Nature On Steroids

We're driving east through the Rockies. It was pretty intense especially for Stagg. 5000 feet and counting. Up and down on Crows Nest Hwy. One evening just before we met up with fellow blogger Wandering Coyote we saw 6 deer and two moose ON THE ROAD. In the rain. Which slowed us up quite a bit. The next day somewhere in banff national park an oncoming vehicle flashed it's lights at us. I slowed thinking either it was a cop with radar or an animal on the road. As I pulled up the crest of a "hill" we saw a bear. I actually really slowed down and for one silly moment I thought " I'll take a picture". As soon as I was about ten feet from the bear i realized shit that's a grizzly. She was huge and orange and had her mouth wide open like she was trying to catch the rain. And I felt like our car might just as well be a can of soup to her... And I didn't stop. Wow. Stagg later said he wanted to go to home depot and buy two toilets. Take out the seats of our car and replace them with the toilets so we could shit our pants. Poor Stagg... And then about an hour later we saw a black bear. Stagg kept mumbling...."I saw a grizzly. On a mountain"

I'll post some pics when I can get on to a computer. I'm sending this from my cell phone. We checked into a hotel and the woman who worked there was from austrailia and she dismissed her nature and said Canada is nature on steroids.

Saying Sayonara

Great views of the city! We went out to a place on the beach with the nephews one evening. And then the other pics are our friends who we painted thier house for the past month over for supper and to play music!

Friends

I love this pic of Stagg and bro-in-law in back yard...and the boys are playing street hockey in the alley...it is finally summer in Vancouver!

1997 And Now

Here is a photo a bunch of us took back in Vancouver in 1997. And the other night I dragged everyone out on to the steps to get a "remake". Not all the same people in the second shot...but there is 6 of us anyways...

A Great B.C. Day!

After breakfast in Tofino we took the intense drive across the mountains again to catch a ferry in Nanaimo...to Vancouver.




As soon as we drove from the ferry to my sisters in Vancouver she said we had to run downtown to meet Rich. So we jumped ina taxi and met him at the Railway Club and saw a band his family is plas with called Welkin.



See the minature train above their heads? This is the second train themed joint we've been in this trip...and the third place with a minature train set running. (the circus museum in Florida)


Healing...after a few drunk brats broke windows and set fires after the hockey game loss...including breaking all the windows here of The Hudson's Bay Company...people...hundreds of people have come down here and written messages on the plywood installed into the open vandalized windows. It's pretty amazing. Stagg called it, Vancouver's wailing wall.


The Vancouver Art Gallery lit up at night, and the same site as 420 party I posted pics of earlier. That's right "the VAG".

We had a nightcap of Proseco in the lobby bar of the Hotel Vancouver with my sister. Got home and had some deviled eggs and this was just about one of the most classic days of life in Vancouver.

What next?

In Praise Of Outsiders

"As a young person, I sought to be a part of things. I wanted to be in the right place at the right time with all the cool people. So I tried to fit in. Clothes, music, etc. Once I got there, I found that the scene was not to my liking and that these people were not my type." Henry Rollins writing a column...I am so glad Rollins has a new outlet.

Henry Rollins archives on La Weekly

Tofino Morning

Drinking coffee on the pier in "downtown" Tofino. Tofino population is under 2000 and how can one describe this place....I just had to bring Stagg here, because I can't. (But in some ways its a little like "northern Exposure tv show)





Isn't this a cute insignia?

Back to the beach...just soaking it up...














When we drove out of town I started to cry. Getting back on to Long Beach was the remedy. Do you have a favourite place in the world?