Turtle Tales

The sun was shining and I was going to sit outside so I thought I'd feed Millie (the turtle) outside for a change. She could get some real sunshine instead of just UV lights.

The feeding part didn't work so well. Despite being in the same blue tub as always, she could obviously tell things were not normal and she was too distracted to eat. Occasionally she would happen to spot some food, reflex would take over, and she'd grab it. But mostly she was trying to escape. Despite being mostly aquatic, these turtles are surprisingly strong climbers.

So I decided to let her go for a walk. At first she stayed on the patio close to me, but after a while she headed off into the weeds (of which we have no shortage!) and pushed herself half under the dead leaves.

I think she'd be tough to find if you didn't know where to look. Eventually I had to pull her out to go back in her tank.

Some days she can be quite a handful, thrashing around with her sharp claws and drawing blood if you're not careful. But today she was being quite calm, even after I removed the leaves she was hiding behind.

Although turtles aren't particularly intelligent, they (like many animals) have a surprising range of behaviour, which isn't easy to predict. It makes them seem like they have a "character" even if they don't in the human sense.

[thanks to Shelley for the photographs]

Environmental Shenanigans

To the Tsilhqot’in Nation, Fish Lake is a sacred place that has sustained them for generations.

To the Taseko mining company, it’s an answer to a very different prayer: a cheap dump site for acid tailings from the proposed Prosperity gold-copper mine.

Shenanigans like this used to be prohibited by the Fisheries Act – until it was amended in 2002 to allow lakes and other freshwater bodies to be re-classified as “tailings impoundment areas”.

from Save Fish Lake — Sierra Club of BC

In other words, you can't destroy a lake, but if you don't call it a lake, then it's ok. So if I don't call it "murder" is it ok to do it?

PS. If you ask me "shenanigans" sounds far too harmless.

Out West 2

Oops, forgot the pictures in the other camera.

Out West 2

Out West

A few pictures from the trip out west we just got back from.

2010-05 Out West

As usual, we enjoyed more than just climbing :-)

• Tapas Restaurant, Canmore
• Wild Flour Bakery, Banff
• Bison Restaurant, Banff
• Modern Bakeshop & Cafe, Revelstoke
• Hooded Merganser Bar & Grill, Penticton
• Fibonacci Roastery & Cafe, Penticton
• Vanilla Pod Tapas & Wine Bar, Summerland
• Frog Cafe, Linden Gardens, near Penticton
  (the gardens looked lovely, but it was pouring rain so we didn't see much)
• Sage and Vines Bistro, Penticton
• Naramata Heritage Inn and Cobblestone Restaurant, Naramata
  (we treated ourselves to one night here before heading home)
• Blue Heron Waterfront Pub, Vernon
• Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co, Canmore
  (look for their frozen pizzas at your grocery store)
• Beamer's Coffee Bar, Canmore

As usual, we camped at the Waterworld RV Park in Penticton because it's the closest to the climbing at Skaha bluffs. But the "waterworld" is long gone, and the land has been sold, so I'm not sure how many more years we'll be able to stay here

Sask. Govt. Spends $1.5 million to Kill 71,000 Coyotes

Hey, it's not like we have anything better to spend our taxpayer money on, why not do a little ecocide. 

via 71,000 coyotes killed--what does this mean for birds?

Winter is Back!

Crazy weather from Canmore all the way to Calgary.

Evening

Cloud puffs flowing by in a clear blue sky. A pigeon silhouetted against that sky. Warm evening sunlight flooding a courtyard. A breeze tossing the newly green leaves on the trees. A table by the window. A glass of wine. Music. A good book. Mountains peeking through between the buildings. Fresh snow lingering on the peaks. Smile.

Walking

"Let us walk as free people and feel our steps growing lighter as we walk. Let us appreciate every step we take." - Thich Nhat Hanh via The Art of Meditation by Matthieu Ricard

20 km of walking through the forest. Splashes of orange and yellow lichen on the rocks. Vibrant green moss. Snow capped mountains. A night under the trees, sung to sleep by a babbling brook. The warmth of the sun after a cold dawn. Unexpected flakes of snow falling from low clouds.

And now a latte at the Wild Flour Bakery Cafe to top off the hike from Canmore to Banff. Life is good.

Turn Around

"The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It’s so easy to make it complex. The solution for a lot of the world’s problems may be to turn around and take a forward step. You can’t just keep trying to make a flawed system work." - Yvon Chouinard (via Signal vs. Noise)

This is from a documentary called 180 South. Check out the trailers (be patient if the links don't work right away).

Also, linked from here, check out the Tin Shed

Mouse-Capades 2

I got up this morning, put the kettle on for tea, and opened the blinds to see if any birds were at the bird feeder. And what do I see? A mouse inside the bird feeder!

The question is whether it's the same mouse who managed to navigate from the river several blocks back to my house, or a new one. I suspect it's my old friend returned since I've only ever seen the one mouse around.

I ran downstairs, grabbed a cloth bag, this time big enough to fit over the feeder, and headed outside. I almost missed him. As I approached the tree he started down the trunk. But he made the wrong choice when he saw me and returned to the shelter of the bird feeder.

I pulled the bag up around the feeder and tapped on it to get him out. Sure enough he jumped out, right into the bag. But I almost lost him because he ran straight up the inside of the bag heading for freedom. It was a good try but I shook him back to the bottom and closed the top of the bag.

This time I took him for a bike ride across the bridge to Sutherland beach. Hopefully that'll be sufficient to prevent him from finding his way back to the free food.

Mouse-Capades

For some time we've had a mouse visiting our bird feeder (see Recurring Mouse). And not just visiting, but hanging out inside the feeder. At first, we could see his tracks in the snow heading off towards the neighbors house. But then he must have decided to shorten his commute and the tracks started leading to our house. And then I started hearing him inside the wall. Not good. Only one solitary mouse so far but I was afraid where there was one, others would follow.

I could have hung the bird feeder away from the trunk of the tree so he couldn't reach it, but the birds throw so much seed on the ground he'd still have a constant supply of food.

So I bought a couple of live traps and put them on his route between the house and the bird feeder. I baited them with cheese. Mice can't resist cheese, right? Wrong. The traps kept getting triggered but never caught anything. So I switched to peanut butter. Still no luck.

I looked out the window last evening and there he was, inside the bird feeder, munching away. I grabbed a pillow case and headed out there. I figured I could pull the pillow case right over the bird feeder so when he jumped out I'd have him trapped. But the pillow case wasn't big enough to fit over the whole bird feeder. The poor mouse was running around inside the bird feeder. I felt bad for stressing him out. Usually he goes out the back of the bird feeder and runs down the trunk, so I had the pillow case over the back of the feeder. But he was too smart to fall for that. In desperation he jumped straight out the front of the feeder - right at my chest. This is one fearless mouse! He hit my chest, I jumped, and he took off, up inside the wall of our house. Round one goes to the mouse.

