on the move

I’ve changed blogsites. Catch up with me at:

http://personalsnapshots.wordpress.com/

Of Friends and Family

• Although the sun is shining and it was nice enough to sit on the balcony and read today’s paper, there is definitely a touch of fall in the air. Looking down on the canopy of treetops, the greens are looking rather faded and there are patches of yellow and red. At street level, there are already leaves drifting down. How quickly went the summer!
  

• Quite contentedly, I am settling in at home in Victoria. For all the miles of beauty, grandeur and adventure of my travels, the best part was the people. As the old saying goes, some people come into your life for a reason, others for a season and some for a lifetime.

• Leone and Lenny, two “lifetimers” with whom I first crossed paths in Arizona and later, by design, in California, are proof positive that extending a simple ‘hello’ to passersby can lead to warm and wonderful friendships. Winding down their summer travels on a roundtrip cruise between San Francisco and Alaska, Leone and Lenny arrived for a half-day port’o’call in Victoria.
  

• My roommate Patti (who had been travelling with me in Arizona) has the same wonderful feeling of friendship for Leona and Lenny so it was a great reunion all round. After a whirlwind tour of Victoria and brunch at a sky-high restaurant with a 360 degree view of the city, we were too quickly back at the dock exchanging lingering till-we-meet-again hugs.

• The next guests were my ever-so-special-in-every-way son Jamison (from Vancouver) and his childhood buddy Jon (who now lives in Edmonton). Double-trouble friends in their youth, they quickly reverted to form. Having stocked my kitchen with root beer, double fudge cookies and potato chips, they spent their evenings on the town and returned to my apartment for talk and laughter into the wee hours of the morning.

• On the second morning, I wandered out of my bedroom and immediately spotted two things on the kitchen counter: a spray bottle of household cleaner and a stack of wet dish towels. In an absolute blast to the past, I wondered, here’s the evidence, where’s the crime?

• When they finally woke up, these thirty-something men delivered their story, in a hauntingly familiar “we’re so sorry but it’s not our fault” tone of yesteryear. It seems that “somehow” as they were horsing around at 3 a.m., Jon’s air mattress had “somehow” butted against the wall and accidentally flipped the deflate switch. In the excitement a large mug of root beer “somehow” got knocked over on the carpet. “Hmmmm,” I said, “Just like the old days”. I also pointed out that the differences between then and now were (1) they didn’t even try to hide the evidence and (2) I actually believed it was only root beer. Another major difference: back in yesteryear none of would have laughed quite so hard as we now did.

• My year off from work is too quickly winding down. Not everything has gone quite as planned (does it ever?) What comes next? Perhaps The Shadow knows, but I sure don’t.

• Stay tuned……

Play-time in Oregon

• My two week visit with Donna and Tom in Portland was fantastic; pretty much like “going out to play with my friends.” We hung out together, laughed, toured around, laughed, did silly things and laughed some more.

• Throughout my life’s travels – which have always involved the comforts of modern transportation - I’ve had a fascination about the stamina of pioneers who piled their often meager earthly possessions into covered wagons and endured a 2,000 mile trek – mostly walking - across North America. While visiting Portland, where the temperatures were in the range of 100+ I wondered if any pioneers could possibly have imagined the air-conditioned comfort of the Oregon Trail Museum within which I leisurely examined their artifacts and listened to their stories.

• Built in the shape of three giant covered wagons, the museum informs the curious about the excitement, difficulties, pestilence, disease, extreme heat, extreme cold, and boredom faced by some 200,000 pioneers whose overland voyages took four to seven months to complete. Historians estimate that one in ten died along the way. Three out of four women were at some stage of pregnancy during the journey and many died delivering babies in the back of wagons that often did not stop bumping and grinding long enough for the birthing event.

