The West Coast Lobsters

Overdue Long Range Traverse pictures

2006-10-29T23:32:00.000-04:00

Sorry, these have been up for a few weeks now but I neglected to let anyone know!

Here's our pictures from the Long Range Traverse, a ~40km wilderness hike (no trails!) through the back woods (bog!) of Newfoundland's Gros Morne National Park.

My photos [smolyn.org]
Taryn's photos [smolyn.org]

Presenting Audrey!

2006-10-29T23:25:00.000-04:00

This is Audrey, our new cute, fluffy and rather tiny dilute torbie or tabico or, well, just cat.

Thankfully Sunday shopping has just ended and I was able to go to Home Depot and procure the supplies necessary to build the contraption she's sitting on. Let's just hope she climbs it more often than she climbs the curtains. :)

The Halifact: Until a few weeks ago, Sunday shopping was illegal in Nova Scotia. Well, sort of illegal. IIt's rather difficult to explain, so instead I'll let the CBC do it:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2006/10/04/ns-sunday-shopping.html

Back to School!

2006-09-07T10:24:00.000-03:00

As we head back to school I realize we have been negligent in keeping you up to date. As a remedy, here is the rest of our summer in point form:

Hurricane Beryl nearly ruined our trip to Cape Breton for my birthday in late July. Instead of backpacking, we ended up car camping in the National Park, going for a few hikes and hitting Louisbourg decked out in rain pants.
I got paid to go hiking as part of a field course with work to get us certified as 'Leave No Trace' Wilderness Ethic trainers
At the beginning of August Greg and I headed to Newfoundland with some friends to do a 5 day off-trail hike. Highlights include amazing scenery, falling in mud holes, Greg getting chased by a moose and learning wilderness navigation the hard way in the pouring rain.
After getting out of the backcountry Greg and I headed out on our own across Newfoundland, hitting the major attractions and much more besides. We spent 2 weeks in Newfoundland altogether.
As soon as we got home we picked up Laurel from the airport (literally 2 hours after we got home). She was with us for fun times for a little over a week.
During her visit we moved to our fabulous new house closer to school. It is so much nicer and quieter than our old hole.
On Labour Day weekend we did something we have been wanting to do for 2 years: adopt a kitty from the SPCA. She hasn't come home yet because she is waiting to be spayed, but she is 2 years old, very pretty, and her (new) name is Audrey.
Greg and I went back to school last week. For Greg it was his first time back in a long time as he started his masters in computer science. He will also be working remotely on his old job. I headed into second year in law and will continue to work one day a week at MEC. We are also both volunteering more with CPAWS this year.

So that's the update. Here's a picture of Greg visiting Audrey at the shelter - I'm sure this will be the first of the many photos of her that end up here!

Can you believe summer is half over?

2006-07-05T23:11:00.000-03:00

Emily and Bill were here for their visit last week. In 7 days we managed to drag them to every single known tourist site in southern Nova Scotia. We also managed to meet several of Emily's long-lost relatives who live in the area.

The best part though, was that Emily (with the assistance of Tudor) rounded up the best in Asian snack foods that Vancouver has to offer and delivered them to me in a massive carry-on tote-bag. A picture of the full spread is at left but almost none of that is left now.

Immediately after Em and Bill left Greg and I headed up to the Cobequid Hills (the part of Nova Scotia that is on the north side of the Bay of Fundy) for some Canada Day backpacking. We hiked an 18km wilderness standard loop trail on the Economy River. Economy is an Anglicization of Kenomee so the trail is called the Kenomee Canyon trail. What makes it a wilderness standard trail is little signage and few man-made structures such as bridges. That meant 5 creek crossings.

Another reason for going hiking was to try out my new tent. That's right... after contemplating it for two months I've used my discount to buy the MSR Hubba Hubba (it's called that because it is a single pole design with two hubs.) I feel it is an investment... in the same way that a great business suit is an investment. I love my new tent THIS much! Summer (for me) is half over so I'll have to get as much sleeping in my new tent in as possible before I head back to being the Hunchback of Quingate Place (or the Hunchback of Edward Street - doesn't have the same ring to it does it?)

Today's Halifact: The greater Halifax area has four Asian grocery stores (that I know of). They are all quite small and have the basics for Chinese cooking (except the one store that specializes in Korean and Japanese). Now, however, there is a new Asian grocery in town, bringing the total to five. The best part, though is that the new one is right down the street. I still can't buy coconut buns in this town though :(

New home (sweet home this time)

2006-06-20T21:46:00.000-03:00

Last Friday Greg and I finalized the lease on our new apartment. We move in on August 1st! Our new place is much, much, much better than our current apartment. It is a suite on the main floor of a house (this is known as a 'flat' to Haligonians). We have a two bedroom again. It has a nice modern kitchen and bathroom, a bay window in the living room, a little deck, a parking spot, a storage closet and unlimited laundry in the basement. It is on a quiet street with lots of trees two blocks from school. As well we can have pets there so there is talk of a kitty. On the right is the view out our new backdoor. (I hope we get to keep the hammock!)

Also last weekend Greg and I went hiking to Kejimkujik National Park in the interior of the southern part of Nova Scotia (locals call it Keji because its just so impossible to say the whole thing). The area is very popular with canoeists since it is a series of interconnected lakes but it was hiking we were after since we need to get prepped for our hiking trip to Newfoundland. We brought along Ritchie and Geniva who will also be hiking in Newfoundland with us, as well at Geniva's friend Yoko. We had a great time even if the hike was a little wet in places. The boardwalk in the picture is supposed to keep us out of the water! So far the scenery was some of the nicest we have seen in the backcountry out here (but we haven't been to Cape Breton or Newfoundland yet so we'll see).

We are really looking forward to some visitors in a few days. Bill is coming, as is Emily thanks to an awesome seat sale from a new airline called Sunwing. I'm sure we'll have some adventures to post about from their visit.

Today's Halifact: We just had a provincial election here in Nova Scotia. We previously had a Conservative minority government and now we have one again. Rodney McDonald is still premier. During the election one of the opposition parties ran "Rodney's Believe it or Not" attack ads that were quite humorous. The Green Party also ran a full slate of candidates and ended up with a few thousand votes. The low voter turn-out and lack of general interest meant it was a pretty uneventful election.

Today's Weather

2006-06-15T21:41:00.000-03:00

From this article on the CBC,

"The Halifax-Dartmouth Bridge Commission warned drivers of high-sided vehicles to be careful crossing the two bridges spanning Halifax harbour."

That's just how windy it is. :)

I feel sorry for the cyclists!

Summertime in the Muggy City

2006-06-07T22:46:00.000-03:00

It is finally summertime here in Halifax! The leaves are finally on the trees, there are flowers in everyone's garden, the muggy weather has returned, and it is BUG season (as you can see by the photo at left).

The warm weather comes a little later to Halifax than it does to Vancouver, and technically it is still more like spring here so the cooler weather and rain mean that we haven't been out hiking and backpacking as much as we would like. When it isn't busy raining and being cold it is very muggy here which takes a lot of getting used to for me.

I've also been really busy at work in the past few weeks doing my 2 weeks of intensive product knowledge training. It was pretty cool to get paid to run around an orienteering course, set up multiple tents inside each other (Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1 inside MSR Hubba Hubba inside MEC Wanderer 4 inside MEC Funhouse 6), and taste test the various freeze-dried backpacking foods on a variety of stove models (I recommend the Black Bart Chili or the Kung Fu Chicken with Rice but definitely NOT the Cashew Curry Chicken with Rice).

So far we have only been on one overnight backpacking trip. We took my friend Lori, a Newfoundlander from school, on her first backpacking trip to the Bluff trail, a wilderness trail only 15 minutes from our house. Greg wrote up a trip report for that outing and posted it on clubtread.com here if you want to check it out. I am really itching to get out backpacking again after that trip. (Although despite the headnet I was literally itching after that trip as well.)

We are also planning one big trip for our summer vacation: we are going to Newfoundland! We plan to take the ferry to the western side and then drive up to Gros Morne National Park to do some backcountry hiking. Then we'll drive up to see the Viking site at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, then we'll drive east across the Island to St. John's and take the ferry back to Nova Scotia from Argentia. Our whole trip will be two weeks long and we'll stop lots of other places as well. We're both very excited. I've even been learning the additional verses to "I's the B'y". (Did you know there is one about maggoty fish AND one about maggoty butter? Good stuff.) As well, they have actual mountains in Newfoundland... up to 815m worth of mountains!

Also, we are expecting a visitor at the end of the month! Bill, Greg's dad has the honour of being our second houseguest ever. We're looking forward to showing him around Halifax during the short 4 month window when it is green!

Today's Halifact: The local franchise of the Simmons Mattress Gallery is owned by three crazy Brits who do their own low buget and cheesy commercials. During the winter they had some sort of tropical promotion going on where they were all wearing Hawaiian shirts in the ad. We just saw their new one today. For their 10 year anniversary (or something) they are having a Thank-You Nova Scotia Sale. To celebrate they all dressed up in fishermen's bright yellow rain slickers and promised that you get free lobster with your mattress purchase. That's right, FREE LOBSTER! They were each waving around a live one during the ad!

Much More Hiking to Come.... Thanks to Taryn's New Job

2006-05-03T22:05:00.000-03:00

Last Sunday Greg and I headed out on yet another hike. This time we were aiming to hike a trail on the Salmon River in nearby Dartmouth that was made by fisherman hiking upstream. We had heard that there was still lots of blowdown from Hurricane Juan in 2003 and that the trail was in rough shape. Within the first 10m we found this to be very true. The trail detoured almost into the lake to get around the blowdown and the bridge had been hit hard. It had been pushed downstream a few meters and turned sideways. The piece of decking Greg is standing on is actually perpendicular to the stream flow. This made for one of the more challenging bridge crossings I've ever done!

Once we made it over the bridge, however, we found that the trail was very clean, recently brushed out, and very well marked. Strange since the entrance seemed to be in such bad shape. We eventually ran into some trail builders who explained that we were on part of a new and expanded trail system that was not yet open and that the old trailhead was closed so they wouldn't be brushing it out.

Instead of following the northern portion of the unmaintained Salmon River trail over a sketchy half underwater bridge we got to follow the beautiful new trail system over a ridge then down to West Lake. We think this will become our new favourite place to hike. And with a 30 minute driving time, it's somewhere we can go quite often. Next time we plan to start from the east trailhead (at the top right of the map) instead of the now closed Salmon River trailhead on River Road (bottom left of the map). That way we'll get to see the other half of the trail system that we haven't seen yet.

We'll get to do lots of hiking because I have a new job for the summer in retail, which means flexible hours. My new job is also at my favourite outdoor store in the world, wait... make that my favourite store in the world, so my staff discount means I can afford some sweet new gear, even on my limited budget. I'm excited!

Saturday April 29: Pennant Point

2006-05-01T20:58:00.000-03:00

With Taryn finding out she does have a job at MEC starting on Tuesday, we decided the best way to celebrate would be to hike as much as possible this weekend. As well, it seems half of our building has decided that the end of April is the perfect time to move, so it's a zoo-- the kind you don't want to be anywhere near (think Big Al's Yak and Reptile Farm).

Very close to Halifax is a lovely little park with a beach that, apparently, is also a zoo when the weather gets nice. Of course, it's still between 7-12 degrees here most of the time, so we had no concerns there.

However, there really isn't much of a hike there, at least not according to our 8th edition of the Nova Scotia trails book. Fortunately when Calvin was out I managed to find a 7th edition at a used book store, and its trail is significantly longer (13km).

Much of it follows crown land outside of the Provincial Park, but the trail is very obvious. Here it is:

Closer to the point we ran across some boulderers monkeying around on some of the granite rock that lies between the ocean and the forest. They had quite the little day camp set up, with a small fire and everything! I guess that's one reason why the trail is still so prominent.

For part of the way back we went inland and took (what seems to be) ATV trails for a while, until we met up with the main trail. I am a big fan of loops, so this made me happy, but there was quite a lot of mud and marshy patches what definately made for slower going. Luckily this route had some interesting features: the rusting remains of an old Van and a former WW2 outpost/bunker.

It turned out to be a little shorter than promised (11km), but it was still a nice outing, and quite close to home too.

My photos

Waypoints:
Van- N44.44346 W63.63848
Bunker- N44.44979 W63.62845

Sunday April 23: Delaps Cove + Annapolis Valley

2006-05-01T20:34:00.000-03:00

Delaps Cove is the site of a former black loyalist colony, way down the Annapolis Valley close to Annapolis Royal. There aren't many remnents of the former colony, but it's not surprising given the ruggedness. It must have been quite a slap in the face for the black loyalists to get such crappy land when just over the ridge to the south the whities got some of the richest farming land in all of Nova Scotia.

The day was a little bleak when we started out, but it turned out quite nice by the time we reached the start of our hike (about 2 hours drive). The route was well marked and quite pleasant, although overall the hike was a little short for our tastes (8km and very little elevation gain).

Here's our route:

Here's some photos:

And you can get more here:
My photos
Taryn's photos

We also took a quick walk through Annapolis Royal and Fort Anne, and then meandered back a ways towards home on the old #1 highway, before getting a little tired near Kentville and hopping back on the 101.

Saturday: BLT and Eggs

2006-04-24T16:19:00.000-03:00

Okay, here's the weekend update. Taryn just finished exams and finally we had a weekend together, rather than a weekend of me serving tea to the Hunchback of Quingate Place.

Our mountain bikes arrived from Vancouver a little over a month ago, and Calvin and I assembled them while he was visiting. The weather was forecast to be sunny and possibly even warm, so we decided we'd give them their maiden voyage this season. Our route? The Beechville-Lakeside-Timberlea trail, formerly a railway. Nice and flat, and should give us at least a 30km round trip.

