Raw milk from whole cows

Day 1 and we stopped by a small family farm in Chilliwack called Home on the Range.  Some friends have been drinking raw cows milk from Alice's cows and they absolutely rave about the taste.  The idea is to drink milk that does not have any processing/pasturization - the only thing that stands between you and the cow's udders is the bottle that milk sits in.  This is a somewhat controversial topic but there is no question that milk tastes a whole lot better and creamier.  It's really hard to go back to 2% after having a glass or using it in your coffee.

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Weird morning on day 2

Nelson morning

What a weird day. Huge one yesterday and it was great to hang abit with will. To short of a visit but so it goes. It took forever to get going this morning - I slept way too late (the van guest house was wicked cool), ishan's tank bag breaks just as we're about to leave, I drop my bike in will's imfamous driveway, and my battery went flat (too many gadgets). We' re finally making some progress now. On the kootney lake ferry at Balfour. Hopefully we've filled the quota of weird stuff for today.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

the crescendo of the prep - let's get going

What a day.  I've felt like I was 2 steps behind all day.  Almost done now.  Bike is tuned, packed, gassed, wired and ready to chew up some miles.  I'm tired.  Despite the hectic vibe today was a fun day.  Tomorrow's going to be so much better.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

The BMW F800GS has it's own adventure!

So after the usual working through and figuring out what bike I was going to ride across Canada, a couple of weeks go I took delivery of my sweet new ride - a BMW F800GS. A big thank you to Bob and his team (Ashton, Tim, Chris and others) at Bob's BMW (http://www.bobsbmw.com/) for getting me all sorted with the bike and kit. Bob has been very helpful in every way and is supporting our efforts by not making any money on the bike and accessories that he has supplied. Bob is very active in the community and is currently running his second Ultimate Bike Raffle (http://www.ubr2.com/) in support of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.

Ok, so I have the bike, I just have barely enough time to break it in to allow me to get the first service completed at Bob's prior to our departure and then all hell breaks loose! The original freight broker that I worked with to have the bike picked up from Bob's (after he graciously agreed to have it crated using another bike's metal crate) informs me that the crate arrangements will not suffice and a host of other uncertainties pop-up?! Good grief...now what? Do I ride the bike all the way across the country from Maryland to Vancouver? Yikes - that would be insane!!

So, the manic search for a solution begins. As luck would have it I hooked up with Mitch from Estes Forwarding. He really helped me out - managed to secure a 5 day shipping guarantee and connected me with the Steve and his team at Craters & Freighters who took care of getting the bike in a solid wood crate! Here they are using a gate lift to get the bike into their shop:

Here's the bike all secured to the crate bottom and ready for it's own road trip to Seattle...!

The bike is now in Seattle on it's way to Ride West BMW where it'll undergo the break-in servicing and be ready for me to pick up when I get to Seattle this Friday and hook up with Riz. We then ride up to Vancouver and get sorted out for the begining of our adventure on the 30th!

Can you eat slow food and still pay your rent?

Another misconception is the idea that slow-foodism is an elitist eating club…the goal is to link small producers to consumers to re-establish the continuum between our food's origins, our tables and our pocketbooks.
—Françoise Kayler, a spokesperson for the Quebec’s slow food movement

Many people call Whole Foods whole paycheck for good reason. Yesterday I dropped by for a bottle of organic dish soap and walked out with an $8 loaf of rice bread, a container of organic goat yogurt and some ridiculously expensive bio-dynamic tahini concoction. I was $50 bucks lighter when I got back on my bike.

I tried to break this cycle last Saturday by going to the secret Saturday only whole sale market called Pro- Organics. These are the folks that supply the high end, organic retailers. The test would be: “Could I walk away with just as many groceries as my regular weekly shop at Santa Barbara on Commercial Dr.” We got inside and found salmon to be a great price. $8 a pound for wild coho and a smoking good deal, $15 a pound, for black cod. Fisherman at the docks don’t give that great a deal. The free range eggs were $6.25, which is more than the farmer’s market. We bought a bunch of apricots that we had high hopes for, but it turned out that half were rotten already. That’s the thing with slow food. If you take too much time, you may not enjoy your food at its freshest.

