Nice run at the Bull River

I'm getting more and more confidence in my new rubber ducky. I am impressed with the new boat and am starting to feel it. Here are some videos of today's adventure to the Bull River in British Columbia (close to Fernie).

Kayaking Boulder Run

Check out my new boat in action earlier today. We took the boats out to Boulder Run which is just below the spillway at the Oldman dam close to Pincher Creek. I was really excited to pull off the eskimo roll when it counted. I hope to get out a few more times in the next couple of days as that will be it until next spring.


Check out this link to see more photos of the run down the river.

Killing Wildlife in Glacier National Park

We are just finishing up a great week spent primarily in Glacier National Park in northwest Montana. We are about 2 hrs from home, just south of Waterton National Park right now. After six nights in a tent, I sort of wish we were on our way home today, but we are being held captive for another night because we spent too much cash in the states. We need to be gone a full week to get the largest duty exemption on goods brought back into Canada.

I originally had great plans to do a huge US road trip all of the way to the west coast through Oregon and into northern California. However, I was enjoying summer around home so much that the plans reduced down to a nice week loop through Northern Montana and Idaho. Even that modest trip reduced once we got to Glacier NP as we sort of got caught up in the park and the pursuit of a kayak for the last week. The park is really quite majestic with abundant wildlife. We've seen mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mule deer, marmots and even a few bears this morning. As the title of this post describes though, one of God's creatures had a fatal run-in with me. On our second night, Melissa had to get something out of the truck topper and was surprised to find a little brown mouse enjoying my bag of sunflower seeds. I wasn't overly concerned as all of the food was sealed well so I didn't think much of it. The next day, I bought a second bag of sunflower seeds to replace the one that the mouse had feasted on the previous night. That night, I left them in the cab of the truck only to find that they were compromised by a mouse during the night. Not a good move on the mouse's part.

I think I may have picked up a love for sunflower seeds from my wife, but I do know that they are essential for summer enjoyment. When the little jerk of a mouse ruined two bags on me, I declared war. I realize that animals and plants in National Parks are pretty much untouchable, but I'm sure even a park ranger would've sided with me on this (although I didn't ask). I drove into town and bought a couple of mousetraps, set one in the truck cab and and one in the truck bed. Using my hunting skills, I cleverly garnished the traps with some of the tainted sunflower seeds. The following morning, I anxiously woke (like it was Christmas morning or something) and went to check my traps. Success! I nabbed the little bugger in one of the traps. I felt a twinge of guilt as he was kind of cute, but nonetheless I had won. Marty: 1, Nature: nil. I'm just hoping the bears don't hear the score before I leave the park tomorrow.

The park is very underdeveloped and a great place to get back to nature with lots of hiking trails and primitive campgrounds. Melissa has been wanting to get into hiking for a while now and I have been kind of digging my heels in. The last hiking I remember doing was in the good old boy scout days. The idea of hiking is great, but my memories always go back to a)trying to follow a trail that has been overgrown for years and inevitably getting lost, b)some kid always crying when we got lost, c)carrying way to much hiking "equipment" (who the hell needs a hatchet to go hiking). I know that all of this is just in my head, so I did some research and we planned to do a big hike near Logan Pass called the Garden Wall. From what I've read, this is one of the top hikes in all of North America and not overly strenuous. It covers almost 18 Kms and takes 4-6 hrs, but it is mostly downhill with a stunning view overlooking an amazing mountain valley. I figured this would be a good way to get back into hiking for the sake of my wife. Unfortunately, we decided to put the hike off until our fourth day. The reason that this was an unfortunate decision is that a great deal of smoke from Montana's forest fires blew into the park on day 3 and has been restricting the awesome views since. We decided to save this hike for another time when we would actually be able to enjoy it. We did buy a year pass to the park so that we have no excuse not to come back early next summer to do it. While the big hike did not happen, we did do several other hikes totalling about 20 Km and spanning some amazing scenery.

After setting up camp and getting ready for bed on the first night, we went to tuck in and broke the zipper on the tent. Now, the tent doesn't owe us anything. It was a cheap Costco tent and performed well over the past few years including our journey to the east coast last summer. It was time for a new tent anyways as this one is too small and does not breathe well. To get through the night, I found a couple of clamps in the truck to keep the door half-ass closed for the night. The next day, we decided to go into Whitefish (about 1/2 hr from the park) to look for a another tent. This decision inadvertently changed our plans for the rest of our vacation. We went to the big outdoor store and were delighted to find a great tent at an end of summer price. While at the store, I asked about used kayaks for sale and they told me that I was in luck as they were having a sale on all of their demo equipment on Saturday (3 days away). They had one whitewater kayak that I was quite interested in at a very good price, so we decided to stay in the area until Saturday to take a chance at getting it. On Friday, we picked up and moved to a Whitefish campground in order to get to the store early. I was told that these events are popular and that I should come early as it is first come-first served. I took their advice and showed up at 7am to find a few others lined up. After a quick discussion with those ahead of me, I determined that I was the only one after the whitewater boat, much to my relief. At 9am, the doors opened and I purchased a slightly used 2007 model whitewater kayak for $378 USD (retail price was $925 USD and I'm sure it would have been up over $1,100 in Canada). Needless to say, I was tickled and have been on a high since. We picked up some accessories to go with (paddle, helmet, life jackets, roof rack - all on sale except the roof rack) and I am now ready to paddle after humming and hawing about getting a kayak for the past few years. I may have to mark the demo sale on my calendar to attend next year as well as the deals were unreal.

