Princeton and Beyond Part 2: Exploring the Similkameen Valley

I had had enough of the town of Princeton by the second morning and with three days off I decided to hit the road. They desk clerk seemed disappointed that I was leaving but cheered up when I said I would be be back in a couple of days with colleagues and promised to stay for two more nights with them.

A quick breakfast at the Heartland Family Restaurant and I was on my way. On my way to where? I wasn't sure but I had a tent in my backpack and I wasn't worried. I was ready for some serious exploring.  The woman at the Tourist Info center was friendly after she recovered from the apparent shock of someone walking in and was excited to give me some ideas. Unfortunately she was creatively vague about the directions. She talked about an amazing hike up a mountain stream to a waterfall and crown country (free) camping and I was totally sold on the idea but her directions included a turn onto a dirt road at the tree where the big sign used to be and a a trail head that might be marked with spray paint. I did get some maps and a sense of which direction I was going to take and that was worth the stop.

A quick stop at the local hardware store for camp stove fuel and I headed north west on the mountain road looking for adventure. I was vaguely headed to the waterfall hike, knowing that it was unlikely that I would find the route but knowing there were other options and I was happy to let the road and fate lead me to whatever my destination turned out to be. I wanted to get out of town and into the country, and my first stop was the China Ridge Trail just down the highway. The side road took me via a series of switchbacks up the mountain side and gave me my first closeup look at the semi-desert landscape and I got out of the car and walked around for a bit, taking pictures and grinning with excitement. Further up the trail was a resort but I wasn't interested in that so it wasn't long before I got back in the car and headed back down through the hills to the main highway out of town.

I followed the road for about sixty kilometers as it turned into a dirt road cutting through cow pastures and horse ranches. Twenty kilometers past the spot that I had hoped to find the turnoff the the waterfall I finally stopped and accepted the fact that the directions that had been given were just a bit too vague and I headed back the way I came. The Kettle Valley Railway trail forms part of the Trans-Canada hiking trail that when completed will connect all the provinces, territories and oceans of the country. The KVR, I had been warned., was mostly used by ATV's and didn't provide the best views or challenging hikes. It did, however lead directly to Otter Lake Provincial Park and that's where I had decided to spend the night. I pulled into the town of Coalmont an hour later and found the trail access point.

The trail led me along an easy level dirt road that follows the path of an old railway that served the gold mining towns of the early1900's. The land was covered in meadows and farms with horses and sheep and cows. I moved quickly along the road and arrived at the front gate to Otter Lake within a couple of hours. As I walked through the gate a truck drove by and the driver called out to me. "Pick any open spot and I'll come by in a while." I didn't get the chance to answer before the pickup pulled out and sped off down the road. I swung my pack onto my shoulders and headed into the park to find a site. With all the spots backing onto the lake full I found a spot close to a beach and started unpacking and setting up my tent. Not long after the pickup truck pulled up beside my home for the night and a woman climbed out and introduced herself as the park official. She had an accent that was very reminiscent of Frances McDormand's character Marge from the film Fargo and I couldn't help but smile as she asked me 100 questions while she was checking me in. I was tempted to tell her my name was Jerry and that I needed a wood chipper for the night to see if she made the connection but let her check me in and I got to setting up my tent.

The park was a car camping site, meaning the sites was gravelly and hard and more suited to RV's and trailers than tents and I struggled to drive the tent pegs into the ground. McGyvering it up using rocks and a picnic table for support I made a quick lunch of soup and na'an bread and then headed to the lake and spent the afternoon exploring the beach and the surrounding forest, collecting rocks and photos and generally just taking it easy. The sun set early and with a fire ban in effect I retired to my tent with a headlamp and spent the rest of the evening with a book. Tossing and turning on the hard ground later, bits of gravel poking through the sleeping pad, I listening to the night sounds. Usually from my tent I hear the sounds of loons and frogs calling from the lake and assorted critters moving through the forest but this particular night I dozed in and out of sleep listening to the sounds of parents yelling at children, RV's backing up into sites in the dark, and Marge Gunderson circling the park in her pickup calling 'goodnight' to campers as she passed.