Here's our path:

Of course, you can't ride on the BLT trail and NOT eat BLTs!!

Later in the day, we went to Ritchie's place and helped him in his attempts to concoct egg tarts, which has caused me to spin off a new blog solely devoted to food, Baking in Binary.

What happens in Spring...

2006-04-16T15:24:00.000-03:00

Is that apparently you get friends to come and visit! Or at least, friend. :)

The week before last, Calvin (our friend from Victoria/Nanaimo, which really should be called Vicmo, Nanaimoria, or prehaps just "The Island") came out to visit us. Of course he and I got up to all sorts of shenanigans while Taryn was forced to sit huddled in her little room studying hard for her exams. Ah the life of a student.

Anyways, Calvin and I did a bit of exploring, hiking (even a bike & hike multi-modal expedition), and chowing down at Pete's Frootique.

Finally on Taryn's day off, the three of us and Ritchie took part in what is a very eastern (but not necessarily East Coast) activity: visiting a Maple sugar camp.

Our experience starts at the cabin, where we were sat down and fed a glorious meal of sausage, maple baked beans, maple brown bread, and all-you-can-eat pancakes smothered in, of course, maple syrup. Someone at McDonalds must've been to this place when concocting the maple-baked-in-flapjack-sandwich-artery-clogger called the "McGriddle".

I must say that the food was fantabulous, simultaneously slowing me down with fat and pepping me up with sugar. My poor body had no idea what hit it.

Once we were able to drag ourselves back outside, we did a bit of exploring of the premises (unfortunately they weren't boiling the sap that day) and helped ourselves to some maple taffy we poured in snow.

We even got the chance to play with the farm's cute little springer spaniels, which apparently enjoyed picking large rocks up with their teeth and wandering around. Sure, why not?

Finally, today's Halifact: The Maritime Museum has recently acquired a live cockatoo which it has on display. When it's not squawking at teenagers that taunt it, you can usually coax it into saying its name. We couldn't, however, get it to say "Polly want a cracker". Arrrr!

Roughin' it Halifax style

2006-03-29T12:23:00.002-04:00

I'm in the middle of the exam time crunch, Greg has gone to Vancouver for a week for work, and the power went out for a bit last night. Resourceful girl that I am, I studied by headlamp and candle lantern and hoped I had enough battery power on my laptop to go the distance. The things I do for school.

All my exams will be done in about 3 weeks and I am really looking forward to the summer. So far I don't have any employment lined up, but I have some leads, so fingers crossed. I also was just elected secretary/treasurer to the Dalhousie Environmentall Law Students Society. That means I have access to the society bank account. Anyone want to go shopping? Just kidding!

Apparently as soon as Greg left for Vancouver, spring arrived here in Halifax. It's a balmy 12 degrees out now and apparently getting hotter. I feel strange outside without my toque, but I'll adjust.

I'd also like to let you know that I've got a secondary blog now. I've been doing reviews of everything I read over on I Read Too Much. Check it out if you are interested.

Today's Halifact: Halifax has the world's second largest natural harbour (sorry, I don't know who is first). We like to celebrate that here in Halifax by dumping raw sewage into it. Yummy. However, there is a major engineering project going on right now to build a treatment plant and piping to it. Of course the treatment plant is going in the poorest neighbourhood in town. I guess you can never win.

Still chilly...

2006-03-20T23:07:00.000-04:00

Yup, it's the first day of spring but the Shubenacadie canal, as you can see, remains solid. Fortunately for the cold ducks, there were plenty of people to feed them.

Taryn and I took a walk there yesterday after she finished her first (and lets hope, only!) weekend take home exam. Ugh. I am very glad to not be a lawyer in training!

However, it sounds like I am soon to be once again a nerd-in-training, as I was just accepted into Dalhousie for a MSC in Computer Science! I start in September and already I'm being preened to be the lab AV geek by Ritchie, the current lab AV geek in residence.

Anyways, I have started into a baking + cooking frenzy, and I think I will start blogging about my creations over on my oft-forgotten (by me!) blog. Hey, when you work at home it's no big deal to watch over some dough rising for an hour or three.

And speaking of culinary creativity, Ritchie has started a new blog where he and I scour Halifax for the best fish and chips in town. That's right. THE BEST. So far, we're far from our goal, but you never know what we might find. You can read about it every friday on bish-n-batter.

And thats it for now! For more frozen water craziness (from a few weeks ago), check this out: http://www.smolyn.org/gallery2/v/grisha/LifeInTheMaritimes/DollarLake2006/

Back from London

2006-03-09T14:15:00.000-04:00

We have been back from London for over a week now and things are back to normal. We had a great time and enjoyed our break from Halifax and its weather. (It was spring in London, but its still winter here for the most part.) All of our pictures can be found in the our online gallery (see the link on the right hand side of the page).

Right after we got back from London I had my first moot court (fake court). It was kind of neat since we got to dress up and call our prof "my lord" as if he was the judge and call our fellow students "my learned friend". It was the first time in my life I was ever addressed as "counsel". The best part was that the name of the fake company I was representing in a contract dispute was "Fools R'Us". Great, my first client is Fools R'Us!

There's not much else going on here except the same old same old.

Today's Halifact: You may not be aware but the military presence in Atlantic Canada is huge. In the Halifax area alone we have the base for the East Coast Navy, which is much, much larger than the piddly little West Coast Navy in Esquimalt. There is also a major military airport in Dartmouth across the harbour (CFB Shearwater) along with lots of other smaller pockets of military land around. The CFB Gagetown, which I believe is the largest base in the country in is New Brunswick, outside of Fredericton. We drove through it this summer and it took a good 45 min to get across it. Seeing military personnel on the streets in Halifax is very common and there is even a guy in first year at law school who I assume is doing the program part time because he sometimes comes to school in uniform (full on fatigues!). Local real estate companies and airlines even have military personnel special rates.

Happy Birthday Greg

2006-02-05T22:37:00.000-04:00

Jan 31st was Greg's 29th Birthday. We celebrated by going out to the Best of the Banff Mountain Film Festival Screening at Dalhousie. We had a few people back to our house afterwards for cake and tea. From left to right that's Daphne, Ritchie, Lori, Greg and I. Natalia is taking the photo. The girls are law student friends and Ritchie is a comp sci masters student friend.

I made the cake from scratch - the one occaision every year for which I bake for real. It was carrot cake with brazil nuts and cream cheese icing. Mmmmm.

During the day I organized a surpise party for Greg - a phone party. He had at least a dozen phone calls that day, probably more. Thanks to everyone who called - it made his day.

Greg also got a big birthday present from Mother Nature. On the evening of the 31st, continuing into the morning of the 1st we got over a foot of snow, lots of wind, and some big huge snow drifts. We ended up walking home from the movie in the driving snow! Quite an authentic Maritime experience. On the 1st, school was actually closed for me and lots of stores, offices, etc. were shut for the day.