But in the end I guess he couldn't resist the peanut butter and when I came home from work today he was in one of the traps. I carried him a couple of blocks down to the river bank and let him go. Hopefully it's far enough away that he won't find his way back. It'll be a tough adjustment after having all the food you can eat. I wish him well, as long as he's not inside the walls of my house!

More West Coast Photos

Photos from rest of my recent trip - from the train, Vancouver (Granville Island), Portland (zoo, Japanese gardens, Chinese gardens), and Astoria.

2010-04 West Coast

911

My big excitement for the day (keep in mind this is relative to cleaning the turtle tank) was calling 911 to report a (small) fire.

I was biking on the bike path by Preston and I noticed some smoke coming from the trees ahead. I thought it might be some kids with a fire, and that might be how it started, but there was no one there and the fire was about 10 feet across with open flames.

I went into the trees to make sure there wasn't anybody passed out or anything. Then I used my iPhone to call 911.

I wasn't sure about calling 911 since it wasn't exactly an emergency but it was the easiest. My call was handled politely and efficiently and I was handed over to the fire department. The only difficulty was explaining where it was. I would have thought they could get some kind of location from my cell phone but it didn't seem like it since they had to ask whether I meant the south or north end of Preston.

A few minutes later I could hear a siren. I wasn't sure if they'd come straight to the right spot but they drove directly to me, going the wrong way on the one-way road.

A police car showed up right away as well. I didn't recognize him - don't know as many of the patrol people now that Shelley is a big wig.

With all the rain we've had the last few days I don't think there was much danger of the fire spreading. If things had been as dry as they sometimes get it would have been more exciting. However, it was in a narrow strip of trees between the road and a plowed field with nowhere really to go.

I actually got to use the phone part of my iPhone for a change :-) But the application of technology is still lagging - theoretically I should have been able to give them an exact GPS location. And even send them live video of the fire and its surroundings so they could judge the situation. Of course, even I don't take advantage of the technology - I didn't even think to take a picture to go with this blog post.

[posted via BlogPress on my iPhone from Broadway Roastery]

Oregon Coast Trail

Photos from my recent hike on the Oregon Coast Trail.



the main web site for the trail

and the maps covering the section I did (from Fort Stevens State Park to Garibaldi)

Wallpaper Photo

Taken in the Chinese Garden in Portland.

Reminder: Click on the image to get the full size version before right clicking to save or set as wallpaper. If you right click here, you'll only get a low resolution version. Choose the wide screen or squarer version depending on your monitor.

Earth Day Video

via

Via Rail Takes the Cake

The "cup" cake that is.

I have a thing about not using paper cups. It's a tiny thing, but it's easy to use a travel cup and I hate to see the trash full of disposable cups.

It really bugs me when coffee places refuse to use my travel cup - like Amtrak or some airport places.

So I was happy when I went to get tea on the VIA Rail train back to Saskatoon and they happily used my travel mug.

As I left I noticed the steward throw a disposable cup into the trash. I thought it was a little odd, but assumed it must have been a dirty cup left over from someone else. But no, the next time I paid more more attention and again, after filling my travel cup she threw a clean disposable cup into the trash. My guess is that they're using the cups as a way to track how many drinks are sold. Argh!

I'm not sure if this is official procedure or just this person's method. I considered suggesting that it perhaps wasn't the best procedure, but I was pretty sure that would go over like a ton of bricks.

As I walked back to my seat I passed the rack of brochures about how "green" VIA Rail is. Sigh.

People You Meet

Even an anti-social loner like me can't help meeting a few people along the way, especially traveling solo.

In Manzanita I was sitting outside having my coffee when two women arrived with a one-eyed dog. My backpack must have caught her eye and she asked, Are you traveling alone? Where are you from? Are you hitchhiking? - No. Taking the bus? - No. Renting a car? - No. (At this point she was stumped.) Then how are you getting around? She was surprised when I said by foot. I have to admit it's the exception these days, especially at my age. It might sound like twenty questions, but she was just curious and friendly. She disappeared into the coffee shop. But a few minutes later she stuck her head out the door and asked me if I would like to join them. I had a good excuse not to be social since I'd finished my coffee and was getting ready to leave, but I thanked her. She went back inside and through the window I heard her friend giving her a hard time for trying to pick up strange men. She replied that when she used to travel on her own she appreciated it when people were friendly. Even though I didn't accept her offer I appreciated the gesture. Besides, she was kind of cute :-)

The next character I ran into was on the bus to Garibaldi. She was across the aisle from me. At first glance she seemed normal enough. But she didn't stop talking the whole trip. (Thankfully it was a short trip!) I heard about her trips to Europe, teaching her daughters about the evils of the city, about staying in scuzzy hotels and classy hotels, and a long story about giving some kids water and nuts and a lighter for their campfire except they didn't even have a tent, cause she'd been there too. Each piece kind of made sense but the whole stream was a little much. She even wanted the bus to stop to help someone with a flat tire!

But not everyone on the bus is a "psycho" (as Jennie would say). On the longer trip to Portland I talked with a very interesting guy. He was an electrical engineer, who worked all over, including in Alberta. He was living on a former dairy farm which he was turning back into forest, much to the annoyance of his neighboring dairy farmers, although the only concrete objection they could come up with was that his trees were shading their pasture. Yeah, right. We talked about wind power (popular) and nuclear (unlikely in this area). I asked what he thought about electric cars. He thought they could be good but was concerned about the current battery technology and all the toxic chemicals either in car crashes or when they had to be disposed of. Good point. It was an interesting, wide ranging conversation that made the trip go by quickly.

I didn't even talk to the last person. He was the bartender at the hotel in Portland. (The lounge had a great view, comfy chairs, good lattes, and good food and wine, so I stopped there a number of times.) Every time, he was busy talking about climbing. It didn't seem to matter who the customer was, the conversation always seemed to end up about climbing. He was relatively new to it and obviously totally captivated. He reminded me of myself many years ago. I thought about talking to him but invariably the question would come up of what climbing I'd done and I didn't want my long history overshadowing his first steps. It was nice to hear his passion.

Urban Nature

Had a good day today at the Oregon Zoo and the Japanese Gardens.

The zoo seemed to be in off-season mode. A number of areas and exhibits were closed for construction and renovation. But there was still plenty to see. And off-season has the advantage of less crowds and more chances to observe in peace. I think it's great when kids go to the zoo, but sometimes the screaming hordes can be trying!

I spent some time watching the penguins - Humboldt penguins from Peru. They're so comical waddling around on the ground, and so fluid swimming underwater. They can swim incredibly fast. I guess that makes sense when you need to catch fish and evade predators.

If you're at the zoo (or even if you're not) it's worth visiting the Japanese Gardens. In the summer you can get there by taking the zoo train. Off-season you can take the bus or walk. I'd always taken the zoo train before and didn't realize how nice the walk is. The park is the Hoyt Arboretum and there are all kinds of trees. The flowering magnolias were fantastic. The trails can be confusing but there are maps every so often and people are quite helpful. (The trails connect to Forest Park and go for miles if you want a longer walk or run.)