I woke up the next morning early, stiff from a cold night cold sleeping on chunks of gravel, and started coffee while I dug for my hat and gloves. It was really chilly and without being able to start a fire I tried to get warmed up but tearing down the tent and cleaning up the site. I had finished breakfast and packed before 7:30 and headed off down the trail back to Coalmont to continue my adventure. By the time I reached town a couple of hours later it had gotten much warmer and I got changed in the car before taking some time to check out the little town stuck in the middle of the mountains. Coalmont is officially classified as a ghost town (unlike other places I've visited that just feel like ghost towns like Humbolt, Sask for example or even worse, the airport in Timmins, Ont) and felt like a movie set for a western classic with a saloon, barbershop and wood structure hotel. A couple of chickens wandering in a front yard and a deer on the main road were the only signs of life other than the amazingly tongue in cheek signs 'welcoming' visitors to town. 



From Coalmont I drove south down the Crowsnest Highway to the next place I could find to stop at which turned out to be an even smaller town called Hedley. This town consisted of three or four small streets that housed a couple of hundred people and not much more. Back in it's turn of the century heyday Hedley had a population of about 1000 people that spent their days mining the hills for gold. Now the small town at the base of Copper Mountain has no industry except a museum detailing it's gold rush glory years. Surprisingly the town also was home to the highest recommended restaurant within a hundred and fifty kilometers. Sadly, The Hitching Post closed  at 8pm when the remaining residents went to bed and I never got the chance to eat there. It was still interesting to explore the little town that was sure to disappear in a few more years.

My next stop was about 30 kilometers south to a town called Keremeos. The town is situated on the edge of the Okanagan Valley and is renowned for its fruit orchards and wine producing vineyards. On the way I took the time to stop in at a couple of more provincial parks to see if I might find somewhere to stay for the night. Both Stemwater and Bromley Provincial Parks are small but beautiful parks along the Similkameen river that I had been folllowing for the most part of the last two days. Both had sites available but would have been no more comfortable than the one I had the night before and I explored a bit but continued on my way. Driving back through Princeton shortly after I didn't even consider stopping and found my way to Keremeos shortly after.

What an amazing place I found myself in. Peach and apple orchards, fields of vegatables and vineyards covered every square inch of land and farmers and their families lined the streets selling the products of the land from booths that lined the streets. The town had an old world charm that separated it from the dry, empty towns of Thulle, Coalmont, Hedley and Copper Springs that I have seen earlier in the day. The charm extended to the people and when I stopped to but some fruit I ended up in a long, pleasant conversation with an elderly woman and her (very attractive) grand daughter. I was a bit relectant to leave the beautiful town of Keremeos  but with the sun getting lower in the afternoon sky I needed to find somewhere to sleep and I knew exactly where to go.

Not far north of Keremeos the Crowsnest Highway leads back to Penticton, a real town that had real hotels, restaurants and beaches and that's where I went next. I stopped in to see a friend in town at his work and had a great chat abourt the town and what to do while I was there and then booked a room in town and headed over to check in and get a shower before dinner. I cleaned up and ate and exhausted after hiking camping and exploring the roads, towns and mountains of the Similkameen Valley I headed to bed early, excited to spend the next day exploring the thriving metropolis (it's all relative) of Penticton.

Part 1: Princeton and beyond. Hiking, goldminers, and ghost towns.

I had to google Princeton to find out where the hell I was going and I swear the computer laughed at me when I later typed in 'Things to do in Princeton' but I was determined to have an adventure of some sort while I was there for eight days so started the preparation several days before I flew out by digging out my camping gear and packing it along with my normal travelling stuff.

I flew into Vancouver and then hopped on a smaller plane for the hour flight to Penticton BC, a neat town nestled between a couple of lakes in the Okinawan Valley between the Cascade and Columbia Mountain ranges and also sits at the northern edge of the Great Basin Desert. I've always wanted to spend some time in a desert (not in a biblical 40 years of wandering sense, or eek out a living in Afghanistan while dodging Taliban and  hyaenas in the sand sense either) so I couldn't wait to land and get out on the road to my final destination and see what there was to see. I always get a bit of an adrelin rush when I'm about to get to new place and i had a feeling this was going to be an exciting week.

 Princeton is about 150 kilometers from Penticton through the eastern ridges of the Cascade Mountains and I would be following the Trans-Can highway along the Similkameen River most of the way, from the very start of the trip I was already gawking at the landscape around me.

By the time I was on the road out of Penticton the sun was getting lower in the sky and I 'wowed' to myself as I caught it setting again and again. Driving the narrow curved highway through the mountain hills and valleys I watched it fall behind different horizons over and over. Road sign warnings for possible rock slides/avalanches and mountain goat crossings were new to me as were the straight down for hundreds of meters edges of the highway that was carved out the solid granite mountains. It was a pretty amazing drive that had some nerve wracking moments as the sky got blacker and my knuckles got whiter and by the time I reached my hotel I was a bit of a wreck.

The hotel, to be as polite, gracious and as non-elitist as possible, was a shithole, a 50 year old motor inn that had never been renovated even after the Sandman group bought it and stuck their name on the sign. I don't expect luxury accommodations when I'm on the road  (although I have charmed my way into car and hotel upgrades from coast to coast) but I do need an appropriate place to stay when I'm expected to look and feel like a professional in the morning, this place took two days to locate an iron and never was able to supply an ironing board. The night desk attendant was friendly, if not helpful, and I was glad I didn't prejudge him even though he checked me in wearing a badly stained white tank top and cutoff jean shorts.

My room was a joke. A twin bed and an antique kitchenette that I would've been scared to use even if I had food to prepare, which I didn't as the town closed down at 5 in the afternoon, several hours before my arrival. I spent the evening chasing flies around the room with the rolled up hotel 'service guide' and then went to bed early after retrieving my sleeping bag from my backpack in the car rather than crawling under the sheets provided for me.

After work the next day, I wandered around the town a bit, looking for excitement and finding none. Princeton was a gold mining town, a hundred years ago. Today its a town of about 2500 residents, I think they included wildlife n the census count as I saw as many deer in town as I did people. I'm thinking the ancient miners, their rancher friends and their stay at home offspring don't need entertainment because quite obviously none was being provided. The town was small, very small.. and in the middle of a desert.

But I found an oasis.

I walked into The Brown Bridge Pub about a half a kilometer down the highway my second night in town. It was the only place I saw in four days that looked even remotely appealing to eat in, or for that matter, to even sit in. A polished bar, big screen TVs, young folk. Like I said, an oasis the desert. I spent the next few hours drinking pints of Granville Island pale ale and eating nachos with some of the locals. Sitting next to me was a guy that I ending up having several dinners next to over the next week, we chatted about baseball and hockey and then 'the' game came on. Every TV was turned to the NFL game and the whole place watched, intently. Green Bay somethings against some other team. I know nothing about NFL, not interested in the least. But I am good at talking about stuff I know little or nothing about and had a good time picking apart defensive schemes and yelling at the refs..umps..linesman..whatever. The other great thing that came out of the night was I got a chance to chat with a guy that worked in the kitchen about hiking in the area. He was an avid hiker and gave me some really key knowledge and ideas about what I could do with my three days that I would have alone in town before my team arrived.

Pitt Meadows: Into the Mountains Part 1

The more time I spend in British Columbia the more I love it but most of my time there has been spent in the Vancouver area so was I eager to take the opportunity get out of that city and start to explore different parts of the lower mainland area and my five days in Pitt Meadows was my first real opportunity. Pitt Meadows is a small town about 60kms east of Vancouver nestled at the foothills of those Coast Mountains that I had been gazing at from airplanes, highways and distant hotel windows for the last few weeks.

I sat down at the pub attached to the hotel and ordered dinner and chatted with the staff as the place was empty of customers. Beer serving dudes in strange pubs across the country have been my most reliable source of local information over the last year and the guys at the Golden Ears Pub continued that trend with a couple of great restaurant options as well as some outdoors stuff that I got pretty exited about.

The first couple of days in town I was pretty busy at work but stole whatever time I could to drive out into the country surrounding the small town, exploring the roads that led through farmland and closer to the mountains that lay tantalizingly close across Pitt Lake.

By the third day when I finished work I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do with my spare time alone in town. Wildplay is a chain of outdoor adventure parks in BC that offer zip lining, bungee and tree top walks among other things. I had called the site just about thirty kms away just north of Maple Ridge and was disappointed that they didn't have any of those activities but had Monkido, which is a tree to tree course that entails maneuvering short zips, rope swings and nets. The lady I talked to had me pretty gung ho to give it a try and headed for what I hoped would be my first adventure of the week.

The drive out to Wildway finally brought me right to the edge of those mountains that I had been driving around for the last couple of days and my excitement level rose the closer I got but as I approached the place my heart kind of sank. The Monkido course was not exactly the level of excitement I was expecting. Instead of the vision I had of soaring through trees with mountain vistas in the background the course was contained in about an acre* of somewhat bare, dark and uninteresting forest right at the side of the road and the ropes and swings had a very family friendly, lo risk, safety first, anyone can do it feel that didn't seem adventurous at all.

 *I use the word 'acre' a lot but have no real concept of how big an acre is, it may have been a hectare as well as I have no comprehension of that unit of measurement either.

I wanted to push my boundaries a bit and have an adventure and this wasn't going to be it.

I didn't even get out of the car as I made the split second decision to continue further up the road which I knew would lead me right into Golden Ears Provincial Park. Another ten kilometers and I saw a sign for a hiking trail and I pulled over immediately, grabbed my water and camera and headed into the forest. The trail started with a short interpretive nature walk that was interesting and gave me some background about the forest I found myself in. I quickly walked the two kilometer path and then headed further into the forest following signs heading for a lookout point. I have never seen a forest like this one. The forest is covered in moss from the fern covered floor to the soaring branches of coastal hemlock and cedar trees. The area is regenerated forest after being cleared by a major forest fire back in the late 1920's's that ended turn of the century logging operations.

Most interesting was the evidence of that logging from almost a hundred years ago. Massive stumps, some of which were two or three meters wide and many of which still showed evidence of fire dotted the forest floor. The bases of these massive trunks still bore the notches loggers had cut to mount springboards to take down the massive trees with hand axes and saws. It was hard to imagine the sight of one those 80 meter tall trees crashing to the ground but I sure wish I had seen them standing before they fell.

As I the trail started to climb steeply up a dry riverbed covered with loose rock I was reminded of a part of LaCloche Silhouette Trail in northern Ontario nicknamed 'The Hog' that I have hiked up several times with an full forty pound pack. Today I appreciated having my arms and back unencumbered and my shoulders pain free on this climb. I clambered to the top about a half hour later, sweaty and winded to a less than breathtaking view back into the valley below but loving the fact that I was hiking in the middle of the forest in  BC's Coast Mountains. I didn't spend long at the lookout before I continued along the trail as it dipped back into the thick green moss covered forest. As I descended back into the forest it became darker and darker quite quickly and after about half a kilometer I decided to turn around and hike back out the way I had come in. It was about three kilometers either way but as the trail was crossed often by horse riding trails as well as deer and other other animal trails and I felt more comfortable and safe taking the same path back to the car as I had taken in, especially if I had to make my way, without a headlamp, in the dark.
Being alone, with no-one knowing where I am, I have started to learn to take the safest, not the most adventuresome, route out.

The sun was close to setting when I finished my 90 minute Spirea Trail/Lookout Loop hike and I headed back to town for dinner. I picked up sushi and ate while looking at pictures from my first few days in town, then did a bit bit of online research about the other trails at Golden Ears before going to sleep with thoughts of a morning hike rolling around my head.

Pitt Meadows 2- Golden Ears Provincial Park

I woke up the next morning excited to head back to the Provincial Park. There was 7 kilometer loop to a waterfall that sounded like a great way to start the day and I was on the road shortly and at the trail head by 9am.

The Lower Falls Trail took me further into the coastal forests of British Columbia. Again I was stunned by the size of the massive tree stumps and the scars left by loggers a century ago. The trail follows Gold Creek for several kilometers and was a mostly easy, quiet walk. When I stopped to drink from the creek at a beach half way up I was amazed by how cold and clean it tasted.

 (Not a trace of beaver shit in this water for those who know about my Giardia or 'beaver fever' incident a few years back).

 Usually the water from lakes and streams is warm, and when chemically treated has a slight metallic taste. This water was straight from the mountains and it was amazing. It was a beautiful morning and I took my time along the trail stopping to take pictures and just enjoy the natural surroundings. Making my way along the creek and closer to the waterfalls, I could hear the water rushing and splashing ahead of me and before I ever saw it I could feel the spray in the air from the falls, cool and refreshing.

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit

The trail continues past the waterfalls and up towards Gold Creek Lookout and back country camping at Alder Flats where you can sleep in the same sites loggers did almost a hundred years ago. I wished I had time and my hiking/camping gear so I could've kept going but with work to do I headed back down the path regretfully. I passed several groups of tourists/hikers heading up the trail on the way back, most of them Japanese which meant we didn't speak more than a few words of greeting before continuing and I was glad i had started early so I had the path, the beach and the waterfall to myself.

