Creston, Crawford Bay, and Nelson!

Hello again!

After just a few short days, I have traveled quite a distance and am now sitting in the Katimavik house in Nelson, BC! The last time I posted, I was about to leave Yahk on my way to Creston. I was in the car that day with Seth, so we had it really easy! The drive took roughly 30 minutes, and it was a really gorgeous, sunny and unbelievably warm day. We arrived in Creston and headed straight for the United Church, where we would be both performing and sleeping. We met some really nice people, like Rose and Lawrence, who made it their mission to never let us go hungry, never lift a finger in the kitchen, and generally treated us so well I was sure we would all be spoiled by the end of it.

After Seth and I did some grocery shopping and tried our hardest to find local stores and markets that had any donations for us, a group of us settled down at a local pub to relax and have some drinks. We picked a really great spot that had blossoming fruit trees growing up through the floor of the patio! It also gave us a great view of the main strip, where we got to watch a few straggling Oteshites ride into town - we gave them a warm welcome as they rode by!

Overall, Creston was a fantastic place to spend a couple of days. We were so well cared for at the United Church that it was probably one of the hardest places to say goodbye to! The town and church were extremely welcoming to us, and our performance at their Sunday morning pancake breakfast went over really well - they are pretty active in environmental issues there, and so we had a lot of great feedback. Several families who attended the church offered us their showers, and Rose and Lawrence promised to stay on top of our journey via the Notes from the Road on the Otesha website. They also gave us all big hugs as we set out at the end of our stay! While we were there we also got the chance to spend an afternoon sitting amongst the blossoms at a local fruit orchard - they had apples, cherries, rhubarb, and asparagus growing in the lush fields surrounding Creston, and everywhere you went there were trees in bloom and the scent of flowers! That evening a couple of us also got the chance to see a movie at the local theatre; they had Star Trek showing that week, and we really enjoyed it! Maybe it was the lack of pop culture, or the fact that we had not sat in front of a screen for 4 weeks, but I would definitely see that movie again!

The next morning it was another long ride to Crawford Bay, but it was also another warm sunny day, and the ride was beautiful! We were traveling along the shore of Kootenay Lake, so we were never without really great scenery. The road was quite winding and hilly though, so by the end of the day I was feeling pretty tired. We arrived in Crawford Bay that evening and were put up for the night in one of the most ecologically advanced and efficient schools I have ever seen! The school was built under strict certifications and regulations, and even has a mandate to follow that includes always purchasing recycled paper as long as it is in operation. It was a real inspiration for us! We performed the next morning for a small crowd of high school students, who received us fairly well. Right after the performance, however, we had to head straight back out on the road to continue on to Nelson!

The ride to Nelson was another hilly and winding one, but this was also the ride day that inlcuded a couple of ferry rides across Kootenay Lake, so we were all looking forward to that! A nice treat that broke up the day was our chance to visit with a forestry cooperative in the town of Procter, BC, which was the reason we had to take that second ferry. We were given a great lesson on the kinds of environmentally friendly logging that takes place in this part of BC, and it was a real eye-opener to see how cooperatives regarding the environment work in order to balance the local issues (such as creek water contamination and wildfires) while also taking into account the delicate balance that the forest requires in order to regrow and replenish effectively.

Following this stopover we headed out to finish our trip to Nelson. I was feeling pretty beat up by this point - my bike chain was skipping on a couple of my gears, and I just could not seem to fix it. Needless to say, I was going much slower than the rest of the group, and I was kicking myself pretty hard for it. It was such a relief to finally see Nelson come into view! I had to walk my bike up the last few hills (to my own dissatisfaction), but I made it! I vowed that night to take my bike into a shop the first chance I could get (which I did the very next day - all should be well for the time being!).

We had 4 performances while we were in Nelson; 3 for schools and one for the Katimavik group that so graciously allowed us to stay in their house! All of the performances went really well; we tried out a new technique with some of the smaller school groups, where we asked them to get into groups and brainstorm their own short skits regarding environmental issues that they felt passionate about. It seemed to go off without a hitch, so we will be continuing to try that one for a few more performances at least! The performance for the Katimavik group was fun too; in a lot of ways they feel like a younger version of ourselves, in that they are a close-knit group that is working towards common goals, sharing living spaces, cooking together, and generally interacting with one another on a constant basis. It was great to show them a little bit more about what we are all about!

Today was our day off, and we were all so excited that we got to have it in Nelson. Nelson is an extremely earthy, organic city, with so many markets, co-ops, and local coffee shops to choose from! If you are ever in the area, I highly advise checking out Oso Negro; they are a small organic and local coffee company. They sell their coffee in a lot of health food stores and organic markets around BC and Alberta - you might be able to find their coffee in Ontario too! On this day off, some of us hiked up Elephant Mountain, then met up for lunch at a small Mexican restaurant called El Taco. The burritos were so good they rivalled Chipotles! (Yes, Jessica and Kareem, I said it!) After that, I went off on my own to find the beach and do a little reading, listening to my iPod, and generally relaxing with my own thoughts. It was, again, super sunny and warm, so it was the perfect day to just lie on a towel and do nothing! But of course, since this is Nelson, my beach experience would not have been complete without a few groups of people hanging around smoking weed. Only here would you find blatant pot smoking in the middle of the afternoon in a public beach area!

It is winding down here now, and I think I might head off to go pack up my panniers tonight so that I can get a relaxed start tomorrow for our ride into Castlegar. I have heard rumours that tomorrow will be another hot, humid day (32 degrees celcius!), but it might also be pretty windy. Wind is my least favourite thing to deal with on a biking day, so it will be nice to get an early start tomorrow! I will let you all know how the next few ride days go - after Castlegar I have a pretty gruelling ride into Grand Forks; climbing up some big hills and then riding down through the Anarchist Summit! (by the way, here is the link to the BC highway cams for the summit - try and see if you can see me riding down on Saturday! http://images.drivebc.ca/bchighwaycam/pub/html/www/64.html) Hopefully my gears and brakes are in peak working order!

Love you and miss you all; be safe and I will see you all soon!

Take care,

Sarah