• Not all pioneers travelled as far as the west coast. Those who did must have been overwhelmed by the sight of the Pacific Ocean where, I happily discovered, the temperatures can be some 30 degrees cooler than in Portland. My friend Donna, her daughter Sarah and I had a blast during a three-day girlfriends’ trip to Lincoln City; one of an endless string of small towns along the Oregon Coast. We checked into a touristy motel, explored the local shopping and restaurants, played cards, talked, laughed, watched movies and walked on the beach. The only thing missing was the sight of the Pacific Ocean which, throughout our stay in Lincoln City, was blanketed with a thick and lingering fog.

• While in Portland, I also learned more about the ups and downs of owning and maintaining an RV. And the more I learned the more convinced I became that, despite the fun of it, the RV lifestyle – much like travelling by wagon-train - is considerably more than I am inclined to, or capable of, undertaking. Lucky for me, Donna and Tom have already invited me to visit them in Texas where they will spend the winter and again next summer in Portland.

The Dog Days of Summer

• The best part of my train trip from Vancouver to Portland was meeting a new and incredibly interesting friend. A retired teacher heading to Florida on vacation, Almas was, like me, wandering uncertainly outside the Vancouver train station hoping to find the right spot to catch the Amtrak bus.
  

• Although the Amtrak train does come to the Vancouver station, you can’t take it to Portland. (Don’t ask why, it’s just one of those incomprehensible quirks of travel.) Instead, it’s a four hour bus ride to Seattle and then a three hour train trip to Portland. Almas and I scored the front seats on the bus, had lunch on the patio of a Seattle restaurant, and then rode the train together; interrupting our chatter about everything-on-earth only long enough to snap a few photos of Mount Baker which, oddly, doesn’t look any bigger close up than it does from my apartment in Victoria.

• In May, I had travelled on Canada’s Via Rail; a sentimental choice of transportation reminiscent of many childhood summer trips between Winnipeg and my grandparents' house in Halifax. Via’s passenger cars have been marginally upgraded from their 1950s origins; hence it was easy to recall/relive the transition between cars as including wrestling with heavy doors and struggling to hang on for dear life when stepping between the rickety connecting platforms. With very few exceptions, Via train stations are beat-up, boarded-up, paint-peeling embarrassments to the small towns through which they pass, drawing surprised, negative comments from international travelers who clearly expected more from a trans-Canada rail service; as did I.

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• To my surprise and delight, and in sharp contrast to Via, Amtrak coddles its passengers in modern cars with comfy brown leather seats complimented by carpeting in muted tones of beige. Glass sliding doors that open automatically in response to a mere touch allow a view through adjoining cars. Train stations in small towns are smart looking, well-kept brick buildings of which, I am certain, their towns are very proud.

• Portland’s average day/night temperatures during July are 78/56, slightly warmer than Victoria’s 71/51 averages. These numbers are, of course, farenheit and, if you’re Canadian (eh?), those temps are 25/13 and 21/10. This July, however, record high temperatures were exceeded almost daily. By the time I boarded the northbound Amtrak, Portland’s temperature had hit 110 (or 43), probably the hottest temperature I’ve ever experienced in my life and enough to cause “sun kinks” - the spontaneous buckling of railroad tracks that can, and has, caused major train derailments.

• In a continuation of my travel legacy which seems to be “what can go wrong, will go wrong”, the train had barely cleared the Portland station before the announcement that the lead engine would not be able to pull the load so the rear engine would take over. Off we went into the rail yards and the engineer walked alongside the train to change ends. Although the train started moving in a direction I would have described as backward, it turned out to be the new forward since the passenger seats continued to face “the wrong direction” all the way to Seattle.

• Upon hearing the next announcement that some passengers would be re-seated due to a breakdown in the air conditioning, I headed for the snack car and bought all the water I could carry.

• Thanks to the heat and threat of sun kinks, the three hour trip from Portland to Seattle took over five hours and, needless to say, the connecting bus to Canada had long since departed. At 10 p.m., my scheduled arrival time in Vancouver, I was just boarding the bus in Seattle. At just after midnight, the Canadian border was much busier than I, and apparently the staff scheduling officer, had anticipated. They rounded up three officers and with remarkable dispatch all bus passengers were processed in about 9 minutes.

• Thankfully the bus driver called ahead to order taxis to meet the bus’s 1:30 a.m. arrival at the Vancouver station. My daughter Robyn sleepily welcomed me to her home and I fell, exhausted, into a bed she had thoughtfully positioned directly in front of the air-conditioner.

• The next day, July 30^th, was Vancouver’s “hottest day ever” peaking 33.8. I spent the sweltering afternoon squirreled away in the local White Spot restaurant swilling iced tea. Later in the evening, my other daughter, Jodi, drove me to the ferry and by midnight, I was lugging my suitcase along the street toward home.

• Ahhh, the sweet and welcoming comfort of home and my own bed!

Mount St Helens

• A highlight of my trip to Portland was visiting Mount St Helens in southern Washington State. It was an incredible experience; very moving and actually kind of scary since the volcano is still active, with smoke wafting out of the gaping crater and grit carried by the wind that felt like sandpaper on my skin and in my eyes.

• We drove to the Johnston Ridge Observatory which is within five miles of the still-steaming lava dome. The Ridge and Observatory are named to honour David Johnston, a young volcanologist who had joined the Mt St Helens monitoring team stationed at Vancouver, Washington State, when the mountain came to life in March 1980.

• Although the prevailing scientific opinion was that Mt St Helens would erupt in an upward column, Johnston correctly predicted that the blast would instead be lateral and originate from a bulge developing on the north side of the mountain.

• Johnston wasn’t supposed to be on the ridge on May 18^th 1980 but he had volunteered to replace a colleague who needed time off to go for a job interview.
  

• At 8:32 a.m. on that fateful morning, a rumbling 5.1 magnitude earthquake triggered the massive eruption that, within seconds, reduced Mt St Helens from 9,677 feet to 8,365 feet and replaced the mountain’s near-symmetrical snow-capped summit with a mile-wide horseshoe-shaped crater.

• The roar of the blast was heard up to 200 miles away and David Johnston's excited voice crackled over the radio link from his observation post – “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”

• In a continuous thunderous sweep, the shockwave from the blast traveled horizontally at speeds above 670 mph. A hurricane wave of scalding gases and fire-hot debris reaching up to 800 degrees, raced down the mountain at speeds up to 200 mph. Everything in the direct blast zone -- natural or manmade, and including David Johnston -- was obliterated within seconds.

• Fortunately, the monitoring team had persuaded authorities to limit access to the area around the volcano and evacuate surrounding towns, thereby holding the May 18 death toll to 57 instead of thousands.

• I can’t recall how many days it took for the awesome grey blanket of smoke and ash to reach Winnipeg, some 1700 miles to the northeast but I do remember riding my bicycle to work at the university wondering what was causing the early morning fog-like haze.

• As I stood on Johnston Ridge contemplating the events of 1980, I couldn't help but wonder why they let people get so close to a volcano that has the capacity to, within seconds, incinerate the very spot upon which I was standing. I felt I just had to trust that volcanic science has greatly improved during the intervening years.
  

• My inquiring mind wanted to know what became of the colleague who David Johnston had replaced at the observation post. His name was Harry Glicken. Eleven years later he was killed in a volcanic eruption in Japan.

Two Days in a Swell Place

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  With a regional population of 2.3 million, supplemented annually by millions of tourists from all parts of the globe, Vancouver, BC is consistently rated as one of the most (if not the most) livable cities in the world. Although it is a mere 90-minute ferry ride from Victoria….essentially in my back yard…I rarely go there except to visit my children. Go figure.
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  Thanks to my friend Morlene, Vancouver made my “must-go-there list” for July. Morlene and I became friends when we were both lucky enough to be living the good life in Vancouver’s West End where cross streets run water-to-water between the Vancouver Harbour waterfront and English Bay. Lazily watching the sun sink below the horizon of the Pacific Ocean from the beach is a West End summer evening ritual. Although we’ve both moved back to Victoria, Morlene maintains a little hide-away in Vancouver, with a million dollar view, and she invited me to spend a few days there before once again heading south to the US.
  