Today's Halifact: Halifax has a weekly farmer's market in the old Alexander Keith's brewery buildings downtown. It happens every Sunday year round. Local farmers from around the province drive in to sell their produce, meats, bread, cheese, plants, crafts, etc. We made a special trip down there yesterday so Greg could get some fantastic Pineapple Rooibus from the Tea Brewery, a tea shop in Mahone Bay that has a stall at the market. We've also had some pretty awesome pork chops from Sweet Williams' butcher stall, and I bought Lucky Bamboo Verson 2.0 there as well back in September.

London Calling

2006-01-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

So Greg and I have decided to go to London for my reading break in February. We leave on Feb 16 and come back on the 27th. It's a lot cheaper to fly to London from here - it's so cheap that it's even cheaper than coming back to Vancouver. We'll be staying with Ian and Melinda, who moved to London in September, and we'll also get to visit with lots of Greg's friends from when he lived in Norwich and went to UEA. I'm quite excited about getting a break from school and getting to go travelling again.

We've been hiking a few times since we've been back from Vancouver since there isn't really any snow here yet. However, it looks like the no-snow situation is going to change tonight and we can bust out the snowshoes soon - the forecast for this evening is 20-40cm of snow overnight. I have been getting emails from school warning that I should be prepared for the possibility that school might close tomorrow. I feel like a little kid wishing for a snow-day!

Today's Halifact: We went to our first Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society meeting last night and learned more about the mainland moose. There are two kinds of moose in Nova Scotia: the Cape Breton Moose which is not endangered and is apparently descended from a handful of imported Albertan moose, and the mainland moose, which is native to Nova Scotia and is endangered. Apparently there is a population of about 13 moose living in a wilderness area about 20min from the city. I want to go find them. I love mooses, although I've never seen one :) .

Happy New Year

2006-01-15T18:29:00.000-04:00

Happy New Year (and Merry Christmas too!). We are back in Halifax and back to the same old, same old. I am back in school, Greg is back... in the living room at his computer.

We had a great time in Vancouver over the holidays - despite all the rain and lack of snow in the mountains. We were pretty busy and tried to see a lot of people, but we can't please everyone! We did manage to get out on an overnight trip to Marriot Meadows (north of Pemberton on the Duffey Lake Road) which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately we went light and fast (okay, just light) on that trip and didn't bring a camera, so there aren't any photos.

Over the holidays a few people we know hit a major milestone in their lives. Congrats to Nick and Amanda, Patrick and Annavie, and Daphne and Vivek for finding the holiday season so warm and fuzzy that they decided to get engaged. As Greg said "Wow, they're dropping like flies".

Nothing much to report here in Halifax - Well, except that last night we had a make-your-own-sushi party here at the house. We also cooked up some Japanese treats such as yakisoba, gyoza, teriyaki chicken, edamame, sunomono salad, and okonomiyaki. The magic of Vancouver dining came to Halifax for one awesome night in our kitchen.

Today's Halifact: Dairy and milk products are really popular in the Maritimes. People really love their milk. They love it so much that people we know drink the stuff with lunch instead of pop or juice. There is even an awesome Dairy Board TV commercial. The scene: kids playing a basketball game. Cut to a kid crashing down on the bench with exhaustion, then picking up a big carton of milk and chugging it back. The caption?... "Milk for hydration." Goodness. As a girl from the land of soy, it's a bit weird to see.

Snow!

2005-12-12T15:51:00.000-04:00

Here was the view from our window on Saturday afternoon!

Merry Christmas a little early

2005-12-08T16:10:00.000-04:00

In an act of severe procrastination, yesterday I put up our Christmas lights in our little apartment window. We are both really excited to be going home for Christmas. It's been an interesting time being here in Halifax, but we really miss Vancouver, our families, our friends, and in my case, sushi. Oh I miss good cheap sushi so bad.

If you will be in Vancouver during the Christmas break, we would like to see you. So far, besides the usual Christmas Eve/Day/Boxing Day family stuff, our schedules are pretty free (well mine is, I think Greg is going to work a little bit).

Greg flys in on the 13th and I'll be in town on the 17th. Both fly out in Jan 2.

Our list of things to do includes the following (come join us won't you?):

snowshoeing (overnight, North Shore, elsewhere, whatever, we're going through the hassle of bringing out gear on the plane so we better use it)
eating good, cheap non-boring-white-person food. This includes, but is not limited to: Shabusen, the Clubhouse, Lhy Thai, Curry Point, dim sum somewhere, Sha-Lin noodle house, a visit to Fuji-Ya, Belgian Fries, Memphis Blues (Greg only!), East is East, Flags maybe, other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting
boxing day shopping and other shopping at real malls with real stores (Metrotown and Robson street in particular (Taryn only)
hitting the Broadway strip to do MEC et al. (we have a little MEC and one other outdoor store here)
Bibliophile for the best used books ever

Of course there are other things to do too, I just can't think of them. I for one will be lying on the floor in front of my parents gas fireplace reading a book and not thinking about school. Maybe Greg can help add to this list? Or if you have suggestions, you can add a comment!

Today's Halifact: The majority of people here sometimes seem overly sensitive. This may sound like an over-reaction, but consider this: every day for the past three weeks or so, there has been some uproar in the local media about the fact that the people of Boston, to whom the Haligonians donate a tree each year, have decided to call it a "Holiday Tree", not a "Christmas Tree". Sheesh, it's no big deal people!

Remembrance Day Walkabout

2005-11-14T20:28:00.000-04:00

On Remembrance Day, I was feeling a little antsy, so I dragged Taryn out of bed and we walked to the far north of town to an area called Hydrostone. There was a cute little market here, and although it was rather cold (probably around 0), it was somewhat pleasant.

Some around town photos can be seen here: http://www.smolyn.org/gallery2/v/grisha/LifeInTheMaritimes/RemebranceDay05/

The Halifact: Hydrostone is an area of town where all the buildings have been built of concrete blocks, shortly after the explosion in 1917 (which levelled pretty much that whole area of town). The design of the area is also unique, for example it remains the only place in Halifax that has alleys!

Bluff Wilderness Hiking Trail

2005-11-14T20:00:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, Taryn and I went for a hike nearby with my friend Clay who I worked with at XWave. As you can see, the weather wasn't stellar, but at least it didn't rain, and if you check out the other photos you'll note the colours are fairly spectacular.

http://www.smolyn.org/gallery2/v/grisha/LifeInTheMaritimes/BluffTrail05/

Todays Halifact: On our walk downtown, we go past a small horse jumping facility. Where ocassionally one may even catch a glimpse of ponies. Scary! The building across the street proclaims this as the home of the Halifax Junior Bengal Lancers. I think I want to join just for the name!

I haven't failed yet

2005-11-09T22:55:00.000-04:00

I though I'd give everyone the update on how school is going since everyone seems to wonder what it is like, and really no one seems to have a clue what it might be like. I had no idea what it would be like either, so I don't blame you.

