February 4, 2012 – The Seattle Boat Show is enough of an excuse for a train trip to Seattle for the weekend. At this time of year it is dark when you board, and the sun comes up as you head across the river and towards the Pacific Ocean. It’s always a beautiful trip. I love Seattle, almost as much as Vancouver. If you told me that I had to move to the US, this is about the only place you could convince me to settle. I like that the climate is almost identical, it is a sister city to Vancouver. In so many ways it is so similar, and in so many others it is still foreign.

We arrived, headed for our hotel, and then went into a panic as Kirk left his iPad on the train and it was now headed for Portland. As luck would have it, the staff on the train found it and we did get it back late that evening. The boat show was fun, but nothing we “needed” to buy. We wandered out and found a crazy little pub – The Triangle Pub – which apparently used to be a brothel, but I have no idea how since it held only a maximum of 20 seats and three tables. It was tiny, and there was a female bartender and four very drunk, but friendly, patrons, one of whom was very chatty with us.

We walked the waterfront, had a coffee at the original Starbucks, watched the sun set, and then spent a lot of time trying to find the wine bar we’d been to last month. FInally found Purple and spent a few hours there at the bar watching the amazing bartenders work their magic. We tried two new “flights” of wine, one with three whites that I wasn’t overly impressed with, and one with four reds that were all worthy of buying.

Then back to the train station to rescue Kirk’s iPad, and a bottle of wine back at the hotel to celebrate it’s return.

January 28, 2012 – At least as far as the Coquihalla highway in January is concerned.

As a general statement, I hate this highway. No matter what time of year, its only redeeming quality is the ability to get into the Thompson-Shuswap-Okanagan region fast. As much as fast means when you start out in clear weather, then head into fog, followed by rain, then snow. When the road goes from dry, to wet, to compact snow, to slush and slop, back to ice, then dry, then more ice…. you get the picture.

The Coquihalla is a crapshoot in the winter. You hope for the best, but expect the worst.

This is a great commute, all things considered. We’ve seen much, much worse….

We were supposed to be in Seattle today and tomorrow, instead, we are here, driving a mountain highway, in the dark, in the winter, to get to Auntie Clara’s Celebration of Life. And a celebration it will be. There will be sadness at her passing, but there will be a wonderful celebration at the wonderful gift to all of us there, the gift of her presence in our lives. Because she truly was a gift to this world.

January 25, 2012 – This is a rarity for me. I generally time things out in such a way that I walk into the terminal, down through the shops, and usually wait no more than a few minutes before walking onto the ferry. It would have been that way today except that when the meeting ended and I thought I’d probably wander around some of the shops in the area before catching a cab to the terminal to make my ten minute pre-departure deadline – someone offered me a ride to the terminal since she was heading that way. I suppose that I could have said no, but then I would have felt guilty about billing back for the cab-ride when I didn’t need one. I feel guilt about the stupidest things.

So I took the ride, bought a coffee, waited for the ferry, and actually enjoyed the silence of the nearly empty terminal as an opportunity to pull out my notebook and do some writing. I’ve always enjoyed writing, but it is only recently that I realized that there are other forms of writing besides technical, creative fiction, journalistic non-fiction, and poetry. I discovered that what I enjoy actually has a term – creative nonfiction writing. I am making an effort to do it the old fashioned way, pen to paper, less opportunity to edit, more risk of honesty.

This was my one of my short writing efforts today, written just after taking the photo.

Waiting

She looks sad, but warm, but only because she is inside. It’s quiet, a few of us are early. Footsteps echo because there are no bodies to absorb the sound waves. She walks slowly, looking at the ground just ahead of her feet. In her heavy grey coat and purple knitted tuque, she plods along in lazy circles, around the entire waiting area, always looking at the floor. I am too conscious of her sense of of solitude to take her photo. I wait until she is out of the frame. Only I know she is there, visible in her invisibility. As more people arrive her space for free movement is reduced, diminishing body by body. The ferry arrives, people flood in, anticipation builds, everyone stands and moves towards the door. The woman, in her heavy grey coat and purple tuque and always looking at the floor, sits down.

January 16, 2012 – A few months ago, on the spur of the moment, we decided to go to France in the Spring. So now that Christmas is out of the way we are starting to think about it a bit more and Kirk has been looking into flights.

A woman in my office was there for a month or so in the late Fall, so I asked her for some tips. Non-touristy, smallish place, somewhere we could happily lounge for a week or so. Somewhere on the Mediterranean side, perhaps Provence. Her suggestion – Antibes. Close to Nice, Marseilles, Cannes, Monaco, yet apparently not so busy as any of those.

Sounds perfect!!

