Twice the Fun

On a lovely evening walk we spotted two bikes dumped in the creek that runs straight to the Speed River. The light was dimming and we were unprepared, so we came back the next day, with the sun on the water, and dragged them to dry land one at a time. The creek also gave up a couple of metal bars, some recyclables and a campaign sign that had outlasted the election by three days.

Hauling bikes out with our bike trailer has its limits. The trailer took the tub with a pair of wheels stacked on top and had room for nothing else, so getting the bikes out of the ravine took our car trailer.

Our second stop that day was on the Speed itself, where a Walmart cart had tipped into a thicket of red leaves at the waterline. Julia waded in and pulled it free, but it was heavy and had to cross the river, so we stopped halfway over to rest and left it standing in the current. Behind it, a band of sunset had opened under the cloud at the far end of the river, between banks of yellow and orange, and we took a picture before carrying on. Further downstream by the Highway 6 bridge we found massive amounts of wire sheathing, and it looks like this is where cut copper wire comes to die.

Everything big we pulled out of the water yesterday had wheels. On our way out of the Speed with our cart we found the one thing that goes on a wheel, yet another tire, but it was too stuck in silt to move. We’ll have to come back and dig it out.

Here’s a short video of our bike rescue: