As promised, here’s video from the zoo:

First let me preface this by saying that I’m typing this on a computer that has a non-functional comma key. Given my proclivity for commas this will be a challenge but bear with me.

Today we went to the zoo. It was an unusual April day: sunny and hot. Real hot. 25 degrees hot. Boy what a weird year for weather. The snow packs are at over 150% of normal and they’re talking about bringing in the military to help with sand-bagging. In the mean time those of us who don’t live live in a flood plain are enjoying the warm weather. The skiers are enjoying the continued large bases (still over 300 cm base on the local mountains!).

So we decided to go to the zoo. The one of the big draws to the Greater Vancouver Zoo is the fact that they have a train that goes around the perimeter. The animal selection is actually pretty poor and it certainly doesn’t compare to some place like the San Diego Zoo but it’s not a bad place either. It is a little bit out of the way — some 50 km from Vancouver — but for an occassional trip it’s not too bad.

After negotiating the traffic — don’t come to Vancouver without expecting a complete and utter traffic mess — and a stop at Subway for nourishment (and some gasoline: did you know that gas in Aldergrove is more than 12 ¢/litre cheaper than in the city?) we went to the zoo. Seems like several hundred other people had the same idea as the place was packed.

We worked our way through the zoo with a stop at the train station for some tickets. The next available ride was over two hours later which was a good amout of time. The plan became that we would tour the zoo and then wrap it up with the train ride.

We started with the giraffes and worked our way through the wild cats and other exotics.

And as planned after touring through we went and waited in breathless anticipation for the train…

Excited does not begin to describe the boy. He was just thrilled and literally vibrating. Once we got on the train there was lots of “The train – the train!”.

Here’s a shot of what the train looks like:

All in all it was an excellent day.  Aidan fell asleep on the uneventful ride home and we all relaxed after arriving back at the condo.

I know it’s been just a teaser — hopefully tomorrow we’ll get some videos loaded up to Youtube.

Here are two videos from musicians of my generation that prove that they “get” how the music/entertainment industries are changing:

Alanis Morrisette parodying The Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps“:
(warning: stupid “adult” lyrics, brain-worming melody/beat in the original)

The Barenaked Ladies performing “One Week” in a water closet:

Today, I rode the Pacific Populaire.

“What’s the Pacific Populaire?” you ask? Well, according to the site:

What is the Pacific Populaire Bike Ride?

Greater Vancouver’s first major public ride of the cycling season is the Pacific Populaire. Since its incepption in 1986 the focus of this event has been to encourage participation by all cyclists regardless of fitness level, cycling experience, or age. For some, the ride is a challenge to turn in a fast time, a personal best, or to complete a greater distance than in a previous year. Others will be out for a relaxed spring ride, fresh air, and exercise.

So, I rode the Pacific Populaire for a relaxed spring ride, fresh air, and exercise. 105 km worth of spring air.

And, oh, Tammy rode with me. Unfortunately, it was Tammy’s first ride of the season. Play big or stay home, eh? She did amazingly well. The last 20 km were somewhat tough, what being mostly uphill, but she made it without any walking of the bike (a personal goal of hers).

The route wound its way from Nat Bailey stadium across town to Jericho Beach (@10 km), up around the university (@15 km), down to the airport (@30 km), through Richmond to Steveston (@40 km), along the dike for a bit (@50 km), up to the Westminster Highway (bollards!) and out to New West (@60 km), back along the north arm of the Fraser to the airport (@80 km), back along SW Marine Drive to the University (@90 km) and (whew!) back across town to the Nat (@103 km). We had a few “potty” detours, so our total was actually a little over 105 km.

The route info (if you’re really *that* interested) is here:

It was an unusual spring day in Vancouver, cool, grey, but dry. Apparently upwards of 400 of us left the Nat and took over King Ed for most of the way towards Macdonald. Of course, we pretty much hit every. single. stop light. along the way. The trip up the hill from the beach was pretty uneventful, but that’s where we started losing the pack of cyclists. By the time we hit the Arthur Liang, the road was a little wet but the upshot was that while the main pack of riders may have been rained on, by cleverly holding back we avoided the presumed deluge. The sun came out on the ride down towards Steveston, and the ride along the South Dike was just great. We had a stop-over at the half-way point (with absolutely di-vine date squares) and then rode up to the Westminster Highway and had a rather boring ride to New West. After turning the corner and coming back west along the river, we were confronted with a bit of a headwind and light showers. Combined with the dreary scenery (lots of discarded machinery and log-booms) it was a reasonably miserably segment. The beginning of muscle fatigue didn’t help. The sun came out and the rest of the ride was pretty nice, slow and determined, but nice.

So, that was that!

Did I mention that I did it all on about 5 hours of sleep the night before? Thanks Aidan!