That’s about as much research as we have done, or are probably going to do. It’s fun to figure it out as you go, to not over-think things, not over-research. Sometimes it’s just fun to book a flight and a hotel and then discover as you go.

Looking forward to the South of France in the Springtime!

Day 2 in Seattle and we just spent the day wandering and enjoying the city. We meandered through Pike Place Market and watched people wake up. This person was busking outside of a bookstore at the market.

We thought we’d stop by the original Starbucks and pick up a coffee, but apparently half the city had the same idea. The line up was out the door and down the block. We decided that we didn’t really need a coffee quite that badly. So we visited Sur la Table, walked up to the Seattle Fluevogs, and tried on some shoes at the Dr. Marten store.

Eventually we ended up in Pioneer Square, stopped in at a clothing shop we’d visited the day before to try on a fabulous jacket/dress/coat that I’d fallen in love with, and ended up walking out with it. We stopped for lunch and a beer at Fado, and then did the Underground Tour. That was pretty neat and I’d recommend it, if for nothing else than the wonderful history lesson.

That pretty much took us to the end of the trip and so we made our way back to the train station and enjoyed a relaxing trip home over a bottle of wine. The train is just such a wonderful way to get to and from Seattle. It’s relaxing, scenic (well, not so much at night), comfortable, and you can have a snack and enjoy some wine of a local craft brewed beer.

Great weekend!

How often can you get this sort of shot without a human in it? Thanks to a wonderful monorail driver I did. She let me stay just that extra minute and held the other riders off so that I could get it.

We used the International Motorcycle Show in Seattle, Washington as an excuse to get away for the weekend and what a fabulous, entertaining weekend it was!

We took the train, which means getting up at 4:30am to get ready, deal with animals, and get across town for the 6:40am departure. We fell onto the train with all the other sleepy passengers and rolled out of town. It’s the prettiest ride along the coastline, with the sun creeping up over the horizon and bathing everything in a golden glow. The sea birds were still resting on the water, like floating armies waiting for a bit of warmth and some light to see by. The train rocks from side to said as it moves along the tracks, part of you wants to fall asleep to the motion, but you don’t want to miss the wonderful views, so you fight it. You can wander down to the Bistro car and get a pretty good cup of coffee and something for breakfast – oatmeal, granola, a bagel with cream cheese…

When the train finally rolls into Seattle we hail a taxi and head for our hotel. Along the way we pass a park in which all of the trees are wrapped in colourful knitted sweaters. A rather fun public art display that I never did get back to for a photograph. We’ll have to come back next month and catch a photo then. Our taxi driver tells us that our hotel is at the top of the hill which means that everything is down from it…of course that means that at the end of the day it’s all uphill to get home. But it’s only a 10 minute walk to the Market, or pretty much anywhere else.

After we check into a very nice hotel room, we grab our tickets and walk down to the Convention Center for the International Motorcycle Show. We can tell we are getting close because there are more and more motorcycles driving past us. We didn’t really expect much out of the show, neither one of us really needs anything, and the style of motorcycle I am looking for now doesn’t seem to be a hot ticket item on the market anymore. Everyone wants cruisers, multipurpose, or rocket ships. No one makes a sport touring bike that I like that is under 1200cc’s and less than some stupid horsepower to weight ration, and I just don’t need that much weight under me. Just because you CAN ride something, doesn’t mean that you should! Looking at kids under 20 sitting on a Ninja ZX14 just horrifies me. A bike with 200 horsepower has no business being for sale as a street legal ride.

So I didn’t really expect to find anything of interest. Ducati stopped making the ST I like back in 2007 and they are hard to come by. The Yamaha FZ1 is interesting, but it doesn’t come fully faired. The Triumph feels to big under me, and I can’t ride the same ride as Kirk anyway . I’ve sat on the BMW 800 ST and there is just something I don’t care for about it. I think the Suzuki VStrom is about one of the ugliest bikes on the road, so definitely not going that direction, and similarly, although the functionality is nice, I also can’t stand the look of the BMW8 800 GS Triumph Tiger, or the Kawasaki Versys. I love the Honda VFR Interceptor, but like so many other good bikes, the manufacturers seem to have capitulated to the public idiocy that seems to have taken hold – bigger numbers must be better – so what used to be a sane 750cc bike is now 1200cc. Same thing for the Suzuki Bandit. What started out as a 25 and 400cc bike that evolved into a 750cc contender has ballooned to 1200cc now. It seems that no one is satisfied with smaller engines anymore. Riders have been crossing the world on bikes, yet now everyone seems to think they need a bigger, more powerful bike. Why? All you end up with is a heavier monster that eats more fuel. Is there nothing left at the 750-1000cc range that suits me?