I find the Japanese Gardens very peaceful and meditative. Bit it's hard to capture with photographs.

The rose gardens are also close by, and worth a visit if they're flowering.

To get to the zoo the Max light rail goes right from downtown to the zoo entrance. The zoo is outside the free rail area so you need to buy a ticket. The easiest option is the day pass for $4.95 which you can get from the machines at the Max stops.

Between the zoo and the gardens and the walk in between, this is a very pleasant way to spend a day.

Last Leg

It never fails, whenever I start to feel proud of some accomplishment, I discover I've screwed up.

It was a beautiful sunny morning when I left Cannon Beach. I didn't get away till 8am because I had to wait for the coffee shop to open :-) Which wouldn't have been a big deal except I had to get around several points that were only passable at low tide. I wasn't sure when low tide was exactly, but it seemed to be rising already.

I made good time on the smooth beach in the sunshine. I even saw a group of Tufted Puffins bobbing in the water. They nest on Haystack Rock near Cannon Beach. (FYI: A group of puffins has many collective nouns, including a "burrow", "circus", "colony", "improbability", and "puffinry" of puffins.)

It was a little tricky getting round the final point - had to take off my boots to wade a creek and then scramble round slippery rocks with sharp barnacles over the rising water. So I was quite proud of myself when I made it to the other side.

But soon after I started to wonder if the beach matched where I was supposed to be. Sure enough, I'd gone one point too far. I'd thought I was at Hug Point but I'd really been at Arch Cape. No wonder it had been tricky - I wasn't supposed to be there!

The thing was, the route goes inland before Arch Cape. I didn't much feel like going back, especially with the rising water. With the help of my iPhone maps and GPS I managed to sneak through the yard of a beach house and follow back roads to join back up with the route. In the end it worked out well, maybe even a little nicer than the official route.

After my morning on the beach, I spent the afternoon back in the forest, muddier after yesterday's rain. Some even bigger big trees here in Oswald West State Park. Some rivaled the big stumps.

I also saw three red bellied or Oregon newts. They were all in about a 100m stretch of the trail and quite lethargic, probably because it was still quite cool in the forest.

Later, on Cape Falcon I saw five garter snakes. The first three had very dark, dull coloring, but the next two were brighter. They were out soaking up the heat of the sun on south facing slopes.

There used to be a campsite in Oswald West State Park, but a tree fell down and they decided it was too dangerous and closed it. It seems a bit odd, trees have fallen on the trail all over the place and they don't close them. And you can still picnic in the camping area. Maybe they think the trees only fall at night? I was hoping I might be able to sneak in and use the campsite even though it was closed. By the time I got there I was ready to call it a day. But the campsite is right beside the trail to a busy beach and there were people everywhere. Camping there without anyone noticing seemed improbable. (In hindsight I wonder if they might have been happy to find an excuse to close the campsite. It imagine it would have been a real surfer and party hangout.)

Q. How can you tell you're within a kilometer of a road?
A. You start to see people.

Or from the other perspective, if you want to get away from people, just walk a kilometer from the nearest road. Actually, less than a kilometer if it's uphill. There were probably a hundred people at the beach, but ten minutes walk past there were none. Which was a good thong because I was looking for somewhere to camp where I wouldn't be discovered. I eventually found a spot. I'd been on my feet for eight hours with only short breaks and I was glad to stop. Unfortunately, as is common along here, the highway is close to the coast and I could hear the traffic going by. Especially the logging trucks, which seemed incongruous with my camp in the midst of the few remining giant trees. Cognitive dissonance.

The forecast was for rain to start in the night but I awoke to a dry tent for the first time, always more pleasant to pack!

The route from here crossed the highway, climbed 1500 ft over Neahkahnie Mountain and then descended to return to the highway only a few kilometers after it left. As much as I dislike walking on the highway, I decided to forego going over the mountain since I had another reasonably long day ahead.

I wad glad it was early in the day and not too much traffic. There's almost no shoulder and the logging trucks don't like to make room for anyone. I had to shake my head at one point when there was a sign for the Oregon Coast Cycling Route. At that point there was about two inches of shoulder. Wishing don't make it so.

I reached the town of Manzanita just after 8am and was happy to discover a coffee shop open already. A latte and a muffin primed me to hit the beach.

From here the trail goes down a long peninsula at the end of which you need to get a boat to ferry you across. I phoned the number on the map and it rang and rang and rang. I looked at the alternate route - about 15 km of walking on the highway - yuck. After ringing a dozen times someone finally answered and thankfully the ferry was arranged.

The ten km down the beach of the peninsula took about an hour and a half. On the phone they'd said they pick up at the point so I called from there. From across the river she tried to spot me with binoculars. It turned out I wasn't quite in the right spot. I was supposed to head upstream a little, but not to disturb the seals. Sure enough, there was a big group of seals flaked out on the sand. I don't think I disturbed them, only one or two even got up the energy to raise their heads to look at me.

It was a quick trip across the river. The guy on the boat said they had a "walker" working for them. He came out and said hello. He'd walked the entire Oregon Coast Trail a few years ago. He was quite disappointed to hear I was only hiking for five days and tried to convince me to at least take two more days to go round Three Capes.

Soon after, the rain arrived. Never too hard, but it continued for the rest of the day off and on. It would stop long enough for me to take off my rain pants and then it would start up again.

There was supposed to be a county park campground just before Garibaldi. I managed to find it, but it wasn't near the beach and didn't seem too appealing. I decided to keep going to Garibaldi. It didn't turn out to be too appealing either - more industrial than touristy. Two rather seedy looking bars ("Bikers Welcome"), a Dairy Queen, and, thankfully, a coffee shop. Thank goodness Oregon likes its espresso! I passed the bus stop and there was a bus to Tillamook in an hour. I headed for the coffee shop. They were in the process of closing so I scarfed down a latte and a raspberry scone. Still with time to kill I stopped at the Dairy Queen to satisfy a craving for salt and grease with an order of french fries.

I thought Tillamook might offer some nicer places to stay, but if so I didn't find them. There was a Holiday Inn but it was out in big box land on the outskirts of town. So I ended up here in a rather low end motel. But it has free wifi and it's close to the bus stop. And as far as Google tells me, the restaurant next door is one of the few decent options.

So I'm showered and fed and I'm out of the rain. And I'm set to catch the bus back to Portland tomorrow. Mission accomplished, despite a few hiccups.

Location:2nd St,Tillamook,United States

Pit Stop in Cannon Beach

After a day and a half of hiking down the flat beach I switched gears and spent a day and a half hiking up and down through temperate rain forest in Ecola State Park. I camped at a walk in site almost 1000 ft above the ocean. Hard work going uphill but fantastic views. And pretty muddy in spots - after all it is rainforest! Lots of nice big trees, although sadly not as big as the huge stumps left over from logging (many years ago). Some of those big trees fall over on the trail making for some challenging clambering!

