PUG BOWLING !!!

Yet another reason to own a pug

Hammer Time.

After a long ten days of Stampede'n the best way to finish it off that i could think of was with a MC Hammer concert. after many DJ's and dance troops and several "WE WANT HAMMER" chants, the hammer finally hit the stage... slightly older, and over weight, and lacking the hammer pants but still the hammer was there. Apparently he has some new songs, so maybe we will be blessed with a new CD in the near future, but he did the classics "too legit" and "can't touch this" ... he even did the hammer suffle... although as an old man he needed to take many breaks between suffle attempts and could only suffle one way. oh well i had a laugh!!

oh... and he even blogs http://mchammer.blogspot.com/

One last story.

well there are many many more stories that i could tell but that would just be silly. But this one has to be told. As many of you know i drove to Abbotsford with Steve and Jenn, but coming back i was on my own. I left Jones Lake (where i had been camping with Steve, Jenn and all of Jenn's family for the last two days of my trip) at 6 o'clock. Got to Kamloops, filled up the car, got a bite to eat along with getting a few snacks and drinks for the road. I was really enjoying my ride, had the stereo cranked and going along a relatively calm highway. Made it all the way to Golden where i noticed i had half a tank of gas left.... i should really fill up.... ahhh i can do that in Banff im still feeling good dont need to stop yet. then i got to Banff... quarter of a tank left... i should really fill up... ahhh Canmore is just up ahead i'll stop there. VVVVRRRRROOOOOOMMMM drove right past Canmore... no excuse just did... i guess i wanted a little more adventure. (by this time the gas light was on)

once i past canmore i knew it was going to be close, and i was counting Kilometers. you know that petro-can right out side of calgary... yeah i drove past that too. Well i made it into the city.. its 3 am now. and i figure i may as well keep driving. got onto Glenmore, still trucking away... tried to accelerate on 14th... no go. so i pulled into Glenmore Landing to fill up.. stupid speed bumps making you slow down!!! the car stopped moving right at the pumps....only problem is safeway is closed. so i got out and ran all the way up to 24th to the Husky (in barefeet.. its better than running in flipflops) bought a jerry can of gas... called a taxi to drive me back to my car.. emptied the jerry can drove back to the husky filled up and finally went home.

now that was an adventure!

pictures for stories

FORGOT THE TENT
DAY ONE CAMPSITE
GHETTO SHOWER
BRIGHT PURPLE STARFISH

JUST OUTSIDE OUR TENT ON DAY TWO.

SETTLERS ON THE ROCKS, PLAY UNTIL THE WATER TOUCHES THE ROCK
WAKING UP FROM LAST DAY "CAMPSITE"

stories.

Alright time to get to telling some of the tales from my vacation. I've procrastinated enough, i've been busy though... not working its been dead here, but taking part in all sorts of stampede things that are available when work is slow. this might be a long read... you've been warned.

Off to a bad start: So we were all packed up and ready to go the evening before we were going to leave Abbotsford for the coast all we had to do was load the last few things the morning of then we could hit the road. And thats what we did. It wasnt until we reach the bottom of the mountain that Jenn's Dad lives on that we realized we forgot the tent. THE TENT!!!!! only the most important thing to bring when you plan on going camping. well we had to drive back to get it. phew crisis adverted!!!

Nathan wanted some alone time: We got to the coast with out anymore problems, caught our farries on time and set up camp (including tent). We planned on just camping on Monday and then going to get our kayaks tuesday to get a full day of paddling in... it turned out to be a VERY full day of paddling. So we got our kayak and started off, we did about 4.5 km in the morning and found a great lunch spot. as we were getting back into our kayak's my brother points to an island on the horizon and says thats where we are going to camp tonight. Well i got a little excited and got a little far ahead... far enough ahead that a couple minutes later when steve realized it wasnt the island he thought it was i couldnt hear him yelling at me. Well i paddled all the way out to the island through 3 foot waves (the journey took about 2-3 hours) got there and waited for Steve and Jenn. When they got there they explained how it was the wrong island (i kinda figured that out when i got there and saw there was no flat area at all to camp on) we were all exhausted but needed to head back the way we came. Luckily that only took us half an hour because waves actually help out when your on the right side of them.

