victoria III (the final chapter)

now that i'm back home, thought i'd fill in the missing photos...a random selection of my last couple of weeks in victoria



norman and i outside of emerg at Vic Gen (best preceptor ever!)


my roommates for a month (John and Jeff)


zen garden at the art gallery of greater victoria...the day i decided to borrow john's car to go see the emily carr exhibit and then proceed to scrape his new tire rim across a curb


victoria legislature and totem


tree outside the Victoria legislature


i decided to go to the bug museum one day and my first look at the bugs showed these ones mating


pink tarantula


a bug the size of my hand


awesome madagascar beetles in their (natural?) habitat


jon came to visit for a couple of days



so toby and mary came down from nanaimo and joined us for a hike and some chow at john's restaurant


john, me, jon, toby, mary and molly (the rockstar)


really big tree, gowlland tod


gowlland tod hike


toby, mary, john, me and jon at smoken bones


the breakwater at ogden point


the lighthouse at ogden point


side of the breakwater at ogden point


jon in chinatown




it was mother's day and we found roses in the water




one day i decided to take the galloping goose trail and try and ride to another town and maybe see the ocean...side trail on my way to metchosin


side trail off the galloping goose on my way to metchosin


somewhere on taylor road in metchosin


found the ocean, with a clear view of the mountains (American mountains, but still...)








it was worth the 40 km ride to find this beach, even if it meant going all the way down taylor road to find it (which inevitably meant having to climb back up to get on the trail home...don't mind my sock, i was bike riding)



among our chinatown candy finds:


john and the "everyburger"...a chocolate biscuit that resembled miniature burgers...john looks like a giant eating a regular sized hamburger


my new favourite candy...it's true, it's very powerful


so powerful it included a diagram

It's no Canada's Wonderland, but....

...the midway came to town the other week. Unfortunately, like many other places in Smithers, it was closed when we arrived at 9:30. So we snapped a few photos and headed home. At least we missed it for good reason - we were at the Skeena-Bulkley Valley all candidates debate and got all caught up in politics.

In other news, my small camera is still braindead, so it looks like photos from me will be limited for a little while to those taken when I've brought the dslr along. Enough rambling, here's a couple photos of a closed midway.

 

-Jon

home for a rest

as i'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight back to victoria, i figured i'd add a few pics from my trip back home...


ferry ride from vic to van


looking for whales in the wake (not even a porpoise)

a few views from the flight...













the cozy feeling of a first look at a familiar mountain
(outside the smithers airport)

sooo, funny story...after hiking in victoria, came home wanting to hike, but not anticipating all the remaining snow on the mountain...jon had a day off and wanted to drive out of smithers...perfect...drive somewhere a little west (terrace area) and have more of a chance of finding a hike that wasn't covered in snow--which pretty much took out all options to go up (no alpine hikes sans snowshoes!)...so we figured a hike around a lake would work...
scoured our hiking books and found one that we thought would be ideal...6 km around a lake, fairly flat, nothing leading towards alpine...


drove down an amazingly slow going rutted forestry road to finally find the small km marking for the trail head...got out, stretched, in awe at the wonderfully sunny and warm(ish) day...looked at the snow at the start of the trail and thought "huh. that's quite a bit more snow than anticipated--wonder if it's packed down enough"...



...and here's jon, his first few steps on to the "trail"...falling knee deep in the snow and saying "i don't think this is going to happen"...



and me saying "yes, yes it will...it has to happen...look..." and proceeding to fall thigh-deep into the snow with my 2nd step.
a seriously amusing day--worth the drive to terrace, excpet for the spontaneous decision to try this:


worst snack decision ever

-a.