Today, with the weather forecast promising showers, we opted against Jeff’s planned trip to Dog Mountain, as it would take us up into the snow and snow with rain is one of the suckiest weather combos around. Instead, we headed over to the Coquitlam River Trail for a little under 3-hour hike. Unlike Baden-Powell, the river trail features little elevation gain and is relatively flat, so it was not as strenuous a workout, though I did pick up the pace a fair bit on our return.
With an overcast sky but mild temperatures, we set out sans jackets, with the plan to walk the trail to the point where one must ford the river. As it’s a bit deep this time of year and neither of us were carrying any portable watercraft, we would then reverse direction and head back the way we had come.
This was a nice, even relaxing hike. The trail at times moves far enough away from the river and any obvious signs of civilization to create the illusion that you are out there all on your own. We actually never encountered anyone going in, only on the way back. The most distinctive part of the hike–apart from several large and ripe patches of skunk cabbage growing in pond water–were the numerous points where parts of the river crosses the trail. One especially big one (check the photo gallery for more) probably discourages the casual types from proceeding farther, especially at this time of year when non-waterproof footwear means cold and soggy feet. I was happy to just make it across without falling in.
The red arrow on the sign is a bit confusing, as it points away from the trail but if you cast your eyes to the left there are no immediate private property signs that I could see, either, so I dunno. Mystery red arrow!
There are several fish traps near the start of the trail with big ol’ warning signs. This is part of a conservation effort, as the signs explained. I just like the incongruity of something as innocuous as ‘Fish Study in Progress’ being prefaced with DANGER.
We had some light snacks at the point where the river intersects the trail then stopped for lunch at Crystal Falls, where a mother/daughter biking duo and another group with a small dog were also taking pictures/resting. Jeff posed for a pic up close and personal with the waterfall and picked out his steps so carefully I could practically hear the calculations for each footstep in my mind.
As we got back to the truck the first few drops of rain began to fall, but the showers held off until we had packed everything up and headed out. All in all, a nice little excursion. The only downside was me apparently incubating a nasty flu bug the entire hike, which struck a couple of hours later. Weird how that sneaks up on you like some clever sneaky thing.
On a partly cloudy and mild (two digits!) day Jeff and I went out on the Two Canyon Loop, a hike in and around Lynn Creek and the Seymour River up in the North Shore mountains. This particular route provided some nice variety in the terrain, from comfortable straight stretches down alongside the Seymour Rive to steep ascents up stairs and rock to impressive views looking down into the Lynn Valley Canyon from several bridges, one of the suspension variety.
The Lynn Valley suspension bridge was host to a wedding party taking photos in the center of the span when we got there. The many people gathered on either side politely waited for them to finish, which didn’t take long, then proceeded to clog up the narrow span to the point where I got halfway across and gave up. That’s kind of like swimming halfway across a lake and deciding it’s too far, I know, but I hate crowds on narrow, bouncy spaces high above raging rivers. It’s just the way I am.
There was another bridge of the regular flat, non-swaying/bouncing variety earlier in the hike with a similar view. It was pretty much deserted.
A short way past the suspension bridge is a pool that is apparently a popular, if dangerous, diving spot. This sign was posted nearby:
I am not sure why someone carefully excised the letters from ‘caution’ so it would read ‘urged to use extreme ca on’. It doesn’t even sound naughty. I do like that it warns the area has claimed many lives, not just one or two. Many. I guess a lot of people don’t read or the sign is recent. Or both. The no alcohol/fires part may as well be addressed, ‘Dear local teenagers’. Yes, I’m stereotyping but come on, you can picture it. A warm summer night, a bunch of drunk giddy kids skinnydipping and taking photos with their iPhones and simultaneously tweeting and, uh, Facebooking, about it:
LOL Dave is totaly naked lol and the water is SOOOOOO cold!!!!
OMG Dave hit his head diving some1 shuld call that 911 number!!!!
I think I here a bear and — (tweet ends here)
The staircase in that picture goes up an impressive ways. There’s a photo taken about halfway up in the gallery, located here.
