What About Weekends?

Volunteers work at MDS projects from Monday through Friday.  For weekly volunteers, their week is over, and they head home.  For long-term volunteers, it is quite different.  At the Grand Forks project, many of the long-term staff are from the area, and most of them drove here, so they have more options.  Several of them drive home every weekend. Others travel around this part of BC in their RVs and see the sights.  Since I flew here, I don't have any way to get around, so I have been pretty much relegated to the Grand Forks area.  I would like the opportunity to get out and explore BC, but I also just need time to relax without people making demands of me, so I have been mainly hiking or mountain biking.

I was the only one at camp one Saturday, which was nice, but I had to make sure I had everything I needed in the bunk trailer before those with the church keys left for the weekend.  The bunk trailer has been my refuge on Friday nights due to the Youth activities I wrote about in Sanctuary  This past Friday I watched the goings-on from across the parking lot.  I also stayed there Saturday night due to some unidentifiable cleaning process going on late into the night.  The pastor's son always rides his bike to the church at about 8:00 Saturday evening to vacuum the sanctuary.  The first time I was sleeping in the "Upper Room", he finished by 9:30 and then left.  A week ago, a friend was "helping" him work, and it took until 10:30, with quite a bit more noise.  This past Saturday, I thought he was finished by 9:30, but then I would hear him working on something else.  At about 10:00, I started hearing very loud noises that I couldn't identify.  There would be a very loud sound like ripping velcro apart, followed by a room-shaking thud.  This repeated for the next 30 minutes.  I figured he was either training elephants or overhauling a tank. At 10:30 I gave up waiting for him to finish, and hauled my stuff out to the bunk trailer again.  I finally saw the lights go out sometime after 11:30.  I saw no traces of elephants or tanks, so I am not sure what procedure I had audibly witnessed.

Saturday I decided I was up to the task of riding the borrowed mountain bike up to Christina Lake by way of the Great Trail ( the Trans-Canada bike path)  After blogging for a while, I prepared my hydration pack to carry my few provisions, saddled up, and headed out.  I rode through town on the bike trail that I have been using quite a bit this month.

I have finally figured out the parts where the trail suddenly ends, and you are expected to know by ??? which way to go.  There is one place where there is a sign indicating the trail, but it faces the opposite direction for a rider trying to continue.  I only found that sign once when I had gotten lost again and was backtracking.  Anyway, this time I followed it out of town.  The first couple miles were nicely paved, and I rode quickly along the river.  A couple of cyclists passed me when I stopped to take some pictures.

 I soon caught back up to them, and found that they were from Grand Forks and they were headed to Castlegar, allotting two days to get there.  Since I was riding a shorter distance, I quickly left them behind.  The scenery looked very arid in spite of the recent rain.

As I continued I had to keep stopping at livestock gates unlatching, passing through, and then relatching them.  This made things slow for a stretch, but eventually I was past this area.  Soon I noticed more trees, and I was also much higher above the Kettle River.

The trail had been paralleling the main road to Christina Lake, but then it veered to the south.  I had seen this on the map, and I also had a really cool app on my phone called TrailForks, which had every trail in the area listed.  There was a bridge ahead, and when I got there I saw Cascade Falls, where the river runs through a narrow gorge .  It was quite spectacular.

Next was a really long and high railroad trestle crossing  the river again.  This whole southern loop was a way to let the railroad maintain a shallower grade as it climbed to Christina lake.  The trail was no longer gravel, but covered with larger rocks, some quite sharp.  I was worried about my bike tires, since I was rather heavy for the bike and if I hit one directly it might cause a flat.  I was nowhere near the road, so it would be a really long walk out.

I soon found out I was actually high over Christina Lake, and headed down a road to the town.  I noticed that had I kept going up the trail, I would have a really cool place to look out over the lake.  That's the trail waay up at the top of this pic.

I grabbed a burger at a local restaurant, and decided to backtrack and climbed all the way back up to the trail, headed out to the viewpoint, and got some great shots.

The extra climb was worth it!  I then descended back to the town and took the road visible in the  last picture to get out of town, as this would let me avoid the sharp-rock trail.  Then I headed back to Grand Forks, catching the trail just over the hill on where the road goes out of view. I passed these deer as I neared home.

In all, I rode 38.2 miles of mostly gravel trail.  The bike did well.

On Sunday, I went to the St. John's United Church.  The congregation was quite small, a lot like the Baptist Church I attended last Sunday.  In both of these churches I was welcomed warmly and I told the pastors I was with MDS.  At both, they included introducing me into the beginning of the services.  This was in stark contrast to the Mennonite Brethren church, known as the Gospel Chapel where nobody welcomed me or tried to find out who I was.  I was also extremely pleased to find out that the United Church had congregational hymns, not a praise band.  I appreciate some praise band music, but not when it is the only kind of music, and when the congregations seem to think it is the core of worship.  I miss traditional hymns so much.  I'm wondering if the Mennonite churches in Canada are losing their musical heritage, since many of the Canadians I have met say their churches don't use hymnals.  I can't wait to be back at First Mennonite in Richmond.

In the afternoon, a group of our long-termers went to see a touring show of Andrew Lloyd Webber's music at the local high school.  I really enjoyed the performances by the small but talented group.

By 6:00, our new weekly volunteers had arrived, and at 7:00 I sat through my 5th (and final!) orientation of the Grand Forks MDS Project.  I am looking forward to heading home on Saturday!