All in all, it has been a great week. Got back to nature (didn't check my email for 4 days which is an accomplisment for me). Experienced for the first time some of the amazing wilderness that is just about in my backyard. Finally, got a sweet boat at a great price and the gear to go with it. Only bad part was the absence of sunflower seeds (stupid mouse).

Enjoy the photos and get your asses to Glacier National Park before the Glaciers are gone (projected for 2030).

Summer is killing the blog

I've been home almost a week and am only now getting around to updating the blog. Summer just wasn't meant for blogging.

My shift was very busy with budget time upon us at work. It was likely the busiest shift I've had in the last year (which is a good thing). The best part about it is that it always comes to an end. After spending a day with my rotational partner to hand over all of the work that I had completed, I boarded a plane to begin the mammoth journey home. I decided to extend my travels somewhat by catching an immediate flight from Calgary to Saskatoon to spend a few days with my friend Jeff. It's been over a year since I've been in Saskatoon so it was time.

After Jeff picked me up on Friday evening, we went straight to the nearest Vern's Pizza to pick up a pizza pie to eat while watching Friday night football. We discovered Vern's back in our university days and have never found anything to rival it. Put a Vern's Pizza on your "Things to do before you die" list.

 

Saturday, we loaded up the truck and headed for Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field in Regina to see the Roughriders play the Eskimos. The Riders dominated from the get go and ended up winning 54-14. It was one of the most entertaining games I've seen at the stadium. This is what summers are for.

 

The other highlight of the weekend was hanging out with Jeff and listening to some new music. Jeff is a tuned in type of guy when it comes to music. I always enjoy visiting him as I come away with some new music for my ipod. This time the big find was the album Ashtray Rock by the Joel Plaskett Emergency. I have some of their stuff already, but I hadn't heard the new album. I was more than impressed and bought the album off itunes immediately after getting home.

With my quick trip complete (less than 48 hrs in Saskatoon), Jeff dropped me off at the airport. My flight ended up delayed for an hour and a half as there was some sort of security breach at the Calgary airport that involved having to unload the entire plane and reboard it prior to it heading to Saskatoon to pick me up. I didn't end up in Calgary until after 10pm. Melissa picked me up and we spent the night at Dean and Melanie's. The next morning, we visited with a prospective financial planning firm as we are in the market for someone new to handle our finances. Up to now, we'd been using a guy I met through work several years back. However, his service has been less than inconsistent and it is time to move on.

Once home, we spent the first day doing nothing but hanging around the back yard like horses in a pasture. Melissa has done an unreal job on the back yard. Between adding the brick deck, laying sod and planting a cute little garden, the area has been transformed to a great hang out space from the parking lot that it was when we bought the place. After getting over our quick bout of laziness, we embarked on the one chore that we've been dreading since last year; cleaning out the garage and the shed.

We built a massive garage (16 ft by 32 ft) last spring and have done our best to load it up with everything. We also have a sizeable garden shed that came with the house that has also accumulated enough crap to prevent it from being useful. One of the main reasons for this accumulation is that I married into a merry band of scavengers (and not in a bad way). Every year, the towns of the Crowsnest Pass put on a spring clean up whereby everyone digs out all the junk from their basements/garages/backyards/granaries and piles it in the alleys for the town to haul away. The intent is to help keep the Pass clean. As a related benefit, it creates the biggest junk swap in southern Alberta and the scavengers come out to pilfer through the piles to re-use whatever may be useful (one man's junk is another man's treasure). There truly is some stuff out there that is worth keeping, but the scavengers I know may be a bit overly idealistic about the usefulness of certain pieces of garbage. As such, our garage has become the staging area for a lot of this junk which we are now struggling to keep organized.

The above is by no means a complaint, just an explanation of how a 16 ft by 32 ft garage can be filled in a year however comical it may be. In honesty, the scavenging has saved us hundreds of dollars when it comes to the home renovations we've been undertaking and has taught me to be a bit more creative in coming up with solutions to practical problems. As well, we are aiming to be less consumeristic (is that a word?) than we've been in the past to do a small part for the environmental woes that our planet is facing. Recycling items that would otherwise end up in a landfill helps to accomplish this.

Back to the story. We are now 3 days into the cleaning with the entire contents of our garage and shed strewn across our backyard. It is finally starting to come to an end as items are actually heading back inside in a much more organized manner. This will be a huge relief and will give us so much more space with which organize all of out ongoing projects.

Aside from this,my first few days back included a couple of the usual appointments that I always have once I return home. I got a haircut (I hate getting haircuts) and went to the dentist (I actually don't mind going to the dentist). My no filling streak is still intact (must be going on 5 years). Although, I do need to go back for some minor work. We had a very brief visit from my niece and nephew (and brother in law) as they were heading through to the US to visit another uncle. I haven't seen them in over a year and they have grown up amazingly fast in that year. Dylan seemed pretty excited about our place and the opportunities for adventure in the area and already suggested spending next summer at our place. No problem, just bring work clothes.

Last night was spent watching the Riders beat the number 1 team in the CFL in their own stadium. Things are looking promising for the green and white, although I've been a fan of this team far too long to get overly excited about a bit of early season success.

That's it for now. We may be heading to Calgary on the weekend if anyone calls about our townhouse to rent. After that, we may think about heading to the US for vacation. I guess I should think about getting my taxes done as well.