Turns out that there is! Kawasaki has come out with a new Ninja – that bears a resemblance physically, but not functionally with their other similarly named bikes. hey have come out with a real contender in the sport touring market, at least in my eyes. I may just be falling in love with the new Ninja 1000 ABS in candy lime green and ebony. Anyway, it’s something to think about when I get to that point. Unless the Ducati dealer comes through and finds me that ST3 I left my name for.

After the motorcycle show we wandered down to Pike Place and enjoyed the sunny afternoon. We had a fabulous lung/early dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Sound. A salmon BLT with a spicy salsa instead of tomatoes, and a bowl of curried split pea and roasted eggplant soup. Yum!

We wandered Pioneer Square and found some fabulous shops to browse through. And then we saw something odd. Santas. Lots and lots of Santas. I don’t mean one or two, I mean hundreds and hundreds. We thought that maybe there had been a concert or something. Then we stopped and our jaws dropped when we looked into a pub up on Pine Street. The pub was full to capacity, and everyone inside was dressed like Santa! We finally stopped a pack of Santas and asked one of the women “WHY?” SantaCon she said, it’s “Santarchy“. She took hold of my hand and earnestly urged us along. “You MUST come” she said. Kirk’s back was bothering him so we bowed out and when we returned to the hotel we looked it up. Santarchy! Never heard of it before!

We rounded out the day with a stop at a recommended wine bar down a few blocks – Purple Cafe & Wine Bar – Fabulous place! They have wine tastings that they call “Flights“. Series of 3-5 2.5oz tastings of selected wines from everywhere. We tried a 3 white flight (called the “Hard to Say”) and a 4 red flight (Called “Filthy” – for their earthy taste). We asked our sommelier how many wines they stock – 500 labels he told us. On the island in the middle of the bar area I estimated that there were approximately 200 open bottles being poured from. How they keep it all organized was beyond me. Oh, and the cheesecake was amazing! We spent several hours there savouring the amazing wines that we’d chosen before we climbed the hill and collapsed into bed.

Fabulous day!

We spent the weekend in Seattle to visit the International Motorcycle Show. It was really an excuse to get out of town for a couple of days and just do something fun, and it was worth it. We had a wonderful time, the weather was great Saturday, and tolerable Sunday. And this fellow was wonderful. He had the kindest eyes and the friendliest smile. I felt badly that I didn’t have any cash to give him. I would have given him something in a heartbeat had I had it.

I am in in Victoria for a conference and when I registered they gave me a bag of swag. Rather than wander around with it for hours I zipped back up to my room to drop it off. I poked through it and found a Purdy’s chocolate barStarving I decided to eat it before heading back down. I went to the window, peeled the wrapper back and was surprised when a passing seagull banked left suddenly and landed in front of me on my windowsill.

He seemed pretty confident that I might open that window and share.

And yes, the camera is only about two inches from this nose.

288/365 (Oct 15, 2011) – Winter is coming… Not that it ever really left in some areas. This was an amazing year for the snow sticking around. In August we rode up to the top of Mt. Baker and there were still piles of snow at the upper parking lot. While the top of Mt. Garibaldi never completely becomes free of snow, it is still amazing how much snow stuck around for the duration where it normally disappears. And it sure isn’t going anywhere at this point.

Today we had a few errands to run around town and deal with, but we managed to get out on the bikes by early afternoon and take a ride up to Squamish for a coffee. And it was nippy out on that road! But at this time of year you take those sunny days when they come and you make the absolute most of them. Yesterday I put a few hundred km on out in the Valley. I had thought I might stop in at Weaver Creek spawning channel, but two things made me keep riding on to Agassiz and beyond. #1. I figured I’d get harassed for arriving without waders since I knew there was an egg take going on out there, and #2. I had picked up a big Harley rider that I’d tried to leave behind a few times and he kept coming back and tucking in with me again, he’d stuck with me for better than ¾ of an hour and I didn’t feel like seeing if he’d follow me down a relatively isolated road… so I kept on going until we finally parted ways. It was kind of irritating, when I ride alone, I like to ride alone.

But to get up today and see another stellar day, we just had to grab it and go with it again.

It was also a pleasant surprise how many riders were still out and about, LOTS on the S2S. This is my third autumn on two wheels and one of the things I consistently notice is that the riders become friendlier (including me) the later it gets in the season, probably because there are fewer Squids on the road. There is more camaraderie, strangers are chattier. It’s kinda neat, and that from a self proclaimed anti-socialite.

As we left Squamish we pulled into a rest stop to grab a shot back at Mt. Garibaldi. The recent rains and the colder weather has cleared the air and the views along the S2S were crystal clear for a change. But the cold air also tells me that winter is coming.