An error in booking my travel had meant that I had a completely free day before heading back to Toronto and I was intent on continuing to explore Golden Ears PP as much as I could so I was up early and again on the road by 8am. I stopped for breakfast and then headed into the forest again, this time cutting off the Lower Falls Trail that I had walked yesterday about a kilometer in and trailblazing for another kilometer across to the East Canyon Trail that would lead me to a somewhat secluded beach on Alouette Lake. The cut across the forest off-trail was a bit risky as I had no map other than the picture I had downloaded to my Blackerry® but I ended up taking the perfect route with no major obstacles.No obstacles except for the need to stop every ten seconds to take a picture of another tree, rock, stump or slug.

The East Canyon trail rose in elevation about 200 meters along the 4 kilometer hike and provided some stunning views of mountain peaks with permanent snow fields along the ridges. Blanshard Peak stood out among the mountains in the park and I kept turning to look back at it as I continued my hike towards Alouette Lake, dreaming about hiking through those higher altitude passes, and making the decision to start taking my camping gear on any future trips to British Columbia.

It took about 90 minutes to make my way down through the East Canyon, through Gold Creek campground and up an unmarked trail to the north beach. I had brought a book to read, a book to write in, snacks of fruit bars and trail mix and a couple cans of beer and I planned on finding a secluded spot on the rocky beach and spending the rest of the afternoon in quiet solitude. The day passed slowly as I read and wrote and I felt the pressure of everyday work and home demands slip away.  With no cell or Wi-Fi signal deep in the Coast Mountains I happily turned off my Blackberry®, the only link to the world around me and passed the time with the pages of my books and the thoughts in my head.

Later that night I decided to check out on of the restaurants the guys at the pub had suggested. Charlie's Mexican Cafe in Port Moody was about a thirty minute drive from the hotel in Pitt Meadows and was worth every minute of the drive. Amazing food that I let the waitress suggest for me, accompanied with Dos Equis beer and deep fried ice cream and all with a window view of the beautiful marine town on the Fraser river. it was a great meal to end an amazing day and my only only sobering thought was that I had to return to Toronto early the next morning.

I love Toronto and I love being home but I wasn't anxious to leave. I have really started to enjoy my time in BC and would've loved a couple of more days to explore the trails and the towns in the lower mainland. As I was packing my suitcase that evening I had a strange mixed feeling of sadness and excitement, sadness to say goodbye to the amazing mountain forests, creeks, and beaches of Golden Ears but excited to move on to the next place and an opportunity to spend some time in the small towns of the interior.

The historic gold mining town of Princeton BC is next on the list and with a full week booked in the town I was planning on coming prepared not only with dress clothes and training materials but with tent and backpack as well.

Regina.. show me what you got!

It was my first trip to Regina and I had no real expectations of Saskatchewan's capital, I've been to the prairie province before and left without much of an impression at all. I'm horribly uninformed about the city, my knowledge confined to 3 hard and cold facts. Their CFL fans are intense (according to a guy I met from Edmonton while I was in Brandon), it is the home of 'The Musical Ride (that silly RCMP thing that people go nuts about) and it was the childhood home of our 13th Prime minister, John G Diefenbaker (I'm not obsessive for those who know I've mentioned him before.. but if I ever make it to final Jeopardy and John G is the answer.. I'm nailing it.)

I arrived at the hotel after nine on a Sunday night starving as usual and headed out to scavenge for food and drink. The hotel clerk had directed me to a restaurant not far away and I headed into the streets of Regina with map in hand. I still managed to walk several blocks in the wrong direction then turned around twice before I finally came across a place, not the place, called O'hears Pub . The guys behind the bar were friendly as were the patrons and it didn't take long to strike up conversation. I got the rundown on the indie art and music scene which sounded really vibrant. The bartender  also directed me to a record store not far from where I was staying which yielded a vintage vinyl copy of the original Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack.

Because the job site, airport and hotel were all within a a few kilometers so I had decided not to rent a car. I would confined to walking exploration of the city but I didn't mind as Regina is a rather small city, the weather was good and it would give me the chance to see up close whatever there was to see.