I ended up dropping $102.81 for a box full of groceries and I did not walk away feeling like I got ripped off.

Organic Grocery List
3 pounds of salmon
2 pounds of black cod
1 bunch of kale
1 spinach garlic baguette
2 pretzels/1 foccacia loaf
1 pound of couscous
1 pound of red lentils
1 head of red lettuce
2 pounds of apricots
4 avocados
1 dozen free range eggs
1 pint of blueberries
1 butternut squash
4 vanilla beans (complete pod)
3 lemons
3 tomatoes
2 large bak choy
1 bunch spinach
5 apples

POLL
Do you think we got good value for our money? Come on gang - let's hear your comments!

p.s. If you want to know where this wholesale organic market is, ping us on Facebook by searching for the Dashing Donkeys.

The Tire Saga

Yet another wonderful summer day: Picnic in the park with the family (nicoise salad, grill roasted chicken and sausages, spinach ricotta pie, melons with mint and blueberry pie for dessert). Played at the duck pond, bocce after dinner put the kid to sleep, catch up on work - you all know the drill. All-in-all a lovely Vancouver day.

Tuesday morning I've got some shop time to mount the new Pilot Powers onto the bike so I drive over to my parents place to pick up these fantastic new tires that are sitting on the garage floor.

As I said, it's been a busy day so I don't get to this last minute pick up until midnight. I pull into the driveway - it’s a beautiful evening. The wisteria is in full bloom and the lilac is in its summer glory. Stars are out and the moon is stunning. I pull out the tires and put them into the trunk of the car. I've got my golf clubs and baby stroller in the

boot so I’ve got to pull everything out and re-jigger so that everything fits nice and comfy. My sis is still up so we sit for a nice cup of tea before I head out. The tea is delicious as always and I'm starting to get a little weary so I head out and make my way home. It's such a beautiful night, I become a little nostalgic for my childhood in this neighbourhood - these kind of summer nights around here were such a joy, man I really love this neighbourhood. I'm having such a good time reminiscing that I pull out an oldy-but-a-goody – Mark Morrison “Return of the Mac” is in full rotation on the ipod. The day couldn’t have gone much better.

I pull into my garage all set for a motorcycle-centric day tomorrow.

Tues morning – pull the battery off the charging bench. Pop it into the bike – ROAR – starts like a charm. Sounds good.

Next step – Karen needs to drive the car down to the shop with the tires. Of course she has some additional errands to run and has to put a box into the trunk . No worries, I packed so masterfully last night that there’s plenty of space.

Pop goes the trunk and there’s lots of space for the box. Turns out there’s more space than I thought because there are no tires to be seen. What the *!^%!?

Ok quick call home – hope Faiza hasn’t gone to work yet.

Phone - Ring, Ring

Rizwan – “Hello, Faiza”

Faiza – “Hi Bhaiya”

Rizwan – “ Ahhhh – are there some tires sitting in the driveway?”

Faiza – “What are you talking about?”

Rizwan – “I’m missing my new motorcycle tires.”

Faiza – “I’ll go look”

Rizwan – pensively waits

Faiza – “yup. They’re sitting in the middle of the driveway.”

Rizwan –“ Sweeeeet!” ( huge sigh of relief)

Faiza – “how did you forget them?”

Rizwan –“ i didn’t forget anything. I meant to leave them there. They needed to breathe before they get installed.”

Faiza – “I see”

Rizwan –“At this point they’ve breathed enough so it would be nice if you brought them inside. I’ll be over to pick them up in a few.”

Faiza – “OK” (she’s used to these kind of things happening).

At this point I dispatch Karen off to pick up the tires (she’s supe

r excited) and I go off to get insurance for the bike. This all gets co-ordinated via my Treo Pro and the crisis is averted with the exception of a couple of annoyed girls – but let’s be real – at this point they’re used to these happy little unexpected adventures.

Just 1 hour later than we expected and the bike is in the shop and everything is back on track. Not too shabby.