A new sense of Self Accomplishment

Man, what a week! 

So i just got back from a 3 day trip to Banff. Leo had been planning this bike trip for Terence and I for about 6 months now. We got lucky and were able to stay at a friends Condo in Banff. IT'S NICE!!! Such a nice view too. So we left Sunday right after church, packed up the bikes, all our supplies and hit the road. 4 1/2-ish hours later, we're unpacking and exploring the condo in amazement. The Yongs came too! Michy, Mel, Jia, Pastor Steven, and Auntie Violet.

The Girls were our support drivers, they carried all our food and water. We pretty much just relaxed the first night, we ate our pasta and went to bed.

A pic of the Condo

Monday (also known as D-DAY!). 6:30am
We get up, eat our oatmeal and raisins, hydrate, gear up, and head out! but not before a team photo from Auntie Violet. Start time, 7:30am. It's cold. We start off with a nice downhill out of town. It's soo cool that my fingers start to go numb, but I'm soo pumped it doesn't matter. Before our first rest stop we hit a VERY nice downhill. I clocked in at 72.3km/hr! What a rush! The girls got a little lost and we ended up waiting for them for about 25min.

Leg 2 of our trip begins! 9:00am. Leo tells us to just follow the road, and turn at CASTLE JUNCTION. I was biking right behind Leo, Terence had stopped to fix his breaks or something. So we're heading down the road, I'm looking everywhere for the sign to CASTLE JUNCTION. All the sudden Leo turns, apparently we were at CASTLE JUNCTION. There was no sign. Everyone missed the turn. We had lost Terence. We didn't actually realize we lost him till 11:00am. The girls finally found us, (after realizing they missed the turn at CASTLE JUNCTION) and we had lunch. After eating we sent them off to find Terence, cause at this point we had no cell coverage.

leg 3. 11:30am. Leo and I head out after refilling our water and stocking up on granola bars. We weren't sure when we would see the girls again. At this point we were had covered about 60km. We eventually ran out of water and had to stop by a nearby stream. It was hot. Don't worry, we didn't drink the water straight out of the stream. Leo had some water tablets that sterilized the water, but gave it some weird after taste. The only downfall was that it took 30 min to sterilize. ONWARDS WE PUSHED! After several hours of cycling and no sight of the girls, Leo and I had made it to the last vital rest stop before Sinclair's pass. Our 10km uphill climb -____-

It's 3:00pm and we finally see the girls pull up. But no sign of Terence in the vehicle. Don't worry, Terence is alive. He apparently didn't know he was going the wrong way until he reached Lake Louise, then he doubled back and continued on route. The Girls met up with him, forced him to eat and replenished his water.

He was supposed to get a ride back to us, but he wanted to go all the way. *by the way, we're cycling from Banff to Radium Hot Springs BC.* Even though Terence wants to continue cycling, he's about 2-3 hours behind us. Although he still has roughly the same amount of mileage since he didn't stop. So after eating and replenishing everything, Leo sent them back to pick Terence up and bring him to the dreaded Sinclair's Pass.

4:00pm. We have already skipped leg 4 and 5 and were now starting on leg 6, (We were supposed to stop and rest at each leg) the final Leg. Terence isn't back yet, but Leo and I can't wait. We begin our ascend. It's slow -___- but the view is magnificent. Apparently about 6 km up there's a fake summit, it kinda plateaus out and gives you hope. Then you continue around the corner only to see that it keeps on climbing. I had overtaken Leo at the base of the climb and made it to the top in about 45 min. The girls were waiting. I wait for Leo and Terence so we can descend the hill together. This is the best part of the trip by far. The last 10km. ALL DOWNHILL. Right into Radium Hot Springs! We had to be going about 80km. we were whipping past cars. We were going soo fast i think the wind damaged my hearing. But it was such a rush.

Roughly 5:15pm. We Packed up our bikes, grabbed our trunks, and went into the hot springs to relax our exhausted muscles. hahah they also had this mini mystery pool which is either filled with fresh hot spring water, or fresh glacier water. Today was Glacier day. Leo and I dared each other to go in and fully submerge ourselves. IT WAS FREEZING! But the day was coming to a close and a new sense of self accomplishment had been achieved.

We head back to Banff in the vehicle, reliving our freshly travelled journey, commentated by Leo, Terence and Myself. What a day. When we get back we decide to eat out instead of trying to cook. We go to some Thai restaurant. I get one of the more white things on the menu. Smoked Atlantic Salmon with yam fries. I only got it because of the fries.

Day 3! We get up reallly early and clean the place up. we leave just before 9am. Leo has meetings he needs to prepare for. We say our good byes to Banff and head out on the road for a long long drive back to E-town.

Banff was Beautiful.