Spending some quiet time in a downtown park under an incredible oak tree with a book one afternoon (such a great way to spend and hour or two.. seriously, when was the last time you sat under a tree!) I kept being distracted by people heading across the park. My distraction grew to curiosity when I began noticing that many of them had painted faces. I was so contented and comfortable sitting where I was and I had been dying to finish the novel I was reading. My curiosity grew and I could see a crowd growing so eventually I sighed knowing once I moved I probably wouldn't get back to my book. I was however glad I wandered over as a 'Living Art' exhibition was just starting. About a dozen different groups from local school and amateur theater groups were performing frozen scenes imitating artistic works of all different sorts. Included was an obvious Warhol a ballerina painting that I recognized and a scene depicting early Canadian life. It was pretty cool and was a further indication Regina has a pretty good arts scene.

Walking farther from downtown Regina one morning headed to the Provincial Parliament grounds I passed through city hall and then the Provincial courts. There were two cool sculptures in front of the Supreme Court building that threw me for a loop at first but made sense after a moment or two.  A bust of Gandhi (that looked nothing like Ben Kingsley) and a full size likeness of Confucius, both wise and worthy icons to inspire the courts to wisdom were at the front of the building. I continued walking through the city and scoped out the Provincial Parliament and grounds which also contains one of the most most beautiful war memorials I've ever seen and is situated at the edge of a lake and in the middle of a  massive park which I would've loved to throw a frizbee around in for awhile but without a partner and with an afternoon shift at work awaiting I turned and headed back to the hotel to change and grab some sushi for lunch.

 

That evening I sat at The Beer Bros Restaurant for dinner on the patio. I started with a 'flight' of beer, sampling three small glasses of beer from one of the most interesting beer menus I've ever seen (The Laughing Buddha in Sudbury, Ont still wins that contest.. but it's close) and stuffed my belly with a delicious German pasta dish called Spaetzle as I sat and read and watched the city life after me.

 I was becoming aware of one thing in particular that surprised me as I spent more time on the streets of Regina. This was the first city I had been to in a long time that didn't seem to have much of a homeless population, I saw very few people asking for change. Even more so, with such a large First Nation population, it seemed as though there was little to no indication of this particular Native community suffering from the circle of dug and alcohol dependency and homelessness that I have commented on, and been so terribly saddened by, in past blogs. It appears the Native community has succeeded here in ways where in other places across the country they have not. A multi-cultural energy seemed to be present here between members of the First Nations and the rest of the community in ways I've not seen elsewhere.

 This is important, I think, to the fabric of our nation.. until some new form of understanding exists between our First Nations and all the nations that followed I find it hard to believe we, as a nation of  people, can ever be 'all we can be be'.

So as I sat back later that evening, my last night in town, on a patio at The Beer Bros restaurant around the corner from the hotel and I smiled. I hadn't found anything weird or wonderful, although some would say that a life sized sculpture of Confucius in downtownn Regina might be a bit weird but I  had found some neat things to take pictures of, explored the city to the best of my pedestrian ability, met some interesting people (I didn't even write a bout the amazing cattle rancher I spent several hours talking to before admitting I was a vegetarian!) and even bought some vinyl.

It was my last, I think, trip to the prairies and I'm glad I had such a great time. Where in that flat bunch of acres in the middle of our country I found life, arts and music and people.. very friendly people.

Back to the west coast for the next few weeks, heading further into the interior of BC's lower mainland. Pitt Meadows is next and from the quick preview I got already I will love it. Those mountains are calling me, pulling me closer and closer and I'm pretty stoked about the chance to start exploring them instead of looking at them from a distance.

A Return to Vancouver

Every once in a while I get stuck in cities and towns that just suck. Really suck. Like Timmins Ontario and Humboldt Saskatchewan. Long evenings with little to do, or eat, or see. These towns are often stuck in the middle of nowhere meaning a couple of hours of driving during which there is also usually nothing to see. Hotels are a little sketchier, as well as the restaurants and sometimes even the people.

Vancouver is not one of those places.

I love Vancouver, it's become my favourite city outside my home of Toronto. Maybe even including Toronto. I have been lucky enough to spend a week there on three separate occasions and I had been looking forward to returning ever since the town of Surrey showed up on my project schedule. Surrey is 45 minutes outside of Vancouver and I could commute from downtown and take advantage of any free time I had.

