I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay….. June 23

Wow!  What a beautiful day.  I'll admit that there were rain clouds but thankfully the rain held off (until now that is).  We headed out from Fernie at the late hour of 9:00 a.m. (honestly, for us that's late!) and were off to Cranbrook though Ft. Steele with a stop at Copper Point Golf Club for lunch.   After lunch we headed off to Golden.  Each group of bikers pulled into a roadside stop about 30 kilometres outside of Golden and together in one group all 60 bikes rumbled into town as one group.  What an incredible powerful sight to see!   To say we got looks from people would be an understatement.  One guy on the road construction crew did an absolute double take and people came out of their houses to watch.  

Tonight we are staying at the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort.  As I write I can look out the window at the beautiful mountains.  I feel like I'm in heaven.  Tonight is the more "formal" part of the weekend.  Tonight we will get to hear Ruby's story and there is no doubt that Ruby's bear, Captain, will be in attendance as well.  This little bear goes everywhere with her, and I mean EVERYWHERE.  Captain was there for all her surgeries and once, Danielle had to drive all the way back to Kearl Lake to get Captain.  That's love.  But tonight is Ruby's night.  She will inspire us with her courage, her wisdom and her energy.  I can't even begin to tell you how much we have all fallen in love with Ruby.  Ruby's Grandfather, Mike Hannigan, is on the ride with us.   When you see him and Ruby together, well, it just warms your heart.  You can see the love in his eyes and you know he would go to the ends of the earth for his Ruby.    

Our ride Captain, Dennis and our sweeper, Keith, were great today.  Dennis was kind enough to show us how to get to the highway before going to the hotel.  I would have thought that he took a wrong turn and was lost but Dan wasn't with us so I knew that couldn't be it.

Last night was incredible.  We met up with the Calgary Kids with Cancer Society and helped them celebrate their 10th year.  They are actually the reason we exist.  We, thanks to Harry Stepper, are an offshoot of that ride. Brian Morrison spoke of his love and his pride in this ride.  He said we are bikers, loud and proud. He told us how the ride came to be 10 years ago with the words "we have an idea".  There were 32 riders that first year and they made over $160,000.00.  I can't wait until tonight to find out how much we have raised this ride.  There were over 100 riders sitting there last night and the two rides combined raise over 300,000.00 annually.  The Calgary group left in the morning and were off to Nakusp.  Perhaps one day in the near future both the Calgary Society and the Edmonton Society can ride together for fun.  I say for fun because that would mean that a cure for cancer has been found.  I hope that day is soon.

Okay, now to my Monty Python lumberjack reference.  No, I'm not a lumberjack either, but man I do love me the smell of fresh cut wood.  We passed by several lumber mills, a few lumber stores, some logging trucks and even some log furniture builders.  Yep, it's gotta be logging land and man, what a great smell!  The skunk part was't so great though, but it grew on me.  

Biker lesson for today - if you wear a full face and you go to put on chapstick, make sure your visor is up!

Karen