The start of the hike took us along the Seymour River and through some areas that were used for mining back in the 1800s. There’s even a spooky old tunnel that was carved into a hillside for a pipeline. It’s kind of odd because the miners/loggers also built a two lane road (now the pedestrian trail) right next to it. Did curved piping not get invented until the 20th century or something? Maybe they had time to kill. At any rate, the tunnel was dark and spooky, as all old tunnels ought to be. We also came across an intriguing wooden archway that I imagined might lead to the lair of the Sasquatch or the site of strange forest rituals. It turned out to just be a short trail to the river.
The total time of the hike was about three hours and we took two breaks, the first under the powerlines, using the (modern) pipeline as a makeshift bench. To my consternation, there were mosquitoes about already. Then again, the place was also swarming with tourists, something else I hadn’t expected in late March. We dined on yummy dried apricots and trail mix all the same. When the sun came out it actually became too warm for three layers and we doffed our jackets. Near the end of the hike the sun hid away and it cooled enough for us to put the jackets back on. All hail the layering system!
We nearly took a wrong turn toward the end of the hike that would have added about 45 minutes to the trip but Jeff’s direction intuition kicked in and we asked a group about which way to head and they pointed us the right way. All hail those who know which way to go! Next time we’ll use the GPS.
This was a nice all-around trek, a perfect way to spend a few hours on a weekend afternoon.
I finally got to heading over to the island again for the weekend of August 14-15th (I actually came back on the 16th) and as it happened it was during the annual heatwave, with record-setting high temperatures being set all over the province.
The ferry trip over was mostly pleasant, especially when the father of the family sitting behind me told his young daughter to stop kicking the back of my seat. Thanks, dad! A trip to the sundeck was marred by the presence of (permitted) smokers and a stiff breeze that nearly sent my cap off into the strait. I would have arrived on the island traumatized if that had happened. I really like my green cap.
After meeting mom and the dog, we headed first to Youbou, as it had been several years since I’d seen my sister Carole and her husband Gary. They had new digs on Lake Cowichan and this was my first chance to check them out.
Their house is…big. It has about 20 bathrooms, 15 bedrooms and a kitchen the size of my entire suite. I may be exaggerating a little. But only a little! It took me awhile to figure out where the music was coming from before I realized they had an integrated sound system that piped music into the house, onto the deck and even down to the dock.
We spent a good while sitting in the (relative) cool of the shade on the deck provided by a large umbrella. By this time of the afternoon temperatures were peaking at around 33ºC. We listened to talked o’ the lake, including one centering around a bear that had been seen for a period of several weeks trundling through the properties on this side of the lake. After calling conservation officers about it, the homeowners were informed that two bears had been shot. Poor things. That’ll teach them to wander through no-bears land! Carole pointed to the area just below the deck where the bear had been observed walking westward. A bylaw prevents property owners from landscaping or interfering with the natural growth along the shoreline, so to the bear, it probably just looked like his usual route to wherever it is that bears go.
We next moved down to the dock, which also had a large umbrella. There was a decent breeze coming off the lake and occasionally it would gust very suddenly. Several hats were nearly lost. I had made sure mine was affixed to the top of my head as securely as possible. I don’t swim well, so jumping in the lake after it would probably not have gone well. We then returned inside where preparations were made for a de-luxe dinner of steak, prawns, potatoes, cauliflower and halibut. Mmm. Post-dinner found Gary and me watching a National Geographic program which featured, among other animals, bears, much like the ones that had been shot here. Carole and mom headed outside to check the gardens. Carole pulled a few weeds and threw them down toward the shore. As she did this, the bush the weeds fell on moved. Gary looked to me as she began yelling. “Did she say ‘bear’?” he asked. More yelling followed. My mom was racing up the side of the house and around to the front, to a door that Gary had locked earlier. Much pounding on the door ensued. When all were safely inside, we stepped out onto the deck to see a black bear meandering along the exact same path as the others that had supposedly been shot. “A flesh wound, perhaps,” I suggested. I only managed one somewhat obscured photo but here is a cropped close-up where you can clearly see a bear-like shape in amongst the bushes. You can see the full-size image in the gallery.
After the bear excitement we headed back to Duncan to enjoy the sweltering heat of a mobile home that did not have its air conditioning turned on.
