Isn't It a Shame?

It's been quite a busy week for me! Wednesday we headed out to Whistler for serious hardcore downhill mountain biking. We're talking take the ski lift to the top, and rip down muchos hardcore trails through the forest. This is totally unlike anything I've done before...SO hardcore it hurts. No, really...I have some pretty kick ass bruises ; )

It's really too bad I didn't get many action pictures... Jason has a few that he'll hopefully be emailing me soon.



After, Simon and I went for all you can sushi, which was fantastical, plus muchly cheap.

Yesterday J and I got up at 5:30am to catch a 6:30 ferry over to Sunshine Coast (north along the coast from Vancouver) for a full and challenging day of "all mountain" riding. Another set of absolutely gorgeous trails....we started with a full whole hour of uphill riding on this fireroad to get up to the trailhead...near the top we saw bears!



Most of the riding we did was pretty technical, but with some nice flowy technical downhill runs....one trail (Janet's Jungle) had really sweet jumps. Unfortunately the camera didn't do a terrific job of capturing the action. There was also a swack of INSANELY nutty stuff, like 12 foot drop jumps.




(enlarge this guy and squint a little and you'll see the huge jumps)

Today we're off to squamish for a day of more normal cross country riding.

I'm sad that I fly back tomorrow night... no more Wii tennis for me!

We drove from Vancouver to Tofino yesterday, which ended up being most of a full day affair. After a quick stop in at a local vineyard, we stopped at Cathedral Grove, an one of the few remaining old growth douglas fir stands left in Canada. Some gorgeous old trees, as in the snap below.



When we got to Tofino, we checked into our B&B, and immediately headed out to a local resort for a First Nations salmon BBQ dinner with native dancing. THe salmon was d-lish. We ended the evening with a walk on the beach, then some quality time in the hot tub.



In gthe morning we headed down to Chesterman Beach, which is potentially the biggest beach I've been on. At low tide, there are two bays that are both connected by the beach. Even at low tide, the waves were pretty impressive.


The most fun for me was playing around on rocks and tidal pools, finding starfish and anemone. At one point I discovered that under most rocks were dozens and dozens
of these little rock crabs. Countless hours of fun.


We went kayaking in the afternoon and saw a group of 5 sea otters. Seriously the highlight of the trip - they were SO cute and came up fairly close to the boats and seemed quite playful. Unfortunately they swam off before we could get a good picture - we got one, but it looks like a loch ness monster picture( "THAT is a sea otter? it looks like a log or something..").

After an afternoon of kayaking, we did an old growth forest hike that took us down to a beach....




The bonus section of this blog post is the...

Study of The Local Slug Population

Huge spotted slug



Big Banana Slug


Black slug....yum!

Well, we've been here for a couple of days and are having a fantastic time. The weather has really cooperated, and our hosts Jason and Dee have been piles of fun.

The flight here was gorgeous - we left toronto at 7, and by 7:30 the sky was in full sunset mode. As continued to fly west, the sunset came with us, and lasted virtually the entire 5 hour flight. I'm a huge fan of Air Canada's new in-seat movies....watched Oceans 13 and Fantastic Four.

Friday we went to Stanley Park and checked out the Aquarium. I don't know if I've ever been to a full fledged aquarium before, but even if I have, this one takes the cake! Fishies of all shapes and sizes!




In the afternoon we toured around the rest of the park, and saw lots of huge old red cedars. Also, I found lots of delicious blackberries! WOOT!


Laura in front of one of the bigger ones that we saw


Yesterday we went for a hike in Lynn Valley and then went kayaking for 3 hours near Deep Cove. We saw starfish and seals! After, Laura and I went out for gelato with my friend Dan from Opemikon days! Dan moved out here 2 months or so ago...but is definitely still the same ol' Dan which is fantastically good fun.


STARFISH!


Indian Arm. I swear that Danger Bay was filmed around here.


Jason and Dee looking all snazzy

It's been ages and I've done an awful job in terms of updating, especially since I've actually been pretty busy!

Laura and I were up in Algonquin park for the long weekend, doing a canoe-in two night trip, starting at Canoe Lake. The weather was absolutely perfect, and we had a stellar time. The stars at night were super clear and bright -- we saw shooting stars and the northern lights.

This weekend we went out to Arcadian Court for lunch with Yonny which was quite a treat. They do a fancy pantsy lunch buffet, with a whole swack of yummy treats to finish.

The biggest news I guess is that we head off to BC for our vacation leaving Thursday night. I'm quite looking forward to it...Laura and I have reservations in Tofino for two nights at a nice looking B&B. We're hoping to get out and do some kayaking, hiking and maybe even some whale watching! After Tofino, Laura is taking the train across the rockies to visit her sister in Calgary, while I hang out for the rest of the week in Vancouver to do some serious mountain biking with my friend Jason from school -- this is the part that I'm a bit worried about, since it's going to be quite intense: downhill riding(which I've never done before) at Whistler, then some nice technical riding on the North Shore, and a long XC ride up near Squamish. I'm just hoping I can hang out, make the climbs, and not kill myself on the downhills.

A nice bonus of the trip out to Vancouver is that I get to see out favourite doctor, Chimon San!
Hope everyone is doing spiffy and having fun!