It's the weekend so 5 or 6 other people showed up at the campsite. And of course they stayed up half the night talking and singing around a fire. On the plus side whoever was playing the guitar was very talented. I, of course, didn't talk to anyone!

I had assumed an official campsite would have a source of water but no such luck. I ended up hiking downhill and bushwhacking into a steep gorge to reach a creek.

I woke to find the campsite engulfed in cloud with light rain falling. It drizzled off and on all morning but nothing too serious. Contrary to the map, I managed to stay on trails instead of roads almost all the way to Cannon Beach. A fair bit of up and down and mud, but lovely forest and great views. It was warm in the forest, but on the exposed coast the wind was blasting hard enough to make it difficult walking.

In Cannon Beach I stopped for coffee at Bella Espresso- coincidentally the same place Shelley and I had stopped last time we were here. And the same place where I had overheard people talking about the Oregon Coast Trail which planted the seeds for this hike.

I'm ahead of schedule so I decided to stop overnight in Cannon Beach. And since I seemed to be stopping for coffee every day I figured it wouldn't hurt to shower before I got too ripe. I used the cafe wifi to find a place to stay. I thought I'd been pretty clever, but I hadn't paid enough attention to the location. It turned out to be almost 2 miles south of town. Which wouldn't have been so bad except that by this point it was pouring rain. Oh well, that's what rain gear is for! I tried not to drip on the registration desk too much.

The shower and clean clothes felt good and luckily there's a bakery across the street (where I'm hanging out drinking coffee and connecting to wifi) and a restaurant two doors down. So I don't have to walk 2 miles in the rain for supper. Uphill both ways :-) Or I could eat my camping food, but somehow the restaurant seems more appealing!

Actually, it's not so bad being out of town. It's not like I wanted to shop for cheesy tourist souvenirs. I missed the bookstore, but the last thing I need is books to carry!

Hopefully it won't be raining too much in the morning. It's always hard leaving a warm dry building to head out into the rain.

Location:S Hemlock St,Cannon Beach,United States

Beach Time

This is a pretty civilized hike! I'm in Seaside having a latte and catching up on Internet.

Yesterday I took the local bus from Astoria to Warrenton and then to Fort Stevens State Park. The only problem with local buses is that they assume everyone is a local and knows the routine. I had to ask for help and directions a few times. It was foggy and drizzling in the morning but my luck held and by the time I started hiking it had stopped. The trickiest route finding was through the state park. Once you hit the beach it's hard to go wrong! By the end of the afternoon the sky had cleared and I was down to a t-shirt in the sunshine.

The beach has been great, easy walking on nice firm sand. Waves crashing, sea gulls sqawking, shore birds running and flying. Even a pair of bald eagles, one adult and one juvenile (head not white yet) feeding on a seabird carcass.

The only drawback is that vehicles are allowed on the beach. So I was never far from a big truck with a young white driver with a baseball cap and a cigarette. I'm not sure what the attraction is to driving slowly up and down the beach. Thankfully the speed limit is only 25 km/hr.

I was figuring I'd just camp in the dunes behind the beach, but when I headed up there in the late afternoon I found there were houses only 200 yards away. I found the best spot I could between the mansions and the cruising trucks Not exactly a wilderness experience, but I knew that before I started. It was actually quite peaceful once the sun went down. I won't say quiet because the crashing waves are actually quite noisy.

I slept well although it was surprisingly cold. No frost, but it felt like it. I was a bit shocked to discover far more vehicles on the beach than the day before! I soon realized the tide was out and they were digging for clams. They didn't seem to be finding much, which isn't surprising given the number of people out there.

I packed up and threaded my way between the pickup trucks. It was a nice morning. A few hours hiking brought me to Gearhart where I was forced to leave the beach and walk the highway to get across a river. This led me to Seaside where I stopped for coffee. Next I'll head for Ecola State Park.

It's very different hiking down the beach instead of in the forest or the mountains. You don't need to pay too much attention to the walking and the sand and waves go on unchanging for miles. It's gives your mind plenty of time to roam.

Location:S Ocean Ave,Gearhart,United States

Journeying On

Stepping out of the Granville Island hotel at 5:30am, I was a bit surprised to be met by rain. Not that rain is surprising in Vancouver, but it had been so nice the day before. Thankfully it barely drizzled on me. It was nice not to get soaked before the train ride!

I took the Amtrak train from Vancouver to Portland. There was a little customs and security since it was across the border, but minor compared to flying these days. The train ride was pleasant.

We got to Portland about 3pm. It was beautiful weather - sunny and warm. Lots of people out biking and running. I could easily have taken public transportation to the hotel - Portland is good for that. But it was such a nice day I walked along the paths by the river. Spring is even further along here, with lots of flowers blooming.

It took about 30 minutes to walk to Riverplace Hotel. It's in a great spot overlooking the river. And they'd given me a free upgrade to a suite. A little wasted on me by myself, but still nice.

I had an early supper in the hotel lounge (the restaurant didn't open till later). A nice roasted pepper soup with a salad. And a glass of Pinot Noir that Oregon is known for.

With Google's help I took the streetcar and then the Max light train to the zoo. The only glitch was that the electronic display of stops was incorrect and by the time I figured that out I had missed my stop. But it was no problem to hop out and catch a train going back the other direction.

I went to the zoo to hear a lecture on condor reintroduction in Arizona. It is pretty amazing how condors were down to 22 captive birds (none left on the wild) and are now gradually making a comeback thanks to reintroduction.

The speaker was good. But he was a hunter, which always seems incongrous to me. But as much as I don't care for hunting, their organizations have done a lot for conservation. For example, Ducks Unlimited and their preservation of wetlands. I'd rather they had a different motivation but conservation can use whatever help it can get.

This morning I walked back along the river to the train station to catch the bus to Astoria on the coast. I have to shake my head when I take public transportation to be more sustainable and end up on a 50 seat bus with only four passengers! This is the off season and no doubt they are busier in the summer. What they need is a more flexible system where they could switch to a smaller vehicle like a van when it made sense.

Here in Astoria I'm staying at the Cannery Pier Hotel. Shelley and I stumbled into this hotel a few years ago when we were driving down the coast and really liked it. It's in a restored cannery on a pier over the water. It's not cheap but it's a lovely hotel.

Amazingly, the weather is continuing beautiful and sunny. I just hope I get some of this nice weather while I'm hiking.

Tomorrow I'll take the bus to as close to the start of the hiking as I can. I've enjoyed the fancy hotels and restaurants but I'm looking forward to getting out on my own and hiking and camping on the beach.

Location:Marine Dr,Astoria,United States

The Joy of Travel

I love to travel, as you may have gathered :-)

My life at home is as comfortable and familiar as an old shoe. I go from familiar home to familiar work by familiar paths. I have my routines, and honestly, I like it that way. My stress level is low (usually!) and I can focus on my work and indulge my reading habit.