  Like two fancy tourist ladies heading for a grand adventure, we joined the rush of lookie-loos dashing to the side of the BC ferry at the mere mention of “pod of whales off the starboard”. It must be a tough life being a whale; constantly chased by tourist-filled rubber zodiacs and subjected to the loud, deafening drone of ferry whistles.
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  We headed straight for the West End and did our standard walk; west on Denman to the beach then east on Denman with a pit stop at The Cupcake Store where, per usual, it was too hard to pick just one so we bought four. With cupcakes and a take-out pizza to share with my son, Jamison, we headed back to Morlene’s hide-away and, in one of our best West End traditions, popped the cork on an accompanying bottle of champagne.

• Vancouver’s Granville Island was once a grungy industrial district. Today it is a super-trendy major attraction for tourists and locals alike. Within walking distance from the hide-away, we meandered through the maze of the fruit/veggie/flower/food market, restaurants, specialty shops and art galleries. Even though the artists charge outrageous prices for their artwork and offer to ship their wares anywhere in the world, there didn’t appear to be many takers and I wondered how the heck they make the rent.
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  Next up was dinner with my daughter Jodi at Felicia’s, a tiny Italian restaurant in the East End. Loaded with “atmosphere” - red-checkered tablecloths draped over small tables, a mishmash of artwork and famous-clientele photographs crowded onto brightly painted walls, the dynamic Italiano owner/cook/waitress/ dishwasher is actually named Lucy. Always wearing her floppy white chef’s hat, Lucy can talk you into whatever pasta she made fresh that day, and if necessary, she will chase you down the street with forgotten leftovers, which she assures you with great certainty, you are going to have for your next day’s lunch. Jodi and I mentioned that we were once Felicia’s regulars, Lucy claimed she remembered us and wants us to come back more often.
  
  Visiting Vancouver just-because-I-can and frequenting Felicia’s are on my list of must-do-more-often list.

The Zela Street Gravel Party

• Throughout the course of reporting my travel adventures on this blog, I have occasionally mentioned “roadside saints”; people I met along the way who were there when I needed them to fix a leaky water hook-up, spot an about-to-blow tire, save the life of a stranger, return a lost wallet, or restrain a violent passenger on a bus.

• This posting is about “roadside saints” in my hometown.
  

• For the past several weeks as I have been whiling away the hours in Victoria, a top priority has been spending time with my friends Peter and Leslie. Peter is currently off work, courageously and with incredible fortitude, awaiting stem-cell treatment for recurrent lymphoma.

• Peter and Leslie have a wonderfully welcoming home, almost completely surrounded by the incredible and peaceful garden they have avidly created and nurtured over many years.
  

• In the office, Peter's post-weekend reports almost always included the number of barrowfuls of dirt, gravel, fertilizer, etc. he had wheeled from one part of the garden to another in accordance with Leslie's meticulous plan. A happy beneficiary of Peter's and Leslie's dedication to plants, flowers, bushes and trees, my visits to Zela Street always start with a garden tour of inspection

• Last weekend I had the pleasure of being the official photographer at the "Zela Street Gravel Party". It was an incredible delight to watch as four guys from the office - with big hearts and great legs - extended their helping hands to move a mountain of gravel from Peter's driveway to the side of his house.

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• These smiling, eager heroes showed up with shovels and wheelbarrows and made short- though sweaty - work of moving that pile of gravel before retiring to the porch for cold drinks and guy-chat.

• Although I haven’t missed being at work during the past 8+ months and – shocking as this may sound - am not looking forward to the end of my year off, I must say that the best part of work was, and always will be, the people. People like John and Rob and Stu and Dave (who doesn’t actually work with us – but that’s not the point) and Darlene – roadside saints in my hometown; people I am lucky to know and proud to count among my friends.