Setting up Camp. we had gorgeous campsites... each brought their own unique charms and disadvantages. You need to realize there were no "actual" campsites, we'd just go along until we found something that looked realitivly flat and high enough so the tide wouldnt get us(and it was always low tide when we done paddling and ready to find a campsite).

Day one campsite: since we were so tired from our "detour" anything remotely flat would do for us. so we found this place and started to unload the kayaks.... tide kept coming up... we soon realized that we'd either have to find another spot high on the island or go to a different island all together.So i went on a hike. at the very top of the island, through thick bush, rolling rocks and moss covered holes, i found a little area that would probably work... except we'd be sleeping on an angle and of course have to lug up our gear to the top. (this might be a good place to mention flip flops are not great all terrain foot wear!!!) besides the hard work it took to get our stuff to the top, and the slope of our sleeping quarters it was quite comfy (2 inches of moss is pretty soft) and had a great view. i also had to go check on the kayaks a few times to make sure we had them high enough.

Day two campsite: learning our lesson from the previous day, we looked for a spot that would allow us to get our kayaks high enough along with a flat spot to put our tent but not have to drag everything through jungle to get there, we found a great location where the rocks actually acted like stairs and lifting our kayaks up high was realitivly easy (double kayak is pretty heavy... again i recommend not wearing flipflops while moving a large awkward object over slippery moveable rocks... barnacles do not feel good against flesh!!!). Where we parked our tent was about 5 feet from the edge of the cliff leading to the water... again gorgeous view.

Day three campsite: We liked the place where we stopped for lunch so much the first day that we decided to head all the way back to camp there our last night. It meant a long paddle to get there but would allow us an easy day on friday to get back to the rental shop. we set up the tent and relaxed, got the fire going and roasted marshmellows... all the while the tide kept coming in. This led to Steve's scientific tide calculator of... stick on rock. His theory was solid... place a stick slightly above the water line ... if it gets washed away the tide is still coming in.... where we had the tent was literally inches from the water.. so it needed to be moved.

Random Stories: We did lots of other things besides just paddle and camp, we walked through some intertidal zones to look at starfish and sea cucumbers along with clams and crabs. We did a little hiking some bird watching and we did some snorkling... which lead to invention of the "ghetto shower" to get some of the salt off our bodies. We also invented "TIDE CATAN" pretty much normal settlers, except you play on a rock that is ten minutes away from being consumed by the tide, set up and play... no time to negotiate deals gotta hurry. Person with the most points by the time the water touches the rock wins.

The Views

You know those commercials that are on all the time these days promoting canadians to experience canada (like the lady from egypt talking about drumhellers dinosaurs and how her country doesnt have anything so large and old and how canadians are lucky to have such things) well i love those commercials... and its so true canada has so much great stuff to see and for the most part we take it for granted. I experienced a great part of canada during my trip... here are some of the views!

Desolation Sound... the trip.

So for those of you who dont know, i just came back from B.C. spending ten days enjoying gorgeous weather, the coast and kayaking with my brother Steve and sister in law Jenn. I cannot think of any negative aspects of the trip as it was a non-stop good time.

We drove from calgary to Abbotsford on Friday to prepare for our kayaking/camping trip through the beautiful islands of "Desolation Sound" We left Abbotsford for the coast on Monday morning; two faerie rides and a short drive in between later we arrived at our destination. We decided to set up camp and wait for the next day before we picked up our kayaks and start on our voyage.

Tuesday to Friday we were on the water, paddling from island to island, enjoying the sun looking for good places to camp (as there were no official camp sites) and loving the beauty that surrounded us.

Every morning i woke up, crawled out of the tent and loved the fact that the ocean was less than stones throw away (one night i went to bed with the ocean about two feet away... but i'll save that story).

all in all it was a great adventure spent with great companions!

*more specific stories will follow in posts to come

Im Back!

Hey everybody!! im back in town from my little adventure, and there is a lot to share. Many pictures from the coast including gorgeous sunsets, ghetto showers, and of course the ocean and mountains. There are also many stories to tell such as the down fall of using flip-flops as all terrain footwear, how high do you have to take your kayaks when you dont know the tides, driving with the "low fuel" light on *how far can you go?*.

all in all it was a great trip, way too much sun and not enough sun-screen but i'll fill you in on the details later on, for now i have work to do.