Anyway, I had my first ever law school exam at the end of October. It was for my Orientation to Law course, so I suppose I am oriented now. It was an unusual exam because it was oral, which means each of us had a 20 minute appointment with a professor who examined us by asking us questions off of a sheet. The topics covered were really varied because our course consisted of 6 weeks of guest lectures on a whole bunch of topics related to law from law societies, to ethics, to legal theory, to racism in the law.

When I went in for my exam, the professor spent a minute getting to know me and asked what my undergraduate degree had been in. I answered that I had done a degree in geography. He then proceeded to ask me a whole bunch of very abstract humanities and social science type questions about race and gender theory. I think he thought that since I had done geography I was a science person so he gave me those questions thinking they would be hard for me. Well he got me wrong! I could talk about critical race theory until... the cows come home? (I don't even know when cows come home... I assume they need to be milked so that actually wouldn't be that long... anyway, tangent).

Needless to say I passed. Law school is such a competitive place that when I was asked how I did immediately after the exam I said to a group of worried fellow students: "If that was a job interview, I just got the job". Oh how insensitive and competitive this place makes us. And how falsely cocky. Not that I wasn't that way already :)

I'm back in Vancouver in 36 days! Yay. I'll tell you all about it then I guess.

Today's Halifact: There is a fierce debate about ATV regulation and licensing raging here. The doctors from the local childrens hospital urged the province to amend their ATV regulations to make it more strict on young drivers. The province didn't really listen. Then two teenage girls died in an ATV accident and two days later a teenage boy spent the night out in the bush in a t-shirt after getting his ATV stuck in the mud. The province turned around and slightly amended their regulations, but in my opinion, they are still too soft. It has really polarized the city vs. the country folk here (and even most of the city folk agree with the country folk). ATVs are very important to most people here and most people have them. As soon as you get 10 minutes outside the city there are designated ATV trails along the sides of highways with their own little stop and yield signs and everything. It's crazy. If you know me, you probably know my stance on ATVs, so you can imagine how I'm reacting to all of this. What surprises me most is what is left out of the debate here. At home, the media would have brought up the environmental issues, such as the fact that ATVs pollute, that we are in a fossil fuel crisis, and the fact that ATVs are very capable of destroying wilderness habitats and ecosystems, and that they are noisy and smelly and hikers hate them. I haven't seen that in the newspaper or on the TV news once in the 3 week barrage of news stories we've endured. It's really a different mindset out here. If you want more info, here is a story from the CBC about a little bit of what is going on: ATV article. Gah. Rant over.

Friends and Weather

2005-10-24T23:28:00.000-03:00

Last weekend Greg and I had a few girls from school over for a potluck dinner. Greg made a roast. It was nice to finally have some social interaction! Actually, on Thanksgiving, we had another couple (a girl from Vancouver and her visiting boyfriend) over for dinner as well. We certainly have been eating well. As busy as I am, I am trying to organize social things that don't involve the bar because we are starved for friends. Next week, we are going to a Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) game with 31 of our closest friends from my section in first year law. And by closest friends, I mean people I usually remember the names of. Oh well.

Today's Halifact: In the fall of 2003 Halifax was hit by Hurricane Juan. Point Pleasant Park, at the south end of the Halifax peninsula was the first place that it made landfall. It caused a ton of damage, shut down the whole city for a number of days and the high winds actually shattered large stone blocks in a historic military tower. I saw the blocks. They look like they were blown apart by explosives, but no. Then in Feb 2004 Halifax was hit with a snowstorm they nicknamed "White Juan". This storm dumped over a meter of snow on the city overnight and again, shut everything down for a few days. So apparently we have moved to the land of extreme weahter. Tomorrow we are due to get hit by the tail end of Hurricane Wilma, perhaps the most powerful storm ever recorded (now no longer even classified as a hurricane). We have been issued a heavy rainfall warning and a wind warning. We are promised gusts of up to 100km tomorrow afternoon along with up to 50mm of rain. No one here seems too concerned. Apparently it is just another normal fall occurance. Yikes. I'll be wearing my rain jacket, and watching for falling trees, that's for sure.

Time Delay continued: Last Week's Failed Hiking

2005-10-16T16:58:00.000-03:00

As many of you may had already heard, Taryn and I had decided to attempt a hike around Cape Chignecto for Thanksgiving weekend. Our plan was simple: cram 60km of hiking into the 3-day weekend. It was an excellent plan, were it not for forces against our control. But alas, I get ahead of myself.

Here's the quick plan rundown.
Friday: drive to Cape Chignecto, camp at a walk-in campsite.
Saturday: Get up at crack of dawn, meet rangers for orientation, hike to Refugee Cove, camp
Sunday: hike to Seal Cove, camp
Monday: hike back to trailhead + visitor centre. Hunt down nearest snack food store.

Here's what actually happened:
Friday: drove to Cape Chignecto, camped at walk-in campsite. Cursed the dark and dreary skies.
Saturday: got up at crack of 9, met rangers for orientation. Began hiking towards Refugee Cove, discovered that source of torrential downpour was unending. Watched as trail slowly but surely turned into creek. Realized we weren't too excited at the prospect of 3 days of this. Turned around. Went to Superstore and bought turkey + turkey accoutrements.
Sunday: still pruny from hiking. Stood in front of fan for awhile. Read paper: found out it rained over 200mm in 24 hours where we were hiking.
Monday: made turkey + gourged ourselves on stuffing.

Above is our path. The Cape is an absolutely beautiful place and I'm really excited to go back when the weather is better. The trail from the visitor centre to Refugee Cove (just off the map on the left) is apparently one of the harder sections... and although it may not be quite as hard as the west coast trail, it certainly has a lot of elevation changes that make it approach the difficulty. Here's the profile:

You can see that we decided to turn around somewhere at the 6.5km mark... just after having gone back UP the huge 200m ravine. Ok, so obviously we aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but we probably needed the exercise. As well, you can see a hump at the 12-13.5 km mark that doesn't correspond to the start. Because the tide was up, we couldn't walk the beach as we did on the way out, so we had to go up and over a largish hill, getting prunier every step of the way.

Anyways, we had fun even if only for a day, and we're already planning going back (perhaps even on snowshoes!)

Old news: Last Week's Hiking

2005-10-09T09:22:00.000-03:00

Last week we took a trip to Musquodoboit to hike in the White Lakes Wilderness area.

It was a beautiful fall weekend, and we decided to hike the South Granite Ridge trail, a "wilderness" trail that was rated Challenging. Overall it was about 20km of hiking, but only about 9km was on the wilderness trail itself. Much of it was cruising along a popular trail on the path of an old abandoned railway. Here's Taryn going through the railway bridge at the start of our journey:

Surprisingly, the wilderness part of the trail was definately much less traveled and definately full of ups and downs. Here's the profile:

I think we totalled somewhere around 500m of ascent. Not bad for a province who's highest peak is only about as much! The views were lovely, especially towards the end of the wilderness trail when you get some great shots of the valley!

A view of the Musquodoboit valley:

The trees around Halifax have yet to start changing to their fall colours, but apparently the ferns are ahead of the game:

So that's an example of a hike that went according to plan. Stay tuned for more info on one that didn't!

