Travels with Brooklyn

Survived the winds last night. A light rain early in the morning and now cloudy. Only getting to 74 today. We head to Red Deer for some bike riding.

We pick up the Red Deer trail on the north side and head to Discovery Park. Trail is in pretty good shape as they fill cracks and the tree roots are not bad. When we get to Discovery Park we see what the tubing area looks like on a cool day, light crowds and lots of tubes waiting to be used. We head to a ski trail and then take off on a gravel path, in great shape, that follows the river around the golf course. We find a bench overlooking the river for lunch.

Heading back we cross the river and take the south trail back towards downtown. We then make a left on the Waskasoo River trail and ride it until we get to an industrial part of town. This trail is beautiful with large parks along the river surrounded by beautiful houses.

After getting back to the Red Deer trail, we cross back to the north side and ride to the truck. 16 miles total.

Back on the Red Deer River trail heading to the truck with some Kayakers.

Discovery Canyon Golf course.

Bike bridge over the Red Deer River.

Extra hot today with bonus humidity. We decided to head to Discovery Canyon. They divert the Red Deer River to supply the golf course ponds. We'll they turned the channel into a tubing rapid river. It's a bit shallow so you bottom out, but other than a tube rental fee, it is free. This makes it crowded and being a weekend and hot, this place is jammed.

We waited about 30 minutes in the rental line. Then hopped in line for river access. Not a bad ride, but if you are over 100lbs you will bottom out and get stuck. More water volume would really help. But the kids love it.

Got a couple of rides in, then ate a picnic lunch in a shady spot on the grass. After lunch D went a couple more times then decided it was too crowded.

Headed home to hang out in the nice cool rig as the heat climbs.

Up early to pick strawberries at the jungle farm. Interesting place and layout. You walk about a 1/2 mile to the strawberry field, then they assign you a row and apologize for all the weeds. The first row we got was so covered in weeds it was hard to find the berry plants, and when you did there was no fruit. Then us newbies did not think of bug spray and the mosquitos were crazy. Got another row that was much better and D went to the truck to get bug spray. They also had Rhubarb and D got a lesson in how to pick and picked a boat load!

Then we drove south to the next town to visit the Discovery Wildlife Park. Fabulous place with interesting talks about the Bears. Though it was hot, they have lots of shade around the grass covered grounds. And we got a breeze with some cloud cover.