victoriabc

Mid-year recap, part 2/3

~ reluctantroadie ~ 2 Comments

Continuing with my 2025 recap! In April, I took a quick trip to Victoria, Canada to visit my brother and his family. I found it really interesting that I got an empty row on both my inbound and outbound flights! Amazing. 😀 Victoria is such a pretty city! Its roots go back to England and you can see many British influences all around the city, including FLOWERS, tea shops, and gardens. I enjoyed hanging out with my family, visiting cool coffee shops and bakeries, and taking long walks to enjoy all the lovely flowers.

A row all to myself!
Cherry blossom tree
The smell of freshly baked bread and pastries is one of my favourite things.
Inside a cool concept grocery store called The Market Garden. This market is a refurbished house and each room contains a different type of grocery item and chandelier!
This is the most beautiful grocery store I’ve ever seen.
The soap room.
Specialty treats.
A very polite, a.k.a. Canadian, street sign.
Street gargoyle.
The rest of the pictures in this set are from a walk I took in Beacon Hill Park.
This totem pole is 127 feet and 7 inches tall!

In May, I did 2 fun day trips. The first one was to (finally!) ride at Bean Peaks in Prescott. This is a fun trail system that is modeled after conventional bike parks. That is, most of the trails are “gravity fed,” i.e., downhill! The main difference is that in order to get to the downhill trails, you have to pedal your way up, instead of taking the chair lift up to the top. Bean Peaks is great for all riding levels, as the trails are flowy and smooth. I had a fun day with my friends Janey and Keeley and we appreciated getting out of the Phoenix heat and riding new trails.

Here we go!
Bean Peaks is well signed!

My second May day trip (ha, that sounds funny!) was a hike at Horton Creek with my friend Kate. Horton Creek is quickly becoming one of my favourite areas to visit because it is just so pretty and features a waterfall! We had a gorgeous day and basically had the area all to ourselves. Kate’s dog, Jasper, also had a great time running circles around us and checking out all the foliage. The hike itself is a pretty mellow 8 miles with enough elevation gain to earn a decent lunch. 🙂

Jasper having a grand time!
Water in the desert!
We saw a deer too!

In June, I went on another 2 day trips. Phoenix starts to really heat up in June, so getting out of town is welcome relief. Last year, I rode the Full Sail trail in Flagstaff for the first time and it was so fun, I knew I had to ride it again soon. However, “soon” turned out to be “a year later,” due to schedules and availability. This year, I got to show Janey Full Sail and we both had a blast riding a well designed downhill trail! The uphill riding to get to the start of the downhill wasn’t too bad, since we parked at a different trailhead than where I parked last year. That was a good move on my part because we “only” had to ride uphill for 3 miles instead of 8 miles and could do laps. Beautiful day with good company!

Ah, Humphreys Peak. I’ve hiked Humphreys annually for almost 10 years! I normally hike this with my friend Crystal (for example, see this post), but this year, she couldn’t make it. So, my SAT (self-appointed trainer and husband) joined me this year and we used the opportunity to make this hike our one and only big training hike for our upcoming Colorado trip (more on that in the next blog post!). For the uninitiated, the Humphreys hike is about 10 miles (16 km) round trip in distance and around 4000 feet of gain (1200 m). Because my SAT and I have high altitude hiking experience, I knew that we wouldn’t be adversely affected by altitude sickness. However, since we weren’t in top hiking shape, I wondered how we would withstand the day. (We were fine!) Our hike was great, weather was perfect, and we got to escape the Phoenix oven for a few hours, which is always a treat in summer!

We did it!

Thanks for sticking with me so far! Here’s a bonus picture of a pretty sunflower to end this installment of my midyear and the first half of 2025. Stay tuned for the third and final installment of my midyear recap!

From sea to sky

~ reluctantroadie ~ 1 Comment

Summer is finally starting to wane here in Phoenix, which is very exciting for us desert dwellers! We can almost smell the cooler weather coming our way. 🙂 On that note, in this blog post, I’ll briefly recount a couple of short trips in the past month to escape the heat, visit family, and ride bikes!

First, I took a short trip to Victoria, Canada to visit my family. Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia and, as the name suggests, it has a ton of British-inspired touches evident everywhere due to its history. Some highlights of my trip include breakfast at The Empress hotel, walking around the harbour area, and checking out an amazing market.

Fun bakery a couple hours outside of Victoria.
The inside of the Empress is just as lovely as the outside.
The iconic Empress.
Lovely evening walk.
Another cultural icon: Rogers Chocolates!
Some of the fancy chocolates.
Luka, an adorable 4 month old puppy!
A cute little area in the downtown core.
The legislative building is in the background.
Flowers are everywhere you look.
Pretty cool Orca!

I did some more walking at Ogden Point another day with the family, followed by a trip to the prettiest grocery store I’ve ever seen.

Wild berries!
More wild berries!
I was super happy to see a kitty during my trip!
I found it pretty cold during our walk at Ogden Point. This amused me very much.
Very different landscape than the Phoenix desert!
Such a pretty market!
The market is in an old house and each room houses a different food / item, complete with its own unique decor and chandelier! This is the chocolate room.
Soaps and lotions room.
The wine “cellar.”
The market has a grand piano! Yes, I played it. There was some music on the music rack and I fumbled through a Chopin nocturne.
I still can’t get over how pretty this place is.
I wanted ALL the chocolate.

In another attempt to escape the brutal Phoenix heat, we drove to Big Bear, California over Labour Day weekend to do some downhill mountain biking at the Big Bear Resort. Such a beautiful place and a reasonable drive from Phoenix. We enjoyed the cooler temperatures, fun riding, and our cute Airbnb with all of the wood features and decorative bears and animals! (Sadly, the Big Bear area has been closed for the past couple of weeks due to the current Line Fire.)

The Airbnb kitchen.
Our fancy bathtub with its brass fixtures!
Some walls and all of the doors are solid wood.
Kicking off the weekend with a margarita!
I thought this sign was funny!
More bathroom humour.
On the chair lift!
On the lift again!
Striking a pose.
View of Big Bear Lake.
Shuttling the bikes up to the trailhead on day 2 for some trail riding.
We rode the Skyline trail and it was absolutely beautiful. Most of the following pictures are from that ride.
Obligatory group picture!
Bye, Big Bear!