Margaret Falls

After six days of working on the farm, I got a day off yesterday. I thought it might be nice to go on a bike ride somewhere and get to know the area better. Colleen told me about a bike ride she took to a big waterfall earlier in the season. I thought, "Big waterfall, bike ride, sounds perfect!" She said it took only about an hour and a half or two hours each way, which seemed like just the right length. Perhaps I should have been a little more cautious when she said (on step five or six of the directions) that it was "just 12 kilometers" past the Trans-Canada Highway.

In any case, I set out at the leisurely hour of 11:30 on a bike borrowed from one of the girls who is here on a program called Canada World Youth, which brings together people from Canada and from another country (in this case, Uruguay) and has them spend three months together in each country. When I asked her if I needed to worry about locking up the bike when I left it, she told me that it was a "piece of crap" and it didn't really matter if it was stolen or not.

Apart from the bike's temperamental (to put it kindly) gear shift, and a few terrifying seconds pedaling over a bridge on the Trans-Canada Highway, hugging the six-inch shoulder, with cars and eighteen-wheelers barreling past, it was a rather pleasant ride down. The scenery in the mountains is gorgeous, and once I got past the highway, I rode right alongside the lake.

Margaret Falls is up a short trail along a canyon that feels like it's part of a different world. The first thing you notice when you start walking up is that the temperature drops about five degrees and the air is suffused with a fine mist. It was about 2:30 when I arrived at the canyon, the sun quite strong for a September afternoon, but it was like dusk once I got inside, the limestone walls and towering cedars blocking out all of the sunlight. The sound of falling water grew louder and louder as I ascended until finally I looked up and caught a glimpse of it. The falls were probably at least fifty feet high, the water cascading down out of a crack in the canyon walls.

I'd love to post a picture of it, and in fact I did snap a couple of pictures with the camera on my cellphone, but it's not letting me e-mail them to myself (probably just as well from the point of view of my parents, who likely don't want to pay for a couple of international picture messages). So the photos will have to wait until my real camera gets here.

I stayed by the falls for half an hour or so until I decided it was time to go back. The ride back up, I knew, would be a bit more difficult, the price I'd pay for all of those long breezy downhills on the way there. On the way back I stopped by a beach, took off my shoes, and waded into the water -- just so that I could say that I had "swam" in Shuswap Lake, because what's the point of spending six weeks on the shore of a huge lake if you can't say you ever swam in it? Then across the Bridge of Death once more, and then up Tappen Valley Road, then right on Tappen-Notch Hill Road, then another right onto Tappen Hill Road (you'd think they could be a little more creative with the street names around here), and then, finally, a left onto Notch Hill Road.

Pulling into the farm's driveway just a little before 7 was probably one of the happiest moments of my life. I almost expected everyone to rush out of the house, saying "Where were you? We called the cops. We thought you might be dead by the side of the road," but then I remembered that everyone else was out to dinner at one place or another.

Despite the occasional moment when I was sure I wasn't going to make it back alive, it was, all in all, a satisfying day. But I decided that today (another day off) I'd take it a bit easier. So, no big plans for today except to bike down to the library and go on the internet (check!), read a book, and write some letters.

By the way, I now completely understand those studies that say that prolonged bike-riding may reduce male fertility.

Tomorrow it's back "into the grind," as Sue put it. They only give you an hour on the computers down at the library, and my time is just about up, and though I'd love to tell you all about the various vegetable shenanigans up at the farm, I'm afraid that'll have to wait till Saturday. Look forward to it.