year, but apparently our effort last year inspired the organizers to create a special prize for decoration that was “outside the box.” 

Our entry in the golf cart parade

Our neighbours and good friends, Ron and Joanne, have been volunteering at a local community support charity, the Galilee Center. Just before Christmas, the organization was gifted with 450 bicycles to be given to needy families. There was one catch, they needed help getting them all assembled, so we spent a day helping out. There were bikes of all sizes, and of course each type had to be put together differently.

Working on one of the many bikes we put together

This was a good workout for our old brains! Note the assembly and use instructions for the trikes we put together.

We never did find the spare part mentioned in #2. Hope no one ate it!

The bikes were donated by a retired physician, who has made his fortune as an author. He had an alcoholic father who kept promising to get him a bike, all he ever wanted, but a bike never arrived. He has always felt that every child should be able to have a bike. When he found out that there were only enough bikes for each family to receive one, he and his son wrote out cheques for over $20,000 to make sure every kid gets a bike next year. I think we will be spending more then one day at an assembly table next year!

A few of the bikes

We were out for a ride the day the bikes were given away and saw two trucks go by that were taking some of those bikes to some, no doubt, soon to be very happy kids. That sure brought smiles to our faces!!

Even more bikes.

Christmas day, we went out for our annual Christmas Morning Because We Can bike ride. It was a beautiful sunny day, but with no snow on the mountains, it was really hard to believe it was Christmas.

Ready to ride with Christmas carols playing through the
red wireless speaker on my handle bars

Christmas Day in our neighborhood

While walking the dogs, I finally come across some snowflakes!

After the holiday season, we had some left over eggnog. With a bit of research, I was able to find a recipe for eggnog cupcakes. Needing someone to share them with, we decided to have some friends over for Games and Dessert Night.  After a rousing game of cards, I served up the cupcakes. They were a hit but I did receive feedback that I should have put more icing on them (must have been the rum talking!). If you like cake, eggnog, and rum, you might be interested in the recipe. Let me know and I will send it to you.

Eggnog cupcakes.

This year, we joined our community hiking club and have enjoyed some wonderful desert scenery in some spectacular nearby locations we had not previously explored. Our first hike was in the Painted Canyon, which is aptly named as the rock formations are an amazing variety of different colours including shades of blue, pink, green, black, and beige.

In the Painted Canyon.
Hard to believe the the guy behind us is 83 years old!

The second hike we did with the group was one of the many trails in Indian Canyons. This day, we went through a natural palm oasis before heading out into the desert and lots of hill work.

Kate taking a photo of Sandy as we start the hike

Of course, we have been spending lots of time out on our bikes, and have managed to cycle over 1800km since we arrived in early November. As always, we enjoy trying to figure out what vegetable it growing in the various produce fields we ride by. The other day, cauliflower was being harvested with some of the “rejects” being probably at least a foot in diameter. Usually, the rejects and what gets missed are picked later by volunteers and donated to the local food bank. This year, we have been watching some okra fields. A few weeks ago, they had beautiful yellow blossoms, and now the pods must be getting close to being ready to pick, but so far, we haven’t seen how that is done. I imagine they are picked by hand, and it may not be as back breaking work to harvest them as many of the other crops appears to be.

Need some okra for your gumbo?

That’s it for now. We trust that the New Year is treating you well so far. May 2018 be happy, healthy, and safe for you and those you care about!