Long awaited words from Greg

2005-09-21T10:36:00.000-03:00

[yeah, I'm not as much of a writer as certain other writers on this blog. Of course, I'm also not preparing for a lifetime of legalese. :)]

Okay, for those of you who don't frequent the blog or are computer neophytes (you know who you are Dad!), you may not have noticed Taryn turned back the clocks and posted some blog entries IN THE PAST!

It's a little unorthodox, but if you look down you'll see the entries for our trip across Canada. In fact, I'd suggest you start at the August entries (accessible from the "History" links on the bottom right of the page).

Not much of note to talk about at the moment. We're busy with work/school and still couchless. I've been biking to work most of the time a distance of about 9km, which takes me 25 minutes there and 18 minutes back. Halifax is HILLY!

Post-Tropical Storm Ophelia (what an awful title) was a non-event, and ended up traveling inland away from Halifax. The predicted 80-100mm of rain ended up being about 20. Oh well, our stockpile of Kraft Dinner will just have to be eaten I guess. :)

Also, I hear that my brother has just finished his demo reel... I'll put it online and post a link to it soon. It's really awesome! If anyone is needing a computer animator, I've got the guy for you!

Today's Halifact: The maritimes are owned by pretty much 2 families: The Irvings and the McCains. One is into potatoes, and the other is into pretty much everything else. Irving gas stations are EVERYWHERE, but they do have the cleanest and coziest washrooms bar none. I may not buy gas from them, but I've visited my share. :)

Settling in

2005-09-07T15:55:00.000-03:00

I'd like to start by announcing that the Halifax Fun Fact will now officially be know as the "Halifact" and will continue to accompany each entry.

Today's "Halifact": Bars here serve similar fare to that found in pubs across the nation. Typical bar snacks are often of the greasy variety and include french fries, onion rings, chicken fingers, etc. Unique to Halifax, however, is the unusual deep-fried Pepperoni. This is basically a big stick of pepperoni, cut into slices, then deep fried. You dip it in mustard. Easterners are so weird, but oh is it good.

So I know we haven't updated in awhile, but I thought I'd let everyone know that we are in Halifax, safe and sound. We completed our cross-country, trailer-towing road trip in exactly 14 days and arrived in Halifax on the evening of August 31. We have now been in our apartment for a week, and so far it is okay. We aren't really all the way unpacked yet, and we don't have a lot of crucial furniture, but otherwise, all is pretty normal. Above is a photo of all of our stuff right after we moved in. That's our living room/dining room. We've made some progress since then, thankfully. We have a big two bedroom apartment in a student ghetto building just off Quinpool Road, which Vancouverites might find similar to Broadway, only about a tenth of the size.

I've started school, although so far I've only been doing orientation activities, such as beer drinking, beer drinking, meeting professors, and beer drinking. Still to come on my busy schedule: a night-time ghost themed walking tour of Halifax, a scavenger hunt, a sports-day style mini-Olympics, a semi-formal Monte Carlo themed dinner dance, sea kayaking, a BBQ, a brewery tour, and a tour of campus and the law building. Oh, and did I mention there will be more beer drinking? They certainly like the stuff out here. There are none of those wimpy martini bars!

I also have some good news for those concerned about Greg's ability to keep purchasing the newest gadgets from MEC: He now is a new employee of Xwave, a consulting company owned by the local phone company, Aliant. We don't know exactly what he'll be working on yet, but he has been to the office, and it looks nice and new and they have a pool table and a keg in the fridge, so really, it can't be bad.

We will try to keep this updated more often. I may put up a summary of our trip across Canada soon, so stay tuned. (By the way, it was awesome.)

2005-08-27T23:03:00.000-03:00

This morning we got up early and drove in to Ottawa. We managed to navigate the freeway system and get ourselves right downtown. We arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard in front of the Parliament buildings. Since we didn't get there early enought to get a good spot, we mostly just were able to the backs of other tourists heads, but oh well. We walked around the grounds of the Parliament buildings and saw the locks on the Rideau Canal. We actually watched some crazy canoe/rower guy go through the locks, which are a National Historic Site and have to be cranked open by hand. We went on a guided tour of the interior of the Parliament Buildings, which was great. It was just like it is on TV, except without all the yelling.

After the Parliament Hill stuff, we wandered over to Byward Market and had a look around. It seems that every Canadian City has its own Granville Island type market: Calgary has Eau Claire Market, Winnipeg has the Forks, and Ottawa has Byward Market. We had an excellent lunch at a cafe, and then concluded that we had pretty much seen everything there was to see, so we hit the road and headed for Montreal.

As soon as we crossed the border it was obvious - people in Quebec drive like maniacs! It was about an hour of white knuckle stuff all the way down the freeway and then through Montreal to Chris' house, where we were staying. We are staying with Greg's high school friend Chris, we lives in Montreal and works for DND in aerospace engineering. His Croatian girlfriend, Katja, lives with him. They live sort of near Mont Royal in between St. Laurent and St. Denis on a quiet little street in a converted loft apartment in an old warehouse. It's a pretty cool place.

Chris and Katja took us out on the town tonight. It is nice to be a big city like this with someone who knows where they are going and what is good. And who speaks French! Greg speaks French, but I don't and I feel quite useless. They took us to Swartz's the most famous place in Montreal to get the traditional smoked meat sandwiches. It has been around since the 30s and definitely looks it. We all had big fatty smoked meat sandwiches and pickles. Mmmm. There was a street festival on St. Laurent and it was closed to traffic so we walked all the way downtown and looked at all the booths of people selling stuff. There were tons on teenagers doing Frosh for McGill. It seems strange to think that I'll be starting school soon.

We went to a big bar with a huge open air courtyard thing to have a pitcher. The place was massive - way bigger than any bar at home. It was also full of drunk people singing in French. What is it about us anglais that we don't really seem to have drinking songs?

Science!

2005-08-26T20:45:00.000-03:00

After breakfast this morning we headed directly to Science North in Sudbury. It's kind of like Sciene World. Once we got there we found out that it is $29.95 to get in. Insane! We were contemplating just skipping it when a lady in line offered us almost expired member passes that she wouldn't have time to use. Sweet! Free! In the end, we were glad that we went, but also glad that it was free.

We saw a "4D" film about Bushplanes, which was cheesy. There were 3D goggles, but apparently it was "4D" because the seats moved and they sprayed water at you when the bushplanes landed roughly on a lake. Right. I thought it was "4D" because it was historical, and the actual 4th dimension is time, but no. (I'm that much of a geek.) They had lots of good interactive exhibits and I got to see a beaver and a porcupine. I also got to ride a segueway. It was actually really neat and not nearly as dorky as I thought it would be. It was impressed with how well it handled and easy it was to manuvere.

Afterwards, we had Mickey Ds in Sudbury and then drove to North Bay for groceries. I saw a dead moose on the side of the road. I've been wanting to see a moose this whole trip, but not like that! Poor moose.

