BC trip - part 2

We flew to Vancouver on a Friday night and spent the first weekend in the Fraser Valley before heading up to Smithers for a week.

Carrie's dad and I went to the Langley Cruise-In the next day. It's an annual car show featuring thousands of fancy shmancy (mostly vintage) cars and bikes entered by their owners for no other reason than to show them off (or occasional to try and sell).

As with the Geneva Auto Show last year, I took a million pictures and will show just a few without much further distracting dialog.

We saw fancy old cars...


camper cars (custom built?)...


hard-to-see-out-of cars...


96-year-old electric cars (fun fact: back then, gasoline cost around the same as it did a year ago (inflation adjusted, of course), so what are we complaining about?!) ...


good ol' muscle cars...


80s Cadillacs with hydraulics for bouncin' in the 'hood...


sweet sweet station wagons (I would totally drive one of these)...


Blues Brothers impersonators (and fairly good) with a ridiculously loud sound system in/on their car...


old Ghostbusters-esque ambulances...


1930s buses...


cool old pickup trucks...


cool older pickup trucks...


less cool VW truckish thingies...


stub-nose truck that make the VW above look beautiful...


old Harley choppers...


...and what looks like it may have been unearthed in a 12th-century archaeological dig...


Thus endeth part 2.

BC trip - part 1

We took off to BC for a couple of weeks and I just got back yesterday morning. This excursion will take a few posts, so bear with me as I sort through a zillion photos and attempt to write a bunch of stuff. Carrie isn't back yet because she had to go to some work thing in New York, so she went there straight from Vancouver.

My red-eye flight was unexciting, made extra unfun by the fact that I didn't get a wing seat. You know, the ones where you can't keep luggage on the ground but it's an exit route so you get 4 more inches of leg room. To someone like me, those 4 inches mean the difference between the least comfortable flight in history and an ever-so-slightly better one. But I do prefer the extra leg room. There is the odd case where the entire seat in front of you is removed at the wing, but not every plane has that, and I've only enjoyed that once. Bulkhead seats are deceptive: they're occasionally offered (with good intentions) to tall people, but although there is more knee room there is less foot room, so it's really no better than any other seat. Fortunately for me Carrie's was empty and right beside mine, so I could stretch out on an angle... most expensive leg room ever!

So anyway, somewhere over Manitoba yesterday there was a medical situation on board. Fortunately the flight wasn't diverted but continued to Toronto, which was a scheduled layover for me. The only problem was that we were late landing and then we all had to wait for the EMT crew to help mr. situation off the plane. I was fairly certain I'd miss my connection which was due to leave in about 10 minutes. Upon finally stepping from the plane to the terminal I heard my name in the tail end of a "final boarding call" PA announcement. My layover was literally under 3 minutes long, from plane to plane. Best connection ever! And to top it off, my luggage even made it! I have no idea how they pulled that off; they must have known my precious Granville Island beer cargo needed to go in the fridge ASAP. Thanks Westjet.

Ottawa airport is relatively tiny, so upon getting my checked luggage within 10 minutes, I was surprised to find myself about 40th in line for a taxi. But this city is cab-crazy, and plenty seem to hang out at the airport; in under 5 minutes I was on my way home.

So... not all the plants are dead. But the mailbox was crammed very full indeed. I also noticed that neither the kitchen sliding door nor the living room sliding door (both leading outside) were locked properly... oh well, nobody dropped in and stole my bike, so all's well that ends well.

Camping at Bon Echo

For the long weekend we went camping at Bon Echo Provincial Park with friends from Toronto. It's between here and there, under 2.5 hours of driving if all goes well. For about the second time ever, we hit bad traffic in Ottawa on the way out, slowing down our trip by a whole half hour.

We had reserved the site in April, and already then there weren't many left to choose from. Fortunately the spot we got was in a great location and very private. They had their trailer and we had our tent. Here are the kids relaxing by the non-fire.


Yes, the non-fire. The wood they sell in these parts tends to be very green hardwood, not exactly ideal for burning. We hardly managed to get a crackling fire with a decent flame the whole weekend. Grumble grumble.

The electrical cord on our friends' trailer happened to drag on the road for half the drive up, leaving them without trailer brakes or lights. A quick trip to Home Hardware and a bunch of fiddling later... tada! Yes, I know, is it really camping when you can run to the store to fix or replace stuff you broke/lost/forgot??


Bon Echo is well known for its massive cliffs. There was talk of the existence of Indian petroglyphs (carvings) on the cliff walls, but apparently they're merely pictographs (paintings/drawings). What a letdown. We did see a couple of red splotches, but I'm quite confident I could have produced the same by squishing a ketchup packet in the general direction of a rock.



One day we rented a couple of canoes so we could see the famous cliffs up close. Despite no cool Indian art, we did enjoy the rest of the scenery.


A stop during the canoe trip.


After canoeing got boring, a couple of us traded them in for a two-person kayak. I've never been in a kayak, and it turned out to be quite fun, albeit a tad wet. Still no idea how to steer one of those things... the only solution seems to throw one person overboard; I guess I'll have to try a single next time. Yeah no pictures... forgot my ziplock bag at the campsite.

Carrie and Merced were the water rats. I think I touched the lake once... do I get a ribbon or something?



We spent a full day at the beach. Fun for some I suppose. On the bright side (haha!), I got some sun. Lobstery forehead is peeling as I type. The beach is quite nice with good sand, but it's not terribly big. It helps to stake one's spot there early in the day.



Tomorrow we're off to BC for three weekends. Maybe when we get back I can pull out my snowboard! YAY! Let's face it, summer's as good as over.

Hi Claire

Woohoo! Another niece! She's 3 hours old as I write this. Happy 0th birthday Claire (spelling not verified...).