The next day was highlighted by a trip to Barry and Brenda’s for dinner (fresh salmon, potatoes and corn, mmm). The only notable wild presence there were a few persistent bees and one deer that walked up through the vacant lot between their house and the next. Apparently all it took to keep them from coming in and devouring all of their backyard gardens was the construction of a $4,000 fence. Easy!
After dinner I asked for some paper and a pen to record a few thoughts, as I was without my usual notebook. Naturally, this resulted in an inquiry as to what I was writing. I jotted down some details about a rather pampered young man who had been helping Barry with the drywalling. At the age of 18 he still did not know how to tie shoe laces — because he always wore shoes with Velcro. This is more proof of how technology is making us dumber and how Douglas Adams’ future vision of a world run by hairdressers is getting closer to reality. Hairdressers with Velcro shoes.
The other thing I wrote down was something I had quickly dubbed ‘Duncan Interruptus’ though to be fair I don’t think it’s a phenomenon exclusive to Duncan but more just small towns in general. It goes like this: In Vancouver, when there is a conversation taking place, things proceed about how you’d expect. Someone says something, then someone else comments. The conversation continues on like this, back and forth. In Duncan, however, Person A will start talking then Person B will interrupt with a question, comment or some tangential story or even something that has nothing to do with the current topic of conversation. Person C will then do the same to Person B. From this point forward, any of the three might start talking over the others and subjects are quickly abandoned in favor of another or another still. I have lost count of how many unfinished stories I have heard in Duncan. I have to interrupt to find out how they turn out. It’s a little irritating at times but mostly just odd. I haven’t really figured out why it happens.
For the ferry ride back, I took my cap off when I went up to the sundeck, but the smell of smoke kept me from staying long once again. I think smokers should have to climb into a little dinghy being pulled behind the ship, but that’s just me. I remember ferries were for a time exclusively no-smoking. I wonder why they decided to let them open them back up to smoking and at the same time restrict the activity to one pathetically small section of the outside deck (it has lines to mark exactly where smoking is A-OK).
Overall, the trip was rather pleasant, if a mite on the warm side. You can see a gallery of my mediocre photos here.
Today I ventured downtown to watch the annual Vancouver Pride Parade, arriving on Robson Street about an hour before the noon-time start. The sky was overcast but there was no threat of rain. A sizable crowd was already gathered in the 1200 block where I chose to watch from. It would be standing room only, something my feet would hate me for three hours later.
Let me start by saying the energy and enthusiasm in both the parade participants and the crowd is great. The parade going on for two hours is less great. The weirdly large gaps between floats in the last half hour that feels like an attempt to pad things out is less great still. Being wedged in like the proverbial sardine with barely a micron to move to your left or right is what one might call not great at all. Still, I was there to have fun and take pictures.
My camera battery died partway through. I was tempted to pack it in at that point but I felt I’d be cheating someone by cutting out early. Mr. and Mrs. Pride, maybe. Plus I wanted to see the VGVA float. As it turns out, it showed up at 2:04 p.m., one of the last entries in the parade, and long after the camera had gone kaput. The boys had fun with their balls all the same.
I must say, though, there’s nothing quite like seeing an old guy get handed a fistful of Trojan condoms and wonder what to do with them. He ended up giving them to an appreciative and virile young guy standing next to me.
Last night I went to the Celebration of Light fireworks at English Bay, the second of four evenings of fireworks this summer. Nic, who conveniently lives only a few blocks away, suggested we head out early. I, not living conveniently a few blocks away, caught the #22 and came downtown, noting the conspicuous steady stream of people heading beachward. As I stood at the intersection of Davie and Thurlow a couple of young guys approached me. One of them asked if I knew where they could get beer. I advised them that there was a cold beer and wine store just a block or so down the street. The guys nodded and thanked me, walking away. The one guy then came back and asked, “What about bud?” I decided not to play cute by acting as if he was looking for someone named Bud and simply shrugged, saying “Around”, which is fairly accurate as far as that thing goes.