To travel is to leave all that behind, to embrace uncertainty. No familiar places, no familiar paths. Constant choices since there are no preset routines. There's a certain amount of stress and tension in that, and it can make people scared to step outside their comfort zone. But it's also interesting, exciting, rejuvenating. Life wasn't meant to be tame and predictable all the time.

And you can always mix in some familiarity when need be. A visit to Starbucks is a return to a comfort zone. Going back to the same city or hotel also takes away some of the uncertainty. The trick is to keep it new without being too stressful. Everyone has different limits.

This trip isn't to anywhere exotic, it's not to Asia or South America. But it's still got the essence of travel, new places, new faces, different things to do. Different sights and sounds and smells. I think we need this kind of adventure in our lives sometimes.

The train arrived an hour early in Vancouver. I'd planned to take the Aquabus but it wasn't running yet. That was ok, it's a pleasant 3km shoreline walk along False Creek, past the new Olympic village.

Vancouver always makes me feel a bit like the small town boy I am. I can't help gawk at all the big buildings and soaring bridges. And I can't help being a little jealous of the ocean and that it's not only green here but the flowering bushes and trees are in full force. Especially having left Saskatoon right after a blizzard! But that's another benefit of travel - to remind yourself that the small corner of the world where you live is just that.

It's a beautiful morning, some light clouds but the sun is shining through and feels warm. The turtles in the pond by Granville Island must agree. They've crawled out of the cold water to absorb the sunshine.

The ducks and grebes were busy and a great blue heron stood on a rock surveying the scene.

I was lucky the hotel had a room ready despite my early arrival at 9:30am. Then it was a toss up whether coffee or shower came first. Coffee won :-)

Riding the Rails

So far I'm enjoying traveling by train. It's so different from traveling by airplane. It's very casual, no id, no security, no scans, no xrays, no showing your laptop, no taking your shoes off. No endlessly repeated lectures on seat belts and electronic devices and earphones. 

There haven't been many people, in the stations or on the train. That suits me fine.  

It's very slow paced. No one exhibits the slightest signs of urgency. The train crawls out of the station and then stops 500m down the track. Inexplicable slowdowns and stops are frequent. But when you're in for the duration and you're not worried about connections, it's no big deal.

Relative to a plane, there's lots of legroom and the aisles are spacious. There's even space to turn around in the bathroom.

The passengers are a motley collection of tourists, young people, seniors, and strays like me. No high powered business types. No one in a suit. And so far, no families with kids.  

It's a bit like traveling by car. You can watch the scenery go by and you've got lots of time to think. But you don't have to drive! Or worry about road conditions or crazy drivers. Kind of nice. I like it.

I'm traveling by train because I don't think airplane travel is sustainable. It burns too much fossil fuel and so far no one has any idea how to get around that. We can have electric cars (powered by renewable energy) but electric planes aren't too feasible. Trains are more efficient and even though they currently burn fossil fuels as well, at least they have the potential to be powered by renewable energy (unlike planes).

As with most individual "green" choices, my taking the train will have little or no effect on the big picture. But as Gandhi said,  "You must be the change you want to see in the world." 

Sunrise from the Edmonton train station

Empire of Illusion

Acting, politics, and sports have become, as in Nero's reign, interchangeable. - Empire of Illusions

I recently read Empire of Illusions by Pulitzer prize–winning author Chris Hedges. I found it quite horrifying to read about aspects of our culture from wrestling to porn to universities to corporations to politics. (As you may have gathered by now, I'm afraid I'm not a big fan of our current society!)

With our access to so much information these days, there's a danger of only looking at stuff you agree with. And, like hiring people who will always agree with you, it's not very helpful. I know I'm susceptible to this to a certain degree. But I like to think I'm open to anything that's objective and has some scientific basis. That's a bias too, I guess, but it's not one I'm quite ready to give up on.

More and more I think the United States is on it's way down a major decline. It's easy to say "they're so big and powerful, that can never happen". But every other empire has declined in the end, with similar signs portending their demise. Refusing to admit this possibility is a bit like saying "I know every one else dies eventually, but not me, I'm going to live forever".

Of course, that raises the question of what's going to happen to Canada. We're closely tied to the USA and we have many of the same problems. But in other ways we're quite different. In any case, it's hard to imagine it not having major affects on us.

Anyway, if you don't mind being horrified, I would definitely recommend the book.

Stunning Insect Photos

Wow! Stunning pictures of sleeping insects covered in early morning dew | Mail Online

The bar just keeps getting higher on this kind of stuff.

via

The Blind Side

I watched the movie The Blind Side recently. I enjoyed it. It was a feel good, rags to riches, happy ending movie. Sandra Bullock was entertaining and likable as usual. But ...

I used to hate it when people would dissect movies and books and talk about cultural meaning. I just wanted the entertainment, don't give me deep meaning! That probably had something to do with hating school and how "studying" a book was pretty much a sure fire way to destroy any enjoyment you might have gotten from it.

It also probably doesn't help that I'm in the middle of reading Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle which has only deepened my disillusionment over our culture.

So I couldn't help myself from looking at this movie from a cultural viewpoint.

Rich white family takes poor black boy off the street and he becomes a football star. It's based on real people and events.

The father owns a bunch of fast food outlets. Great, he gets rich while destroying the health of a whole generation. At one point, he is asked what happens to the leftover food from the restaurants and whether they could give it to the needy. He halfheartedly supposes they could look into it, but it's never mentioned again.

The mother (Sandra Bullock) is an interior decorator/designer - someone who helps people spend money on stuff they didn't know they needed. There's a productive, valuable role in society.

They live in a huge ostentatious mansion, which, of course, is what we're all supposed to aspire to. They sit around and watch TV and drink soda pop.

When Michael (the poor black boy) moves in with them, what is the first thing the mother teaches him? Family values? No, she asks him if he knows how to shop and tells him she's going to teach him. Shopping - the number one pastime in our culture. Buying stuff you don't need, 99% of which ends up in the trash, which of course is necessary so you can buy more stuff you don't need. The loser is the environment - destroyed by the extraction of resources necessary to make the stuff, and destroyed by the pollution from all the discarded stuff.

Michael ends up in a rich white private christian school. He gets in because the coach manipulatively uses "christian" arguments in a thinly veiled cover over wanting to get a big black guy on his football team. They make this obvious in the movie, like it's a good thing to manipulate this way.

Michael only manages to get good enough marks to get a football scholarship because the rich family hires a private tutor for him.

And what is the moral of the story? That if you're incredibly win the lottery lucky, you can get picked up off the street, taken to live in a huge mansion with rich folks who will teach you to shop and buy you a big "red-neck" truck (their words) and become a rich, famous, football celebrity. (and presumably get your own mansion). A modern day Cinderella story I guess.

