Category: Travel

Last weekend, Pencilneck shut down for a much-deserved, but all-too-quick break. Jeff went off to Alberta to visit some family. I, along with Leah, headed down to Seattle, where we met up with my brother, Stuart, before heading inland to the Mt. Rainier/Mt. St. Helens area. We stayed in a little town called Packwood, which was ideally situated about midway between the two peaks.

Photos of the trip are now online, should you care, or read on. So Friday, which was blazingly hot & sunny, we went down to Mt. St. Helens. Of course, me being me, I forgot to check the gas level before we entered the park. With the empty light on, we turned around at Bear Meadows, about 30 miles in, to go back and get gas. Leah and I left Stuart there, who took advantage of the view & weather to settle in and do some reading in the idyllic setting.

Continue reading “Washington State Trip”

Leah and I ventured across the water to Tofino this past long weekend, with an eye for some much needed R&R. Sadly, however, the trip was not devoid of obstacles, although we managed to overcome them and ended up having a splendid trip indeed. Photos will be forthcoming, but in the meanwhile, read on…

Continue reading “Tofino: making lemonade”

Leah and I went camping in Manning Park for the Canada Day long weekend, staying Saturday to Monday. It was a chance for us to finally use some our wedding presents, as we got some excellent camping equipment from my family.

I’ve uploaded and commented on the photos from our trip

Some fun things from our trip:

• We saw a marmot, although I didn’t manage to get a photo because I freaked out & thought it would jump in the car and attack me. I don’t know why, but I had a totally irrantional reaction to it.
• We cooked burgers in the coals of our campfire, and neither of us were sure it would work out, but in fact, they were fantastic, including the veggies – Leah just wrapped them in tinfoil and tossed them in
• There’s something…neat… about eating smoked salmon while on a mountain peak. That whole exact opposite of the ocean thing.
• I was soooo tired after our hike. It was, I believe, 18km roundtrip, but 2 km short of our ultimate destination of First Brother peak, due to weather.
• Our tent fits our inflatable air-mattress perfectly, which makes for some damn comfy sleeping. Also, I think the air mattress weighs significantly more than our tent.

Much fun was had, and we’re both looking forward to camping in Tofino at the end of this month now.

So there’s photos available for your perusal now. As a warning, there’s a lot more people (family) shots than normal for my trips, mostly because we were there for my dad’s birthday, and I spent most of my days either in the water snorkelling or lazing around, so I didn’t actually see too much. Still, a view into my family, if you’re that way inclined.

On both our Vancouver-LA and our Los Cabos-LA flights, we had interesting things occur. I think LA is a magnet for wierdness.

First, on our way there, we had to all remain on the plane while US Customs came on board to seize some guy. They wandered up and down the plain, asking all tall guys with brownish hair (even thinning) for their passport. Sadly, I no longer qualify as having brown hair, apparently, as I wasn’t asked. However, the guy they wanted was sitting in the row right in front of Leah and I. Which was kind of exciting. I’ve no idea why or what happened to him…

On our return from Los Cabos, there was a drunken Albertan sitting behind us talking shit the whole way, and hitting on a Kiwi across the aisle. At one point, he asked for a Vodka and Tomato Juice, which I believe they refused to serve him, as well, he was somewhat loaded. But then he changed it to a regular Tomato Juice, and still didn’t get it, and followed the steward to the back of the plane and called him and asshole, and then the pilot had to come and talk to him, and blah-da-blah-de-blah. Once he got off the plane, he had to talk to the Airport Security guys, and then once he left them, he had to talk to the police outside customs, talking shit about the flight attendant, and Mexicana in general. I’ve no idea what eventually came of all of it, but I was thinking ‘holy testosterone batman!’ and was fairly embarrassed that this man held the same passport as I did.