Shortly after 7 we headed down to set up near the Inukshuk, which, like all other public art/statuary in the area, had been surrounded by temporary fencing. There was also a row of nearby port-a-potties and what seemed to be a miniature strip mall hastily assembled along the walk on English Bay beach, selling ice cream and glow-in-the-dark lightsabers, among other things. Initially we sat on some of the rocks just off the path, watching the outgoing tide lap up just out of reach but after experiencing profound numb butt I suggested we move slightly back and sit on the edge of the pavement. Much better.
This was the view looking straight ahead from our position, where False Creek meets English Bay. Everything from dinghies to cabin cruisers were bobbing in the choppy water. A few people were even seen briefly swimming, which isn’t the first thing I’d do when surrounded by a million boats.
(click to enlarge)
We witnessed at least three groups of people getting picked up by small boats. The people in the shot below were actually sitting and standing near us for a good while, their conversation bearing witness that the price for a beautiful body is made up for in the brain department. I am of the belief that the guys are genetically designed to always have their underwear sticking out. They simply can’t help themselves.
Speaking of young men with their underwear sticking out, another group had planted itself on the rocks ahead of us. As the day turned to dusk, a couple of police officers came along behind us and asked one of the young men to step forward. As we watched the rock-top interrogation, a small plastic pouch was removed from the p0cket of the young man and he was escorted away for his own private fireworks show. I shall call him Bud.
Looking to our right you can see the rather sizable crowd gathered two hours in advance on English Bay Beach.
Everyone was remarkably well-behaved. A guy sitting in front of us and whose cigarette smoke consistently blew directly into my face left after a few minutes when it became apparent that his friends were not prepared to sit on rocks. A girl to my left watched the fireworks and kept muttering a simple, quiet “Wow” throughout. At one point she expanded on this to her friends: “I really love fireworks.” It was cute — really! The crowd was there to kick back and enjoy the show.
And it was a good show. The Spanish entrant chose to use iconic (and bombastic) classical music — Ride of the Valkyries and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (better known as the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey) but their pyrotechnics were up to the task of matching the grandeur of the music. Last year I saw China’s show and it fizzled out to a limp finale. Maybe rockets don’t fly as high when they’re lined with lead. Spain, however, delivered a rousing series of overlapping explosions that let you know this was the big finish. Most people went home satisfied, I suspect.
Getting out of downtown was surprisingly painless. I walked with the orderly masses down to Burrard and Pender and only waited a few minutes for a #19 to show up. I was home within the hour. Kudos to transit (who imagined such a thing being said by me?) for keeping on top of the giant crowds for these events.
In this case, the times are of increasing illiteracy. Or maybe this is new lingo I’m unaware of. Spotted outside a restaurant last night on the north side of False Creek:
My other guess is that it was a reserved party for private perverts, though it wouldn’t seem especially private being in a public restaurant with large windows and outdoor seating. The little heart stands as compelling evidence, though! The privert people gathered all seemed happy enough.
Yesterday I went to Ambleside Park and foolishly turned down some sunscreen despite it being a sunny day in the mid 20s. My arms were a slight tinge of red last night but fortunately they faded by this morning. Lesson learned: I cannot beat the sun through sheer mind power. It has been a very long time since I’d been to Ambleside and Nic had never been, so we drove on over, parked and had a gander at the sights (the ocean, the beach, Stanley Park, the Lions Gate bridge, shirtless guys playing basketball) and went on a walk down the seawall, which, unlike the one in Stanley Park, borders along private housing. It is still somewhat amazing to me that almost all beachfront property in the city is open to the public and not barricaded behind someone’s fence.
The seawall in Ambleside is also different in that it is pedestrian-only. They have a sign on the walk that indicates it is pedestrian-friendly, though it’s a little weird to me:
It looks like they are just plain thanking you for the act of walking itself. At worst it simply promotes the stereotype of Canadians being so darned polite, so I’m not objecting.