But it's what kids have been brainwashed to want these days - to be "discovered", to get on American Idol or Survivor, or to win the lottery. More than twice as many people apply to MTV's Real World show than to Harvard. (from Empire of Illusion)

There's not much redeeming value here. There's no message about working hard to succeed. Michael is portrayed as passive, basically just going along with these miraculous events. (Presumably the real life character had to work hard at school and at football, but that's not shown in the movie.) He's not even following a dream of playing football. At the end he's asked if he enjoys it. He evades the question and just says he guesses he's good at it.

It wouldn't be so bad if the message was "work hard and dream of striking it rich", or "do what you love and make the most of your talents". But in our culture it has become "sit around and watch TV and go shopping, and pin your hopes on being discovered". Is it any surprise that most people aren't very happy?

Seems Easy

"And I know it seems easy," said Piglet to himself, "but it isn't every one who could do it."

A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore
The House at Pooh Corner
A. A. Milne

via

Why do we climb?

An awesome slideshow: http://vimeo.com/10075506

Best full screen and HD.


via

Along the River

Saturday mornings we go to the farmers market. This morning I decided to walk and meet Shelley there so I could take some pictures along the way.

The ducks (Common Goldeneye, I think) were silently patrolling the river.

The rising sun on the steam from buildings across the river almost looked like flames.

And the geese were just waking up and pulling their heads out from under their wings.

Along the River

Sunset on the Rails

Usually it's the sunrise I catch, but the other day when I came out of our building I could see the sun was just setting. I had to jog to get out to where there was a view. The railroad tracks provided some interesting foreground. Gotta love those prairie skies.

Videos of Peru Insects

Some videos from our Peru trip. I'm afraid my video skills are not that great but they still give a different perspective than still photographs. If you've got a fast internet connection you can watch them larger and higher resolution on YouTube. (click on YouTube on the bottom right of the video)

These Bullet ants were about 2cm (3/4") long and their bite sounds nasty - one of the reasons you don't want to just grab a branch or sit on a log.



It was amazing to see the processions of Leaf cutter ants.



The ants were in the Tambopata rain forest near Puerto Maldonado.

Dung (or Scarab) beetles. These were in the Colca Canyon. Notice how the female just goes along for ride.



Some of this was taken with the Canon SD700IS point-and-shoot and some of it with the Pentax K7. The Pentax is definitely better quality but it can't auto-focus while taking video which is why you'll notice the focus problems. I used iMovie to process them.

Peru from Cusco to Arequipa

I found I had another bunch of photos I hadn't posted yet starting in Cusco, traveling via train to Puno on Lake Titicaca, and then by bus to Arequipa.

Cusco to Arequipa

Sunrise on the Way to Work

I always enjoy in the spring and fall when the sunrise coincides with my walk to work. I've said it before, but I continue to be so grateful I get to walk (or bike) to work and see views like this instead of being trapped in a metal box in traffic.

It's getting warmer and the ducks and geese are returning. Spring is coming, even to Saskatchewan.

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is pretty awesome, my photos don't do it justice. When we arrived after five days on the Inca Trail all Shelley and I wanted to do was get her father back down to civilization. We passed through the ruins but didn't really pay much attention to them. And after being on the trail the hordes of people were a bit of a shock. (Thank goodness this was the low season!)

Thankfully we had allowed for a second visit the next morning and that's when I took these photos. (And some by Shelley.) One of the advantages of the large size of Machu Picchu is that it is possible to get away from the crowds if you wander off the beaten path. Unfortunately, I had picked up some stomach problems and wasn't feeling my best. I spent much of my time sitting in one spot while the others hiked around. That wasn't all bad though, it was nice to just sit and absorb the feel of the place. It's a spectacular location with a fantastic view. Hard to imagine all the work that must have gone into building it. And hard to imagine what it would have been like to live here. (Preferably as one of the Inca nobility and not one of the peon workers!)

Machu Picchu

This batch of photos pretty much completes our recent trip.

Kingfisher

I just finished reading Kingfisher - Tales from the Halcyon River by Charlie Hamilton James.

Now that I'm trying to get most of my books either on my Kindle or from the library, about the only books I'm allowing myself to buy are coffee table type books with photographs. This one was an impulse buy when I spotted it at McNallys. (Finding books like this is one of the reasons I hope bookstores like McNallys stay in business, and why I continue to buy from them.)

Apart from the photographs, I was attracted by the text which told the story around the photos, including some of the background on how they were taken. Obviously, this won't be of interest to everyone, but it definitely was to me.

I have to admire someone who has devoted a considerable portion of their life to taking photographs of one kind of bird. And despite the spectacular photographs, he still talks about how he needs to get better photographs. I guess you'd have to be a bit of a perfectionist to get to this point. I can only shake my head since his photographs (and the lengths he goes to get them) are way beyond me.

We have Belted Kingfishers in Saskatchewan (and much of North America) but they're not quite as colorful as the ones in the book. I've only caught brief glimpses of them. I'll have to keep a closer eye out for them.

If you get a chance, I'd recommend taking a look at the book. I see he has a new one coming out soon - Halcyon River Diaries. It's definitely on my wish list.

You can see some of his photos (including some of the kingfisher ones) on his website: charliehamiltonjames.com

Wallpaper Photo

I love the ocean. It's always hard to capture the waves in a photograph. This one is from Australia. Two sizes this time, for 4x3 monitors as well as wide screen.

One Cubic Foot

One Cubic Foot — National Geographic Magazine

Amazing! Don't miss the videos.

Books, Frogs, and Turtles

I recently read Following the Water by David Carroll and Amphibian by Carla Gunn.

Amphibian is a novel about nine year old Phin Walsh. Phin is a geeky kid, too smart for his own good, frustrated with school and finding his teacher's mistakes. He watches the Green Channel on TV and is upset about the state of the environment. His mother sends him to a shrink and they end up banning him from watching the Green Channel. Of course, this does nothing to alleviate his anxiety. The problem is, the environment is in trouble, and this makes it hard to reassure him that everything is ok. I can't help but agree with Phin that he's the one that's in touch with reality and it's the rest of the world that has its head in the sand.

That probably sounds way too serious, but the book also has a lighter side and had me chuckling numerous times, for example, when Phin and his best friend "jail break" the school's pet frog.

Following the Water is non-fiction, the latest in his series of books about turtles and their habitat, including The Year of the Turtle, Swamp Walkers Journal, and Self Portrait With Turtles. I loved his other books and I loved this one. Of course, that's not too surprising considering I'm a turtle fan myself. You can get a glimpse of the author in a short piece of an interview on You Tube.

This book continues his fascinating real life observations and natural history, and his wonderful artwork. But I can't help but get a bit of a melancholy feeling from the book. He's concerned about the fate of the land where he has roamed for so many years. At the end of the book he learns that the land has been "protected" but this is not the good news you might think:

This landscape, an extensive mosaic of contiguous wetland, riparian, and upland elements, all embracing a lingering wildness and extraordinary biodiversity, possesses an ecological integrity that, in the face of the global loss and marginalization of habitats, becomes rarer by the hour. It seemed for a time that it could go differently here, that this place could be exempted even from the intrusion of "passive" recreation, which takes it own toll on wildness and brings pressures to bear on the functioning of a natural ecosystem. But I did see all the familiar signs pointing to this outcome. And now I see that this has become a marked place.