While in LA, nothing spectacular happened, as we were only there overnight each way and had very early flights, but Leah and I did get to walk along Sunset Blvd a little, as my aunt lives just off of it, so I go to walk past such famed establishments as the Whisky-A-Go-Go and The Viper Room (not to mention the Hustler coffee shop in West hollywood — how weird is that!?).

I’m back now from my min-vacation to Los Cabos, Mexico. The occasion of this getaway is that my dad has just reached the ripe age of 60 years, and so the Clan Tannock (+ associated others) gathered to wish him well. The best part of this was that all of our arrival was kept a complete surprise to my dad, who thought he was only going away with my Mum, and until he landed, he didn’t even really know where he was going.

We were staying in a sea-front villa about halfway between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas (hence: Los Cabos), which was enormous and luxurious — ocean view, multiple decks, a pool, etc. Pretty swank. Most of my days were spent a mixture of loungeing and snorkelling off one of the myriad beaches that dot the coastline there. The snorkelling was amazing, with schools of colorful tropicful fish chilling just feet from the shore, and for the more adventurous, eels and yet more fish were doing their thing amongst the rocks a little further out. The region is apparently a border between the tropical and temperate waters, so there’s quite a collection of species of fish to be seen there.

Of course, not all is rosy on such a trip. There was the weird feeling of beeing a Colonialist there — all the villa communities were gated, and clearly geared to the Wealther American Tourist, with prices in these things reaching into the low million-dollar (US) range. And where tourists were ‘meant’ to go, things were clean, smiling mexicans efficiently handled requests and everything was peachy. Go just a few metres off the tourist track, and suddenly the lack of development was very apparent, and the level of comfort drops significantly. This was reflected in the plant-life too: where tourists were likely to be, the vegetation was lush, with lots of palm trees. Everywhere else it was scrubby desert (the natural state of the area). And everywhere, all those being served where white, all those serving were mexican. So that made me fairly uncomfortable, as feelings of White Guilt bubbled up.

But I’m back, rested and (for me) quite tanned, which was the point of going down there, really, and I did in fact have a nice time. Pictures will of course be forthcoming once I find the time to upload them.

I’m off now, see you next Monday.

Photos of my recent trip to Hornby Island are now up. Thanks again to Sean, for still not having picked up his camera from me, so I could take these pictures. I promise to bring it next time I see you!

I’ve finally added comments to all the photos we took while in England (with some help from Leah).

All these pictures can now be seen at The England Gallery within the gallery section of this site.

I’m sitting on my grandmother’s couch in Over, Cambridgeshire, amazingly connected on a stolen wireless connection. Why is this so amazing? Because she lives at the extreme end of the village, and the village itself is only a few hundred souls in size. And not only am I on someone’s open connection, but there’s a WEP-protected one too. Nutty!

Leah and I had quite the nice trip over — business class really makes a difference, plus once we landed, we were able to go to the Air Canada Arrivals Lounge at Heathrow, wherein we could have a shower, freshen up, have some juice and a fresh croissant, then head out on the road. My folks as a wedding present had rented us a car from Avis. Turns out that we’re driving a very familiar dark-blue Ford Focus. Only differences are that this one is 5-door, the steering wheel is on the other side and there’s no sunroof. Otherwise, it’s just like home.

I had fun diving into the deep-end of driving on the other side, navigating the M25 orbital, then up to Cambrige, which is actually not very far at all. We did get a little lost on our way once at Cambridge to get to Over, but it’s all good now.

Friday we went into Cambridge itself, wandering about the colleges, marvelling at the all the architecture and winding lanes full of interesting stores. The mens’ fashions here seem so much more interesting, I may just come back with new clothes. Plus, there are actually men’s clothing stores here, rather than just a few racks hidden amongst the women’s fashions like our stores have (ok, it’s not that bad at home, but this is definitely better).

Tomorrow it’s off to Stratford-upon-Avon for some Shakespeare, then up to Man(mad!)chester for some fun (and, apparently, so kick-ass architecture and museums to boot).