Here’s a shot looking down the beach at low tide. Nothing funny is happening in the picture, so I have nothing funny to add to it:
Further along the seawall there is a sculpture dubbed the German Friendship Globe:
Perhaps this is Germany’s way of saying “We promise not to try to conquer the world again!” The globe sits in water and slowly rotates. You can push or pull on the globe to change the rotation, too, which is neat. I planned to get it spinning correctly and then grab a pic of North America as it came into view (so I could add a big YOU ARE HERE with arrow) after a small girl tried to see what would happen if the Earth was suddenly shifted dramatically off its axis, but after futzing with it for a minute I couldn’t get it quite right and Nic wanted ice cream and I like ice cream more than German Friendship Globes so what you see here is mainly Australia at a bit of an angle.
The ice cream was good. We ate it while sitting on a bench, soaking up the rays. Nic got sunburnt even though he wore sunscreen. Sure, you can push around a planet but no one messes with the sun.
I had planned things perfectly for today’s run. With the sun setting at 9:16 p.m. and temperatures slightly cooler today, I headed out just before 8 p.m. This would give me enough time to finish a 10K just as the sun was beginning to set, insuring that most of the run would be done in the shade.
I got to the park and notice something over on the large hill that runs along the western side. It is a makeshift waterslide. It extends down the hill and well across the path. It is not something I could easily jink around. I contemplate what to do as kids go sliding down, hollering with delight. (The photo is a low light capture from my iPod’s video camera, so the quality of the image is not exactly high.)
I figure they might pack it in soon so I stick around and head to the fountain for a drink while I wait. The fountain is full of bees, like a bad Nicolas Cage movie. Of late the ‘bowl’ of the fountain has been brimming with water, like a mini-reservoir, but apparently someone unplugged whatever was in there keeping the water from draining. The now dry fountain has apparently become the hot new bee gathering spot. This makes getting a drink of water rather more hazardous than I’d like so I passed.
In the meantime I noticed that a section of the waterslide had become unattached. I also noticed someone laying at the bottom of the hill spread eagle and not really moving much. It looks like this unlucky girl had managed to snag and pull away one of the plastic sections of the slide then tumbled the rest of the way to the bottom. I did see a little movement as people gathered around her so perhaps she was just winded. Amazingly, someone began stitching the wayward bit of the slide back together. Injury or death would not stop the fun tonight!
I went home.
Here’s hoping they all decide to go to the beach tomorrow.
I’ve made a few updates to ye olde Photo Galleries, adding several to the School Photos section (not sure why some of the photos aren’t linking to each other, still sorting that out). I still marvel over what I thought was pretty stylin’ hair back in junior high and high school. In my defense, I can claim to have never worn bell bottom jeans. I think. I’ve also added some photos that were taken yesterday (June 29) by Denis in a gallery cleverly called June 29, 2010. The outdoor shots were taken in Nelson Park, safely away from the ‘all dogs poop here’ area.
The contrast between me in June 2010 and July 2008 (not quite a month after I totally changed my diet) is interesting, to say the least. Not only did I lose about 40 pounds, I also shed my full beard, got rid of my big-ass glasses and generally became a lot healthier.
Continuing with the theme of “embarrassing pictures from my youth” here is a blurry photo of me taken from one of our summer trips to Lake Osoyoos back in the late 60s/early 70s. I’m probably about 5 here, so that would place this shot around 1969. I really can’t recall why I was aiming water at my crotch but it’s one of those things that’s perfectly logical to the mind of a five year old. I’m going to at least state that the sizable puddle at my feet was already there before I arrived. Yep.
As I mentioned in the previous post, as a teenager I became concerned that my ears were big. Too big. So big, in fact, that they must be hidden from the world, lest their bigness lead to certain catastrophe. This is evidence of my ear paranoia.
The photo below is undated but I believe I was 14 at the time, which would place it around 1978 or ’79. Note the glasses aren’t even close to being on straight but who cares? I had tinted aviators and was stylin’ big time. But really, your eye is drawn to the Hair, which appears to be reluctantly avoiding swallowing up my entire head. That is serious girlie hair. I mean, it’s almost pretty and really, it shouldn’t be. There’s also an admirable synergy between the crooked glasses and that immense mess of golden locks in the way the hair grows down to the top of the glasses and then seemingly along them in order that I may still have an unobstructed view of things.
I sometimes harbor a fantasy of growing my hair long again. Pictures like this tend to cure that.