It is all but universally believed that if development rights are bought up and motorized vehicles excluded, if human presence is limited to foot traffic, dogs on leashes, mountain bikes, kayaks, and the like, a parcel of land is saved and its wildlife habitat protected. But in nearly every case, as will be true here, funding sources and the terms of easements mandate a level of access and recreational use that lays the foundation not for true habitat protection but for a playground for people, a human theme park.

A constant refrain of my advocacy for moving beyond stewardship and conservation to preservation is that I do support setting aside places where people can go, from relatively natural areas to city parks. One frequently hears that there are not enough places for people to go. But where do we not go? We are too many and we tread too heavily. (Perhaps the planet is to blame for being too small.) What tiny percentage of Earth is irrevocably dedicated to providing wildlife sanctuary, to preserving the biodiversity on which, as more people are coming to realize, the health of the planet and, ultimately, of the human condition utterly depends? We cannot seem to allow room for ecosystems to play out their destinies free from human intervention. A room of its own is biodiversity's only requirement.

All too often these days I feel the same anxiety as nine-year old Phin Walsh.

More Peru Photos

I'm still working through some of the photographs we didn't get a chance to go through during the trip. These ones are from around Cusco, mostly from a couple of day trips we did towards the Sacred Valley.

2009 Peru Sacred Valley

Wallpaper Photo

Another one from Peru, not quite so abstract.

To download, click on the picture to view the full size version and then right click and choose Save

Note: These aren't actually 1920 x 1200 like I claimed last time. Picasa seems to have a maximum of 1600 x 1000.

Business School Damages "Moral Fiber"

"A recent study by the Aspen Institute appears to confirm that business school is, in fact, damaging to the moral fiber of students. Upon entering business school, the researchers found, students cherished noble ambitions to serve customers, create quality products, and otherwise contribute to the progress of humankind. By the time of their graduation, however, students were convinced that the only thing that matters is increasing shareholder value."
- Matthew Stewart in The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong
via Bruce Eckel

That's supposed to be surprising?

Story of Stuff

A video on the the underside of our production and consumption patterns.

Nothing new if you're into the environment and sustainability. And if you're not you'll probably just disagree with everything in it. I can only hope it'll sway a few people that might be on the fence.



More on storyofstuff.com

Wallpaper Photo

I was going through more of my Peru photos and came across this one. I like taking photos of "patterns" and I think this one makes a good computer wallpaper. It's an old tiled roof, overgrown with lichen.

1920 x 1200, 1.2 mb

The Joy of Fresh Bread

You won't catch me eating supermarket white bread (yuck!) but I love good fresh bread, especially whole wheat.

Back when we quit our jobs and started working full time (~ 1985) for my company (Axon) we used to work out of my apartment and I would regularly bake bread for all of us. Nothing like working at the computer with the smell of fresh bread baking!

It's been a long time since I baked bread. Shelley and I buy most of our bread from Earth Bound Bakery (usually walnut current and 100% whole wheat red fife). We used to buy from them when they were at the farmers market. It was handy for us when they opened their store next door to Dad's Organic Market where we also shop. I like their bread and I like supporting them.

I was also buying bagels to use for my lunches. When we got back from Peru I decided to start baking some of my own bread instead of buying bagels. I'm not much of a cook, in fact I almost never cook anything more complicated that boiling pasta. But baking bread is kinda fun and I like the results.

There are a ton of bread recipes on the internet. I wasn't looking for anything fancy, the simpler the better. I started with the recipe for One-Load Whole Bread. But you can simplify even this simple recipe.

• The vegetable oil, dry milk, and wheat bran are optional. Throw them in if you have them, otherwise, don't worry about it.
• I use all whole wheat flour (organic from Dad's). I'm sure using some white flour makes a difference, but I'm just as happy without it.
• You can skip turning the dough out onto a floured board and just knead it in the original bowl.
• You can skip transferring the dough into a greased bowl and just let it rise in the original bowl.

Quantities and times aren't critical. I find their quantities too small for the bread pans we have (5" x 9" and 3" deep) so I increase the quantities by about 50% (i.e. 3 cups of flour instead of 2).You can throw in extra ingredients like sunflower seeds or oatmeal for variety.

Simplified like this, it only takes me about 15 minutes to make a loaf of bread. Cleanup is easy because you just have one dirty bowl :-) Of course, you have to be around for 2 or 3 hours but that's not a problem on the days I'm working at home.

Note: I'm no expert, I'm just reporting what works for me i.e. that produces results that I'm happy to eat. Your mileage may differ.

Photos from Santa Catalina Monastery, Arequipa, Peru

I'm not usually too excited about historical buildings and cultural sites. But I really enjoyed Monasterio de Santa Catalina in Arequipa. It's a beautiful complex of buildings, plazas, and passageways - virtually a village in itself. I can't help but wonder what it was like for the nuns who lived here back then. Or for the nuns who live here now, for that matter.

The lines and colors and shadows and light were wonderful. I hope you enjoy my attempts to capture them.

Santa Catalina Monastery

Margaret Atwood: act now to save our birds

Margaret Atwood: act now to save our birds | Books | The Guardian: "One more statistic: according to Al Gore, 97% of charitable giving goes to human causes. Of the remaining 3%, half goes to pets. That leaves 1.5% devoted to the rest of nature – including the crisis-ridden oceans, the eroding, drying, or flooding land and the shrinking biosphere on which our lives depend. How crazy are we? We're a lot like those old cartoons in which the foolish character is sawing off the same tree branch he's sitting on, while beneath him is a sheer drop to nowhere. It makes you want to stick your head in the sand, like – apparently – almost everyone else, and just eat a lot, watch old movies from the time before things got so scary, and go shopping. Or, as James Lovelock keeps warning us: enjoy it while you can, whatever 'it' is, because it's not going to last much longer."

Investing in an Empire of Illusion - GetRealList

Investing in an Empire of Illusion - GetRealList:

"Nearly a third of the population is almost or fully illiterate. A third of high school graduates, and 42% of college graduates, never read another book for the rest of their lives. Eighty percent of U.S. families didn’t buy or read one book in 2007. We did, however, watch 28 hours a week of television. Each."
- Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges

To a committed reader, those are horrifying numbers.

Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2010

The WELL: Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2010

A sample:

On the subject of geo-engineering, I think it's a crock. We'll never
get there.  They're all techie fantasies, far-out sci-fi notions, Star
Wars physics-style.  The cheapest and most effective method of
geo-engineering is to cut the world's population in half. 

Just a tremendous massacre. That's the genuinely effective
geo-engineering: it's fast, it commonly works, it's been proven
effective for centuries by lebensraum exponents everywhere,  and if you
chose the right tactics and weaponry it might even look like a big
accident.

