skitter-skatter

at the edge of burnt bridge creek, i shot this looking up towards mount stupendous with my new telephoto lens

once i’ve been away, i find it difficult to start blogging again. routine broken, coming back to regular reporting seems like an overwhelming task even though it is just one short post at a time. part of the trouble is a generalized lack of focus i am struggling with this week even though i have mountains of work to do.

i have noticed that lots of folks have checked out the bella coola photo gallery from my trip online since i posted the link to it monday. i will be cycling some of my favourites from that trip through here in the next little while and of course taking my camera out on all upcoming excursions (though i’m sure union convention pictures won’t make it on to this site – too ugly! too boring!)

the trip to bella coola went without mishap and turned out to be an excellent 8-day jaunt around the province. the first night we drove as far as 100-mile house (and got caught in a crazy rainstorm the forced us to seek beer and shelter), the second day we got to bella coola and then spent the next 5 days there before returning home via ferry – bella coola – ocean falls – shearwater – bella bella – port hardy, drove to comox and then ferried from there to powell river and then to the sechelt peninsula and drove back to my place. that’s a lot of ferries!

highlights of the trip included hanging out with dayna, ernie and silas – hiking burnt bridge trail in tweedsmuir park and a visit to an ancient cedar grove that boasted some of the biggest trees i’ve ever seen. megan and i made good travelling companions – which was nice to find out as we have never done a roadtrip adventure like this together before. as well as hanging out with some old friends, we met new people as well and were invited places for dinner and evening fires which was as good a way to while away the time as any. basically it was 5 days for playing the guitar, visiting and going for good long walks…. as well as 4 interesting travel days where i got to see many diverse parts of the province i have never known before.

i’ve got more holidays planned for the first week in september after the long weekend, and just yesterday booked a canoe for a 5-day trip with aaron in the sechelt inlet. i also booked dive lessons for myself in october. i’ve gotten more and more into ocean-recreation lately, which has a lot to do with where i am living (the hiking trails are only so-so but the kayak routes are amazing and really accessible). i have a goal of buying a kayak in the next year or so, depending on how much the one i decide on costs. in the meantime, people have offered me to borrow theirs and there are lots of affordable rentals close by – it’s not like boats are hard to come by on the sunshine coast.

as far as everything else goes, i’ve got a grievance hearing today and a union-management meeting tomorrow and a harassment-investigation meeting on friday! plus there’s been some really intense weirdness associated with one of the lists i moderate…. i’m feeling a bit “processed-out” at the moment – but at least it keeps life interesting.