Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Up to the BC interior to visit family

My family live in the BC interior as many of you know and it's beautiful up there most of the time and super beautiful in the summer and even the late summer so I was pretty happy to be able to drive up there and visit a few days with my father.  As usual, not much happened which was pretty much what I wanted to happen.  We sat around and talked, caught up, and went for a really nice day hike up a mountain biking trail.  Mostly I hibernated in my fathers small house and ate dried fruit and drank wine at night.  It was a nice time to be in his little town of 300 or so people as most of the tourist rush had passed and people seemed to be slowly returning to a kind of mellower way of life.  I bought a sandwich and a small pizza at a new pizza place that opened up down the road.  Those were key events.  These shots are from the day hike we went on. 


There is an abandoned mine concentrator on this trail above town as well as the remnants of an old mining camp.  The hills around here are full of discarded mining equipment both old and newer stuff left behind by hopefuls and a few lucky strikes.  Apparently the man who owned this giant affair and lived above it in a mansion was ruined by the time the mill closed; his fortunes squandered.  This camp was surprisingly developed.  It had piped water and many amenities like butchers and barbers and the like...





this trail is really nice.  It hugs the shady side of the river valley it runs along and has some nice biking spots including a tram to cross a river.


Here's where the river pours and blasts through some narrow rocks.  Well I didn't see much wildlife until I embarked on the long drive home.  Right on the side of the road I saw mountain goats, and then later a moose and finally nearing Vancouver, a bear.  It was almost ridiculous to see so many animals wandering around all at once, beer commercial ridiculous, but it's good to see the big creatures up and about even if you have to blast by them going at a hundred kilometers an hour and they always kind of have this slackjawed dumbfounded expression on - except the beaver that me and my gal saw once.  That guy was pissed off.

Monday, September 20, 2010

New Post Shmoo Post

Well, actually, it's now pretty much the end of summer climes here!  There is a distinct cold "tang" in the air now that we are into Sept.  I am thinking of heading up and over the mountains into the interior of BC for a pre-fall visit to my hometown and some "facetime" (real facetime that is, not iphone facetime) with my one and only father.  It's been more than a year since I was back there so I'm excited to get back into the swing of things and in many ways going in the late summer is good as most people will be gone back to wherever they came from and only the permanent residents will remain feasting on their harvests and figuring out how they are going to get wood in for the winter. ---- a....and I've returned!  Well kind of. I'm back in busyness here in Vancouver after hanging out with my father in the country.  He seems well and content and he is as spry as ever.  I keep wondering if someday he'll get old but he was quick to jump off on a day hike in the woods with me even though he was bagged from a hike the day before.  I was feeling kind of tired when we'd climbed a little, about half - way through, when he spotted a nice place to try and scramble up further onto some slope and up he went.  So I was pretty impressed to say the least.  I'll post some pictures later.  In the meantime another food pic here.  My gal and I made some bean tacos the other night and she stuffed and fried up these flor de calabaza or zuchini flowers!  Woah.  They were quite tasty especially when stuffed into a taco!  Some icy coconut water on the side makes a nice late summer snack!  Well, that is all for now as I'm back home I really cant say much more, but the job is plodding along and I can feel October looming. 

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Swimming Summmer


Well it's the middle or maybe even the middling-end of summer and we are in it.  So far it's been good.  We've been spending most of our time in town and about the town and working in town.  Sometimes on the weekends, we go on a "jaunt" to a local hiking spot or swimming spot.  I've been swimming in a couple of small lakes and in the ocean.  The ocean is my favorite.  Some don't like swimming in the ocean because of the salt and the sharp, barnically things that slice-up your feet etc. but I like it.  Around here even though you don't get the pounding surf and roaring intensity that you do in other parts of the worlds oceans but at it's best the ocean around Vancouver can get warm enough to endure for long periods of swimming in the summer.  Fear of swimming seems to be common.  It is one of those things that some people seem to have an innate fear of water and what could be underneath it.  Somehow, lakes seem creepier to me.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's the deadness of them and the stillness of them.  It just seems more like something's lurking down there, something forgotten and nasty.