You don't have to put on a fascist armband and start ranting for the
public's blood; an effort like that could be quite subtle and covert,
the very opposite of showboat geo-engineering.  "Mysterious deadly flu
in the Congo?  We'd better keep all our health workers right here,
they're badly needed in New York!"

Nobody's gonna sit around watching Copenhagen delegates debating giant
phony orbital solar mirrors if the windmills in Copenhagen harbor are
blowing over  When and if it becomes obvious that we truly need
massive, ultra-costly geo-engineering interventions, that we have no
other choice, then somebody -- likely some traumatized veterans of
weather havoc who are full of Al Qaeda self-righteousness -- they're
gonna cut emissions in half by cutting people in half.  Mankind
wouldn't lack for means, motive, opportunity and eager volunteers.

Genocide has much more proven shelf-appeal than any of these hokum
Rube Goldberg geo-schemes.  It's by no means easy to kill off half of
everybody, but we've already invented a wide variety of ingenious ways
to attempt that, and almost all of 'em are much simpler, more rugged
and more plausible than putting the North Pole under a tinfoil hat. 

You don't see these Gothic issues raised in public discourse much, but
you go hang out with some Beltway thinktank asymmetric-warfare types,
and man, they talk this kinda stuff all the time.  Kind of a Herman
Kahn think-the-unthinkable industry.   "Should the Center for Disease
Control be scanning flu-strains for signs of designed interventions?"
"Gee uh, maybe not, could cause panic... but if we had some
off-the-books funding for that, that capacity could be pretty handy."

More Bonaire Diving Photos

Bonaire Diving Photos

Up Close & Spineless - Australian Museum

Great photos (if you like creepy crawlies)

Up Close & Spineless - Australian Museum

Last Day in Bonaire

by Shelley

Since we couldn't dive our last day in Bonaire (due to flying the next day) we rented a car and went for a drive. Our main goal was to kayak among the mangroves. We stopped there first and booked a tour for the afternoon (you can't go on your own which is understandable as it would be very hard to find your way through the maze of the mangroves).

Our next stop was the butterfly farm because Andrew doesn't have enough butterfly photos! :-) Seriously though, it was pretty good in terms of the information the woman working there shared with us but they didn't have a whole lot of butterflies (certainly not like the one in Cayman). Nevertheless it was very relaxing just to sit and watch them and the birds especially since we were the only ones there. The koi fish were fun too. Apparently they like to be touched; if you put your hand in the water they come and suck on it (they don't have teeth). Andrew got some good photos of the iguanas outside as well.

We had lunch at Lac Bay beside the windsurfing place. It was very busy here as there is a fairly nice beach right beside the restaurant and bar. Lots of windsurfers out; most people spent more time in the water than actually on their boards but one guy was doing some pretty fancy tricks which was fun to watch.

We then drove the coastal road around the southern end of the island. It's quite flat and barren with plenty of cactus. We learned about the salt mine and its history. There are rows of slave huts along the road that were built in the 1850's. They're made of cement and are so small you'd have to get down on hands and knees to crawl inside. There are also four large obelisks spread out along the shoreline, each a different color. Ships would come in and the quality of salt they were picking up would dictate which color they stopped at.

The salt flats water was very colorful ranging from a bright pink to purple color depending how much salt was in it. Most of the salt now goes to Europe for salting icy roads but some is also used in cosmetics and an even smaller portion as table/cooking salt.

We then made our way back to the mangroves. Our guide was quite a knowledgeable young man who provided lots of interesting information about the area, how the mangroves benefit the environment, and the negative effects in areas where mangroves have been removed.

There were two other couples on the tour with us and we made our way single file through some of the channels that were so narrow you could barely paddle through them. We paddled across the windy inlet and snorkeled for a short time. There were a lot of upsidedown jellyfish and we saw a few other fish but with seven people in shallow water with a silty bottom it didn't take long to not be able to see much of anything!

All in all it was a good day. Next time we'll have to explore the northern part of the island!

How Not to Run a Restaurant

Our least satisfying restaurant experience on this trip wasn't from some hole in the wall in remote Peru. Surprisingly, it came from our last night in Bonaire when we went to a restaurant that had been recommended to us - Richards. 

We're always a little cautious about recommendations because a restaurant may be great and yet not have much for vegetarians. We checked the menu and there was almost nothing vegetarian so we stopped in and asked, since many restaurants will make something not on the menu. We were told "no problem", they could make rice, pasta, or potato dishes with vegetables. 

So a few days later we went back for supper. The restaurant is in a lovely location, right on the water, facing the sunset and the waves. We started with a glass of wine and a Caesar salad, which was excellent. 

The owner was circulating (at least his name was Richard and he was acting like the owner). We listened to him describe some of their dishes to the table behind us, going on about the spices and sauces and the creativity of the chef. My mouth was watering just listening to him. 

But when our meals arrived it was a big disappointment. It was, literally, what they had told us - rice/pasta with vegetables. But that was it - no sauce, no spices, no flavor, no presentation. Just a pile of plain rice or plain pasta with some boiled vegetables beside it. Neither of us ate much of it. We drank our wine and ate the bread. Eventually the waitress asked if everything was alright and I said no and explained. She was young and taken aback and didn't know what to say. (I didn't get mad at her, just explained.) 

Obviously, she told the owner because a bit later he told her (in front of us) not to charge us. But he pointedly avoided talking to us. If he had come and talked to us, with an explanation if not an apology, that would have gone a long way to appeasing us. They could have offered to make us something different.   A free dessert wouldn't have hurt either. Getting the food we didn't like and didn't eat for free was better than nothing, but not really what we were looking for. 

I'm not sure what the story was. Maybe the chef thinks vegetarians are stupid. I don't have a problem if a restaurant chooses not to cater to vegetarians - just say so up front. Don't tell us you'll serve us and then do a crappy job of it. It doesn't do either of us any good. We could easily have gone somewhere else. Or came here just for dessert. 

It was especially bad in contrast with another restaurant we'd been to a few nights before - Appetite. They also had nothing vegetarian on their menu. They also told us they would come up with something for us. But, in contrast, their chef did an awesome job, serving us a delicious meal with a wonderful variety of ingredients, tastes, and presentation. (We love the local goat cheese.)

And another contrast was Sense, a restaurant we went back to s second time because we liked it so much. They didn't have to do anything special for vegetarians - they simply put enough vegetarian options on the menu to start with. Options that I'm sure lots of non-vegetarians took advantage of. 

So, Richards has a great location, and may have good meat and seafood dishes, but if you're vegetarian I'd pass. And if you have a problem don't expect it to be handled with much finesse.

PS. After leaving Richards we walked into town to go to Bambu (another place we liked) for dessert, but they were closed :-( Restaurants here seem to close quite randomly and regularly. 

So we went to the restaurant next door - La Luna (a place we hadn't tried) but when we asked if we could look at their dessert menu the waitress told us she was too busy to serve us, even though the restaurant was barely half full. And it was past the peak supper time by now.

We decided we were fighting a losing battle and went back to our room to pack.