Tonight we are camped at Fitzroy Provincial Park where the Carp River empties into the Ottawa River. We are so close to Ottawa that we are actually inside the Greater Ottawa city limits. Since it is Friday night, the campground is a bit noisy, but it's really nice and we have a site on the Carp River.

A Mini-Hike Makes our Day

2005-08-25T00:08:00.000-03:00

I had a shower this morning! It turns out that most Ontario Provincial Parks have what they call a "comfort station". Bascially, this is just a building that has flush toilets, free, clean, hot showers, and a laundromat. Coming from BC, the land of pit toilets, this was a luxury indeed. Last night I even paid to do some laundry because everything we own stinks. We feel so much cleaner now!

After a quick breakfast of a banana and nutella sandwich (my new favourite morning meal) we hit the road. We basically just drove all day. We grabbed some Subway in Wawa and took it to Old Woman Bay in Lake Superior Provincial Park for a bit of a picnic. It was really pretty, but quite cold since it was windy. Other than that, not much happened on the road.

We got groceries for dinner (tofu stirfry because we are such West Coast hippies) in Sault Ste. Marie, a.k.a. "The Soo" and headed to our campsite at Chutes Provincial Park. The park is called "Chutes" because there used to be wooden chutes to carry logs around the waterfalls on the Riviere aux Sables when there was a large scale logging operation there. We arrived early enough to take advantage of the little hiking trails to the falls and rapids. It felt nice to walk around a get a little sweaty.

What is clabbered milk?

2005-08-24T01:51:00.000-03:00

We woke up early this morning and quickly packed up our campsite. We headed off to Thunder Bay trying to get there in time for lunch. As usual, we were late and didn't arrive until 3:30 so we were starving. We went to a Finnish restaurant that our guidebook recommended. Apparently Thunder Bay has the largest population of Finns outside Finland. Who woulda thunk? Anyway, the restaurant we went to is actually just the cafeteria in the basement of the Finnish Community Centre. We both had the most Finnish thing on the menu: salted fish with potatoes and clabbered milk. It was basically salty lox with onions, mashed potatoes, and big bowl of a sour-cream like substance (that was the clabbered milk). The clabbered milk was weird as we weren't sure if we were supposed to eat it like a soup or use it as a condiment, so in the end, we just put it on stuff and it was pretty yummy.

On the way out of Thunder Bay we stopped at the Terry Fox Monument up on the highway near where he was forced to stop his run. For some reason the Terry Fox story really gets to me and I found it really moving to be there.

We drove out our campsite for the night at the Rossport portion of Rainbow Falls provincial park. Our campsite is right on the shore of Lake Superior. It is a big lake! For dinner, we had some left over burritos that we had been storing in the cooler all day. We made a double boiler on the campstove and steamed them to warm them up. It worked pretty well - sort of like a back-country microwave. I only mention the burritos because the Mexican dinners have become a sort of theme. We have had Mexian food for dinner three nights in a row because we keep having left over ingredients that we feel we have to put to good use. Thank God we've finally used it all and we can have something normal for dinner tomorrow.

So much Mennonite

2005-08-23T00:21:00.000-03:00

We got up late this morning and had breakfast with Dar, George and their grandchildren. Dar and George insisted that they pack us some food for the trip. They sent us on our way with bananas, oranges, pop, and some pepperoni bums. (Apparently when they lop off the pepperoni bums to make all the sticks the same length, they save them and people who work at the factory take them home and give them to their friends, which is how we ended up with some. They taste just like regular pepperoni and they are salty and good.)

After saying goodbye, we drove down to "The Forks" kind of in downtown Winnipeg. It is like the Granville Island of Winnipeg in the Stanley Park of Winnipeg. The Forks is so called because it is where the Red River and the Assinaboine River meet. It is a big park with a market, some historical displays and all kinds of neat stuff. We walked around and had some good perogies for lunch. Then we crossed the river on a neat footbridge and wandered around St. Boniface, the French area. We saw the cathedral, the cemetary, and the controversial Riel statue.

Next we drove to Mennonite Central in Steinbach. We went to the Mennonite Heritage Centre. (Greg's mom's side of the family is Mennonite so it was of particular interest to us.) It is a museum set up to look like a traditional Mennonite Village from whent he Mennonites first came to Canada. There were also galleries explaining the history of Mennonites in Canada and demonstrations of traditional life, like biscuits made on a wood-burning oven and a working windmill!

Afterwards we drove towards Ontario and stopped at an infocentre for maps and an awesome Ontario Provincial Parks guidebook, our new Bible. We drove to Kenora to pick up stuff for dinner, then drove out to our chosen campsite at Rushing River Provincial Park on Dogtooth Lake. It is gorgeous here. Too bad we arrived a bit too late for a swim.

Canada's Only Significant Contribution to World Architecture: The Grain Elevator

2005-08-22T02:15:00.000-03:00

We had a really long day today. We drove all the way across Saskatchewan and half of Manitoba. We were on the road for about 14 hours with very few breaks. It sucked.

We had a quick breakfast at our Cypress Hills campsite and then set off for Winnipeg. Our first stop of the day was in Swift Current to pick up some essentials. We also spent most of the day listening to The Davinci Code book on tape that Reid downloaded for us when we were in Calgary. We put it on our Mp3 player, then while were passing though Medicine Hat yesterday, we picked up a FM transmitter so that we could listen to the Mp3 player through our car stereo. We are really acquiring the gadgets on this trip! We listened to quite a few hours of the book, but since it is 16 hours, I think we have a lot left. The book is so cheesy and reads like it is written for people who are used to watching movies, but that is what makes it so great for listening to in the car since you want to know what happens next. The road in Saskatchewan is so straight that we can just stare straight ahead, eat chips, and zone out like we really are at the movies while we listen to it.

We didn't have time for anything today though, since we were so hard pressed to make it to Winnipeg. No tunnels of Moose Jaw, no downtown Regina visit. It makes both of us cranky, but I guess it means we still have stuff to see if we drive across again in three years. We did have time for a quick stop at Fleming near the Manitoba border. The grain elevator there (in the picture above) is the oldest one in the world. We pulled over to see it, but after seeing grain elevators all day, it really wasn't that exciting. It was battered, disused, and forlorn, and I kind of felt sorry for it. We also stopped briefly at the Manitoba info centre for some maps and brochures. We promised Dar and George, our hosts in Winnipeg that we would be here by 8, but we miscalculated the distance and forgot about the time change and didn't arrive until close to 10:30. We were exhausted and the concrete highway outside of Winnipeg played havoc with the trailer. Hell.

Dar and George and the best hosts ever! Dar is the sister of Greg's parents friend, Dennis, and we have never met her before, but she is still so nice! They served us homemade meat pie and talked our ears off until nearly midnight. It's been a hideously long day, but at least it ended well with good food, friendly people, and a nice comfy bed to sleep in! Such nice people.