My colleague A and I arrived late Sunday, tired but hungry so we set off in search of dinner and stumbled into a small Sushi restaurant that we would return to every several times during the week and headed back to the hotel to sleep off the time difference before an early start to our first day of work. The 45 minute drive from downtown Vancouver to Surrey was a confusing jumble of highways, bridges and construction as I dodged in and out of the suburb towns of Burnaby, Coquitlam and New Westminster and even at the end of the week I never really had a sense of where I was going. (It didn't help that the gps took me a different route each time.) The return drive seemed simpler and provided some pretty amazing vistas which I tried to capture via blackberry camera as I drove until I started thinking about how many accidents may be caused by drivers doing the same thing. I had wondered about oddly placed fences and trees and realized that they were quite likely blocking views that could absolutely be distracting from the highway.

One night after A and I had finished dinner at The Cactus Club I decided to go for a walk downtown. I ambled along Robson St, wandering in and out of tourist shops but really just people watching until I stumbled upon the remnants of a sort of street performer/busking fair. It had pretty much wrapped up but a mime and a living statue  performer still plied their 'acts' for coins and I stopped and watched for moment.. more like half a moment. Not surprisingly it doesn't take long to become disinterested when watching a mime and a statue. Not far up the street a woman sat at the edge of the sidewalk at a card table with a sign offering Tarot card reading. I walked past her but stopped after a few steps and decided to go back. I've never had a tarot reading and I thought it might be interesting to see what it is all about.

The reader and I seemed to have a bit of connection immediately and we chatted a bit before she laid out the cards and started talking about their meanings. It was quite uncanny listening to how the cards might relate to different things that had been forefront in my life and my thoughts recently. Relationships with family, as well as friends both past and present were illuminated in interesting ways and possible paths in the future were more than exciting to talk and hear about. The thirty minute reading stretched out for more than an hour and I walked away very glad that I had taken the experience. It was amazing that within the next two weeks I found happiness in unexpectedly renewing a distant friendship and found sorrow when a current relationship came to an end, both things that the cards had talked about happening (and I had vehemently denied..) in the very near future.

Walking back through Robson Square I could see lights and the sound of hip-hop music coming from the open air ice rink. When I got closer I could see about a couple of dozen dudes in small groups practicing and performing break dancing maneuvers and just generally getting down to classic beats on the smooth ice free surface of the rink. It was hard to tell if it was an organized event or just people hanging around dancing but I was happy to allow myself to think it was just random coolness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRI0COASCEg ..not quite busting out the cardboard in the streets of Brooklyn 1983 cool but cool nonetheless and I sat a watched for much longer than I had watched the mime for.

As much as I am beginning to love spending time in Vancouver soaking in the energy and atmosphere, after a few days in any city I start yearning for some relief from the hustle and noise of the downtown streets so when a colleague from the nearby town of Pitt Meadows called and invited A and myself to drive out for a quiet dinner I jumped at the chance. I would be spending a week in Pitt Meadows later in the month and it was a great opportunity to see what I was in for. The drive out took us through Surrey, Burnaby and to the edge of Maple Ridge and we gasped at the beauty of the mountains as we drove. You can almost feel the mountains presence when in the city but they are often obscured from view by the soaring commercial and residential sky scrapers, heading out of the city the white and green capped mountains are everywhere, rarely hidden from view and I snapped a few good pictures before heading out for dinner at a restaurant not far from town. It was a great first glimpse of the town and as G started talking about some of the attractions nearby I grew excited to return later in the month.

The next morning A and I got up early and with the morning to ourselves we set out so I could share some of the sites that I had explored in previous trips to Vancouver. Breakfast at the hotel was followed by a long walk along the waterfront, a bit of shopping and then a drive to Stanley Park where we snapped pictures of the totem poles, bridges, trees, and of course the mountains. It was a beautiful day and it was cool watching A's first reactions to some of the sights that I was becoming familiar, but no less impressed, with in what I agree is got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I left Vancouver with a strange feeling, not quite as giddy with the WOW factor as I have been on my last few trips. The 'new car' smell has started to wear off for me I think, the excitement of visiting a new and wonderful place has been replaced by a feeling of comfort, familiarity and maybe even too much routine. Other than the quick trip to Pitt Meadows I hadn't really seen anything new. It was the first time in a long time that I've felt that way about a place and  served as a reminder of an agreement I had made with myself some time ago. To make sure I keep stretching my boundaries, looking for the weird, the wonderful, the stupid and crazy things that are hidden below the surface, in towns and cities across this country, and as well as in life and love in general. 

Regina is one the few provincial capitals I haven't had the chance to explore and that's up next. I know two things about Regina, they have insane CFL fans and the mounted policeman are famous for a musical ride.. so I guess that leaves me to look for the weird and the wonderful.