Can you smell Creston?

Creston was filled with beautiful blooming fruit trees, a wonderful sense of community, beautiful mountains as a back drop, and lusciously sweet smelling lilacs around every corner. As we biked from Yahk into Creston we stopped at the very first "local asparagus and rhubarb" sign we saw, up until this point I had been missing these early season Ontario veggies and fruits. My bike buddie and I stocked up for the group knowing that likely every other group mate had done the same thing. As we continued out ride into the valley town of creston, we saw sign after sign advertising fruit stands, waiting to be filled, at the front of blooming orchards. We saw many more signs for rhubarb and asparagus and got a free taste of some of last years apples.

Creston gave us all the feeling that we had been suddenly catapulted into summer - the weather was beautifully summer like, and the town of 5000 had a main strip that was reminiscent of a beach town, only instead of seeing flat water on the horizon, you saw tall mountains in all directions flanking the lush valley town. The United Church in Creston welcomed us into their awesome facility, made us delicious vegetarian dinner, and then we were welcomed into the homes of some of the parishioners for the use of thier running water. A number of us took the opportunity to get clean after a sweaty day of riding, and no showers in a number of days...It was nice enough in Creston to sit outside of the church on the cushy grass, listening to my fellow group members play songs on the guitar that we purchased last week, used, from the cafe we preformed at. On Sunday, the United Church made a pancake breakfast for the group of us, and we preformed our theatre performance for the congregation while they ate their breaky's. We went to their service and two of our members shared their stories of how they came to be on the Otesha journey. I was amazed, absolutely refreshed by this United Church service - almost everyone had a chance to speak out to the group, for announcements, celebrations,or otherwise. People clapped to the songs, and giggled when people goofed up. It was nice. Really nice. After this, the United Church continued their fellowship by after service tea and coffee. Next, our group had the afternoon free, so I rode my bike 15km to the Idaho border, and relaxed with my buddies at the top of a hill in a blossoming apple orchard. We ate a relaxed dinner and went on a loooong walk around Creston after dinner, saw their eco garden, grain towers, and smelled the lilacs once more. When we came back from our walk, Lucy and I experimented in the kitchen - I prepared the crisp for the rhubarb crisp breakfast (made with quinoa flakes, hemp hearts, oats, cane sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and canola oil) and we made delicious gluten free - vegan cookies while we were at it! They were a delicious treat at the end of the day.

Today was just as beautiful as the last. We cycled about 70 km from Creston along the eastern side of Kootenay lake. The scenery was absolutely stunning, again, and I counted 46 springs/creeks/and rivers that were flowing into the Lake. We stopped at a beach and hiked out a rocky point to eat our lunch. The scenery actually reminded me of the freshwater lakes of Algonquin in Ontario, though the small hills of Algonquin are shrimped by the mountains we were eating beside. The highway was not busy with traffic, which we were all thankful for because it had a narrow shoulder and twisted and turned, moved up and down, all the way to the small town of Crawford Bay. And this is where I write you from now. A beautiful school in a small town, on the east side of Kootenay lake, after a tiring, fulfilling and extremely amazing day of cycling. I am grateful, and I could not imagine any better way to have spent this 25th day of May, 2009.

Peace.