Giant beasts

2005-08-21T01:06:00.000-03:00

We got up early this morning and drove to Denny's to have brekkie with Chuck and Elaine (Greg's uncle and aunt) and their daughter Jenny, and her husband Julian. It was nice to have time to visit with them and Jenny and Julian told us all kinds of fun stories about their recent trip to Singapore and Thailand.

Afterwards we drove to Drumheller to go to the Tyrell Museum. It was quite impressive with lots of huge dinosaur skeletons and we spent a few hours there. The badlands weren't as cool as I thought they would be though, although they were pretty neat. I guess I expected them to be deeper. Oh well.

After Drumheller we drove back to Highway 1, then down to Medicine Hat to buy groceries for dinner. On the way we stopped in a little tiny town called Bassano to try to find a place to eat our picnic lunch. We were looking for a park or some sort of rest stop, but we couldn't find one so we ate our lunch on the nice green grass of the lawn of the local hospital. All the people who drove past us looked at us as if we were crazy.

After getting lost in downtown Medicine Hat (I know... it sounds impossible, but it isn't), we drove down to Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park and checked in at our campsite near the town of Elkwater. Our campsite is very quiet and all the way up in the trees. It is neat to see trees and canyons and such after a day of driving through such flat (well rolling a bit) country. We had a late dinner and called home and now we'll head to bed in our tent for the first time.

K-Country! (That's not the name of a radio station)

2005-08-20T03:17:00.000-03:00

Today we were supposed to get up early in the morning to go for a big hike in Kananaskis Country (which the locals call K-Country) with Reid, but we slept in a bit. Instead, we ambled over to Safeway to pick up lunch, then drove downtown to pick up a GPS antenna for the car (yeah, we're geeks). Next Reid tried to give us directions out of downtown Calgary, but he ended up giving us an extended tour instead! Eventually, however, we ended up on the road to Calgary, U-Haul trailer in tow.

We drove through K-Country with the U-Haul and got some funny looks from other drivers. We chose a short hike to the Kananaskis Lakes Fire look-out because we were supposed to be back in Calgary early for a party. We hiked Reid-style: quite fast, carrying not much, and taking few breaks. After all the backpacking we've done this summer, it felt nice to move that fast and not have a load on my back.

We made it back to Calgary rather late and were late heading to the birthday party for Reid's friend Kevin. Kevin and his wife Belinda live in one of Calgary's crazy self-contained over-planned suburbs. You have to see it to believe it. Everything looks the same in those things. Their house was really nice, but their neighbourhood was a bit like the twilight zone to an urbanite like me.

The party was really fun even though we didn't know anyone. They had rented a blackjack table and even though I don't gamble, I did surprisingly well with the fake money. On the way home, we tried to leave Kevin's suburb and got hilariously lost. We could see where we wanted to go, we just couldn't make our way though the maze of cul-de-sacs and loop roads. Even using the compass on the GPS didn't help us!

The Special Tonight in Cowtown: Beer-Butt Chicken

2005-08-19T03:09:00.000-03:00

After breakfast with Anna this morning, we set off for Calgary. We stopped in Revelstoke for lunch and found a cute little deli where we bought fresh baked bread, cheese and some mortadella. We packed it all in our cooler and set out for the Roger's Pass Interpretive Centre to have a picnic. At the interpretive centre we bought a year-long pass to National Parks and National Historic sites so we'll be able to visit lots of good stuff on our trip, and for the next year in the Maritimes. The Roger's Pass Centre was pretty interesting. It's amazing how much snow they get there.

After lunch we drove through the Rockies. It was a beautiful sunny day and the views were amazing. I am quite sad to be leaving the land of mountains. We had a bit of a crisis between Calgary, and Canmore, however. We thought we were going to run out of gas! Thankfully, a PetroCan miraculously appeared on the horizion saving the day. It was pretty stressful for a bit there.

We arrived in Calgary later than we intended, but Reid had a beer-butt chicken, some BBQ-ed corn on the cob, and some cold beer waiting for us, which was awesome after our stress-filled drive. (For those that aren't in the know, a beer-butt chicken is a chicken with a half-full can of beer shoved up it's butt, then slowly barbequed. It makes the meat really moist and yummy.) We sat around with Reid and chatted until all hours of the night. Laura was in Vancouver for the week, so we missed out on seeing her, but Reid managed to be a good host all the same.

Doggies and Horses and Chickens and Kitties and Emus in Vernon

2005-08-19T03:01:00.000-03:00

After a big breakfast with Bill and Ruth (and Tuffy too) we said goodbye and hit the road. Destination: Vernon!

We stopped in Kamloops to meet up with my grandma at the White Spot, as per our tradition. I introduced Greg to Grandma and they seemed to hit it off quite well. It was nice to see Grandma as I hadn't seen her in quite some time. It seems I might not be able to get up to Kamloops for a few years, which is a bit sad, so I'm glad we had time to see her.

After Kamloops we drove straight to Vernon. We are staying with friends of Greg's parents - Bob and Anna. They are such nice people. They have a cute little hobby farm with two dogs, some cats, some horses, a bunch of chickens, and two emus, which are rather creepy. They look at you like they want to peck your eyes out. They dalmatian, Montana, is insane. She is two years old and she has so much energy. I don't think she ever stops running and playing.

We had a nice dinner with Bob and Anna, their daughter Mary-Lynn, and her boyfriend. Afterwards, Anna showed us photos of her cycling trip through Holland. It looked like so much fun. Since Holland is so flat, it looks like my kind of trip! Another one to add to the list. Bob and Anna are so nice - since it is too hot to sleep upstairs in their guest room, they gave us their bed and slept outside in their 5th wheel! I can't believe how nice some people are. I really like Vernon and I wish we could spend more time here.

Leaving Vancouver

2005-08-17T02:58:00.000-03:00

We spent the whole day today cleaning and packing. Jess came over to help, which we couldn't have done without. It was exhausting. In the evening my sisters, Mom, Dad, Nick, Amanda, Tudor, Emily and Jess came over for pizza and goodbyes. Although we really weren't finished getting ready to go, it was nice to have a break and see people. When it came time to say goodbye I got quite teary, but I'll get over it.

We didn't get far on our journey tonight, just to the Smolyn's in Surrey. Since our bed is packed up, we figured it would be more comfortable to sleep on their carpeted floor than our wood floor. Tomorrow we really start our trip.

Welcome!

2005-08-02T20:55:00.000-03:00

Welcome to our blog, and welcome to our home. Well, our home which needs to be squished into a 5 foot by 5 foot by 8 foot cube.

We plan to keep you up to date on our doings and the ins and outs of Atlantic life, so add us to your RSS feed and stay in touch. As an added bonus, we promise to provide you with a Halifax Fun Fact on every entry. As an added bonus to our added bonus, we guarantee them to be more fun than a barrel of lobsters (they might also quite possibly be true).

For our first Fun Fact: Inhabitants of Halifax are known throughout the land as...
...Haligonians! Just think--- soon you'll have two friends/relatives/nemeses who can proudly lay claim to ridiculous adjectives.