Well... after spending a good part of the winter in Fernie, we are back in Europe.  

The plan is a month in Portugal, a month in Spain and a couple of weeks in Italy before returning.  We decided to delay our winter trip this year so that we could stay in the EU until near the end of April and enjoy an early Spring, that (hopefully) continues when we get home.

Since we were in Fernie for half of the ski season I decided to take advantage of the super senior season's ski pass....   99 bucks for the season was too good a deal to pass up,  even though I had not skied for 8 years or more.   I must say that I was a little nervous about getting back on the boards but I really enjoyed myself.

 After the first day on the hill I thought... Wow! this is just like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it.   I had stayed on the groomed green and blue runs.  On the second day I ventured out onto some un-groomed and steeper slopes.   That day did not go quite so well.  A couple of crashes brought me back to reality. After that I took it easy and put in time building up some lost skill.  I only skied about 10 to 12 short days, but on the last few days I was skiing some black diamond runs, albeit slower than normal and with a lot less grace.

Unfortunately, the ski conditions were not good.  Fernie had lots of precipitation. But most of it was in the liquid form. In-between the heavy rain events, we had an extended period of record breaking cold weather. -35 to -40 degree temps that closed the ski hill for 3 days.  

My friends started blaming the bad weather on my decision to start skiing again!  Hopefully, conditions improve for the balance of the ski season, now that we left town!

Linda and I are currently in Lagos, Portugal. we have been here few of days and are getting settled.  Adapting to the time change is always a challenge but biologically we are almost on Portugal time now (+7 hours to Fernie)

We had our e-bikes in storage here in Lagos. We picked them up yesterday, along with a bunch of other stuff.  We had to buy a new battery for one of the bikes since one of them died last year.   It is our first experience with a major "downside" of  E vehicles.  To replace the battery cost just under 1/3 of the original cost of the bike.  (E600  C$900).  If you factor in depreciation, the replacement battery represents about 2/3 of the current value of the bike. (if we are lucky?).   

 Regardless... you can't comfortably rides these bikes without a battery, so we had to "suck it up" and we had a REALLY nice ride today. The weather was perfect, sunny, about 22 degrees, nice coastal roads, pretty towns, lovely vistas and interesting cafes. 

 Below are a few recent photos and a video.

The day after we arrived,  Lagos was hosting the finish of the 1st stage of the Volta ao Algarve, a professional bicycle race, similar to the Tour de France.  The first leg,  which  was refereed to as  a "200 kilometer group sprint" section,  started in Portimao  and ended on the main boulevard of Lagos. 

We were told that the race would end around 4:30pm so shortly before 4 we wandered down to the finish area and found a spot along the fencing about 30 meters from the finish line.  Cycling is very popular in all of Europe. Lots of excited people were lined the fencing along the last kilometer.  After 200 kilometers of riding, ( averaging a little over 40 kph) the race was won but less than a bike length. The video does not really display how fast these riders passed in front of us. 

How's this for a mobile party machine?

it's nice and quiet at this time of year

A couple of shots from our afternoon ride along the coast. These photos were taken from a residential area on the west side of Praia de Luz.

Some of the trails along the coast

This tree caught my attention. Not sure if some branches were grafted to the stump or if they grew naturally.  They are evenly spaced around the perimeter of the stump. It will be interesting see what it looks like in a few years.

Excellent Pizza!